Sand & Ruin
«Chapter One»
Traitor
The black emptiness of space graced the wide expanse of the Devastator's bridge viewport. Distant stars flickered in and out of sight on the vast open horizon in front of the Star Destroyer. Communications officers and bridge command scurried about the bridge preparing for the jump to Vjun. Vader turned feeling a presence reaching out to him through the Force.
Master.
An officer approached, standing at attention silently regarding the cowled Dark Lord. "His Excellency would like to speak with you in your chambers my lord."
Vader dismissed the junior officer with a nod and passed him with great strides the doors to the bridge snapping open as he approached. Vader stepped into the turbolift and ascended up into his personal chambers situated just above the Devastator's bridge. The doors magnetically sealed behind him and the lights dimmed in the room as the holoprojector activated revealing Lord Sidious seated on his throne.
Vader withdrew his black cowl, and knelt before his Master. "You may rise my friend. What is the fate of our rogue Jedi Knight?" he said with a smile that had already decided the Jedi's fate.
"Dead, my master," Vader answered, supplying the Knight's lightsaber as proof.
"Then we are one step closer to restoring peace to the galaxy my apprentice. It will be a glorious day for the Empire when we pluck the seeds of corruption the Jedi sowed free from the galaxy," Palpatine sneered, "I have foreseen it."
Vader paced the room. Palpatine's image flickered out of focus as the transmission switched to subspace as the Star Destroyer entered hyperspace. "Have we located any further Jedi?"
"Intelligence has not uncovered where they have gone to ground. The only Jedi left that poses a threat to us is Kenobi," the Emperor said, his presence bearing down on Vader through the Force.
"He escaped me on Mustafar. He will not be so lucky the next time we cross paths," Vader insisted.
Palpatine regarded his apprentice silently for a moment. "Return to Vjun and await my summons Lord Vader."
"As you wish, my master."
The Emperor's image cut out and the lights flickered back into existence. Vader began to meditate reaching out through the Force. He could feel the emptiness in the back of his mind and pushed against the cold wall Obi-wan had thrown up after Mustafar. Obi-wan. Vader called out through his bond with his old Master. He was greeted with only silence and the hum of the ship around him.
Giving up yet again Vader slipped deeper into a meditative trance, letting the Force flow through him. He reached out one last time probing the barrier Obi-wan had thrown up to shut his old apprentice out. Vader could feel the pain and grief behind it and flinched away.
A twinge of guilt snaked through him catching in a lump in his throat. He swallowed it hard and quashed it. Guilt was dangerous. Vader surrendered to the torrent of emotions building inside him and released them in a concussive blast scattering the furniture around the room. Vader rose and walked over to the viewport when he felt a twinge of danger through the Force.
The familiar blue streaks of hyperspace where still all he could see and Vjun was still a long way off. The Force's warning grew greater when the Star Destroyer lurched violently to the left and dropped out of hyperspace harshly. All systems powered down briefly before coming back online. Vader stared out the viewport at the two Interdictors and activated his comm, "Admiral, contact those cruisers and order them to disengage their gravity wells."
"We have been unsuccessfully trying to contact the Defiant and the Stalwart my lord."
Lord Vader spun on his heel and made his way for the turbolift to take him back down to the Devastator's command bridge. The power flickered through the ship again as the lift's lights cut out once more leaving Vader in total darkness momentarily. Vader entered the bridge with purpose pushing past the crew members rushing about to figure out the source of all the confusion.
Vader joined the Admiral at the bridge's viewport. "Still no word from the cruisers?"
"No my lord, your orders?" the Admiral supplied with a shake of his head.
"All crew to stations on standby. Something isn't right." Vader felt the same sense of danger heighten as a warning siren blared.
"Admiral, sensors are detecting a large force emerging from hyperspace!" a communications officer called out from behind one of the many consoles that acted as the heart of the Devastator. Four Star Destroyers flashed into view and stood idly in place in front of the much smaller Interdictors.
Vader felt their weapons bays warming up and beginning to target parts of the Devastator's entourage of frigates and cruisers. "All weapons bays at the ready," Vader ordered, "Prepare to scramble all fighters."
"Those are Imperial ships my lord," the Admiral replied, clearly confused.
"Just do it," Vader snarled at him.
Two of the approaching Star Destroyers unloaded their ion and turbolaser batteries in a barrage obliterating the Victory-class Destroyer and Acclamator frigate closest to them. Emergency sirens began to claxon throughout the Devastator as two more capital-class ships dropped out of hyperspace right alongside Vader's flagship.
Panicked comms officers desperately tried to send out distress beacons through the chaos ensuing. Admiral Fenrus shouted to the motionless Dark Lord observing the fight. "My lord the Allecto and Conquest have begun to target us!"
"Engage them Admiral. Dispatch all fighters and have our bombers target those Interdictors so we can jump to hyperspace," Vader commanded.
The viewport flickered as the deflector shields absorbed a turbolaser barrage straight across the bridge. "How are our shields holding?" Vader asked a flustered engineer.
"All shields are currently at 68% my lord. We can't take much more." Vader turned back to the transparisteel viewport and watched the cloud of TIE fighters launch from the Devastator's hangars and engage the incoming storm of starfighters obscuring one of the systems bright suns.
