Part One
The decompressing air hissed around him, as the meditation chamber opened with a whiny hum of the servomotors. He breathed in heavily, feeling the metallic aftertaste of the mask's filter, while he dragged his heavy, artificial limb to full stand. In such moments his primal fears sometimes returned, where he could not draw a distinct line between the human and the machine and it made him loose his balance and give a threatening feeling of not being a part of the Force. As the years of his mechanically suspended near-death progressed and more and more tasks arose for him to deal with, he felt less and less of that fear, but it was still there, somewhere at the back of his skull, just below the black, shiny plates of the helmet that sustained a proper environment for the tormented head of who was once expected to be the greatest of Jedi knights.
Yes, indeed he was the greatest, though the Dark Side turned out to be his preferred choice after all he cherished and valued fell apart and all his friends, mentors and colleagues betrayed him while his teacher and brother in Force left his mutilated body for sure death and the infernal shores of a lava river on Mustafar.
Lord Vader took first step, then next. Upon leaving his chamber his steps gained power, fuelled both by the wonders on cybernetic prosthetics and the inner strength of the Force, driven by the Sith way. He left his quarter and entered the bridge, where his underlings, a mess of human ants sporting various uniforms swarmed around the control heart of this devastator-class star destroyer.
"Any reports, general?" he demanded in his low, raspy voice, escaping his burnt throat with some difficulty. The soldier jerked uncontrollably upon being surprised with the question and promptly turned toward the Sith master.
"We got mixed signals, Lord Vader. Nothing that we could have sorted out yet, but there seems to be some kind of possible extraordinary life form activity on the planet that just might be more than the usual animal life."
"I am at times so fed up with your incompetence and disability to come up with a clear data, general. Don't disappoint me" the eyes of a the terrifying, black mask pierced the soldier through or at least so he felt. Even though he could not catch the gaze of the terrible Lord, he felt some overwhelming urge to whine and yelp in front of his statuesque figure.
"We've just finished preparations to send out probes, Lord Vader. They should be reporting within an hour and I shall be able to provide and more definite answer to your question then."
"Fine" the dark lord barked, as he turned sideways to the general, seemingly loosing all interest in his underling. He peered through the dark vacuum behind the panoramic windows of the bridge, trying to see across the space and penetrate the surface of the planet they orbited.
It was just a little more than a rock barely large enough to hold an atmosphere and with enough soil to sprout a jungle that covered all of it. That piece of cosmic debris didn't even deserve a name yet in the imperial archive and it haven't deserved it's own intelligent life to name it. The records based on a sole probe visit of decades before only mentioned small herbivores and a plant life. There has been some change to the planet's ecosystem though in the past decade or so it seemed.
Lord Vader came across this curiosity quite by accident. It has been some time already since he last felt a disturbance of the Force indicating a presence of a Force-wielding creature. The Great Jedi purge practically eradicated anyone that could ring such a tone and a large-scale hunt helped wipe out all those who survived. There was, however, a slight chance someone might have escaped the imperial hound dogs even now, a decade after a young Sith apprentice, Darth Vader, slayed the whole of the Jedi Academy and the ever-obedient Clone Troopers carried on with Order 66.
Only slight, but not impossible.
He closed his eyes behind the black face of the grotesque mask and concentrated. His will darted across the empty space toward the surface of the space debris and he searched for any sign of a disturbance in the Force. Time after time he examined the small planet, but there was nothing definite. All he received was just a static, nothing clear, nothing he could grasp and stick to. Yet it was not just an empty background echo. There was something or someone in there.
And he felt it was once familiar. This distant, meaningless lack of anything definite bore some long forgotten vibe he could not identify.
"Lord Vader" he heard over his shoulder "Lord Vader!"
He turned round to face the general.
"We have located signs of activity and well concealed structures that local life forms should not be able to come up with. The search party is ready. Should we deploy?"
"No" he said after a slight pause. "Prepare my shuttle. I'll take care of it personally."