Vader looked down on his homeworld below swallowing his distaste. The Devastator lurched to the side as a Victory destroyer's ruined husk slammed into the aft side of the capital ship. "Critical damage to our aft turbolaser batteries. Our shields are holding at 37%."
Vader swept from the bridge. "You have command Admiral." Vader entered the lift showing no true hint of what was raging in his mind to the on looking crew. Fear.
The lift descended rapidly into the belly of the Star Destroyer. Vader raced through the corridors filled with seas of crew rushing about their battle stations torn between continuing what seemed to be a hopeless fight or evacuating. Vader threw himself behind cover as the Force screamed out a warning as a proton torpedo tore through the corridor ahead. Durasteel emplacements screeched in protest as the cold vacuum of space sucked out stormtroopers and pilots rushing towards the main hangar.
Vader's metal hand gripped the strut he was hiding behind tightly until the ray shields kicked in and blast doors sealed the corridor ahead of him. Vader turned back and headed for the smaller cargo bays hoping to find something to fly out of here.
The Devastator's power flickered once more as the shield generators failed. Admiral Fenrus's voice rang throughout the ship issuing orders to abandon ship. "All personnel abandon ship. I repeat all personnel abandon ship!"
Vader hurried towards the nearest cargo bay before he lost his way off the Devastator. Vader opened the malfunctioning doors with the Force and swept his cloak behind him walking towards the cargo ship with purpose. The cargo bay's crew was already boarding the ship. Vader could hear the shuttle's engines warming up to launch.
Vader gathered the Force in his legs and leapt across the hangar, rolling up the closing loading ramp and into the cargo ship. Stormtroopers and flight deck personnel quickly moved back to give the Dark Lord some space to rise. Vader passed them without a word and approached the cockpit, motioning for the shuttle's pilot to move aside.
He strapped into to the pilots chair and lifted the shuttle off the ground and coasted out of the cargo bay into the chaos awaiting them outside the hangar. TIE fighters veered off from finishing off the Devastator to engage the escape pods jettisoning from all over the Star Destroyer.
Vader jerked the yoke forward and dove sharply towards Tatooine's surface. The cargo shuttle groaned in protest. "Full power to thrusters," Vader ordered his co-pilot.
"My lord-"
"Do it. It's the only way we're making it out of this alive," he said gesturing towards the scanners already picking up fighters breaking off from the fight to pursue them. Laser fire flashed past the viewport from the TIE fighters closing in. "Get on those rear guns and give us some cover fire," Vader yelled over his shoulder.
A volley of lasers from a TIE interceptor clipped the right wing and jerked the shuttle to the right. A stormtrooper managed to land a hit on one of their pursuers and the TIE fighter vanished in a ball of fire colliding with one of its wingmates.
"Keep it up men," Vader called back to them. They were nearly about to break atmosphere now. Turbolaser streaks flashed past as the Star Destroyers began to target them now that the Devastator had split open like rotten fruit.
A shot caught them off the front of the shuttle and left a score in the hull. "We can't take much more of this my lord!"
"Allocate some power to the deflector shields. We're going to need in a minute when we break atmosphere," Vader ordered.
Another shot clipped the right wing and sheared off the stabilizer. The shuttle dropped to the right harshly and another well placed volley of shots tore off the left wing. The shuttle began to spin out of control as it plummeted towards the surface below. Vader tried his best to steer them away from the canyons below and towards the Dune Sea. "Prepare for impact!" he yelled out over the warning sirens.
The shuttle exploded through the top of a sand dune and burst through the center of another, coming to a halt after rolling down another. Vader slammed his head into the bulkhead and slipped into unconsciousness.
Vader awoke with a groan and unbuckled himself with bloodied hands. He was covered in cuts and bruises. His co-pilot however had not fared as well and had a piece of debris through his chest. Vader reached out with the Force for any signs of life within the shuttle and found none save him.
The loading ramp was already lowered and wind whipped through his hair matted with congealed blood. A few of the shuttle's passengers had made it out of the shuttle before succumbing to their wounds. Jawas were already sifting through some of the cargo and wreckage. Vader regarded them with disgust and lashed out with the Force sending a plasteel container careening into a group of them.
He let out his rage with a scream and ignited his crimson blade cutting down the closest Jawas to him. The survivors scurried away quickly towards their Sandcrawler waiting on the top of the ravine. Vader clenched his fist and snapped the necks of two trying to escape. He felt the surge of betrayal. His master had betrayed him. Only the Emperor could have ordered an attack like that.
Vader made it to the top of the sand dune and squinted through the desert suns bearing down on him at the settlement in the distance. It looked like a moisture farm. Vader clipped his lightsaber to his belt and trudged through the deep sand towards it.
He made it only halfway before his injured leg began to fail him. Vader seethed trying to use his fury to numb the pain enough to allow him to make it to safety. If any predators or Sand People found him at this rate he wouldn't be able to put up much of a fight. He saw a robed figure standing outside the home, looking down on the dunes below. "H-Help!" he called out weakly, trying to project his voice through the Force.
"Help me!" Vader bellowed with the last reserves of his energy and collapsed back into the sand. He hoped it had been enough.
Vader could feel someone approaching through the Force. The presence seemed distantly familiar. Vader lifted his head and glanced up at the cowled figure looking down at him.
"Obi-wan," Vader called out, reaching a hand for his old master before his consciousness slipped away once more.