The Mind Trap
Part I
Darth Vader's mind was clear of all intruding thoughts. The universe around him became still. The only audible sounds within the bivalve-like, sealed-off chamber were the life-supporting devices that made up his mechanically-enhanced body. He slowed his breathing and closed his eyes, allowing himself to delve deep into the Force. He entered a Jedi trance that moved his conscious thoughts beyond the here and now.
This Force exercise was unorthodox for a Sith Lord, but a recent brush with figures from his previous life forced him to reflect upon events of his past.
The Force guided him deeper into the calm of the Jedi trance, and, soon after, the images came. He stood across from a woman whose features had since become a distant memory. Although the image had grown dull, his senses were sharp; he studied her face with his own eyes, the death mask that normally hid them remaining far away on the Executor.
He lingered there, struggling to recall what this woman meant to him. Try as he might, he could not shake the emerging emotion that welled within him. It was the same feeling that had surfaced as he had looked upon his son mere months ago, beaten and weary, stripped of his dignity and right hand as he dangled over the abyss.
The image before him vanished. "Wait!" he shouted. He was suddenly embarrassed by his reaction and recoiled. He mentally corrected himself, replacing his confusion with the anger and hatred that permitted him to connect with the dark side of the Force. He prepared to exit the trance.
The confusion returned. He felt a tug from some unknown entity, and, though he once more tried to exit, he promptly found himself boxed in by a thick, tangible barrier.
"Reveal yourself to me, intruder," he said evenly, belying the rage he felt within.
Vader stoically watched as the imprisoning barrier took the form of a sheer stone wall, rising up towards the sky. The ground beneath became the same, grayish material. He cautiously rapped his knuckles against the stone wall.
Solid. He furrowed his brow. Amazingly, all the physics of the normal universe seemed to apply to this imaginary, Force-induced world. Turning away from the impassable barrier, he saw a narrow, suspended road leading to a tall, decrepit structure. Curious, Vader marched up to the wide open entryway. Strewn within were the decaying bodies of various figures in brown robes. The lightsaber wounds upon each of them were clear evidence of what had transpired.
"So," he rumbled. "Whoever you are, you have knowledge of my past." He searched the chamber for any sign of life, but the dead remained his only company. "Rest assured that you are wasting your time; a Sith Lord feels no remorse for his actions." He wandered further into the chamber, peering down each connecting corridor. "Whatever your purpose or design, it will fail." He paused in front of one of the corpses and noticed its small and shriveled form. Had it still been alive, it wouldn't have been much older than nine or ten years. "All Jedi fall before my blade. The dark side of the Force has made me powerful."
He discarded the idea that he would receive any insight by speaking into the void, so he marched into the inner sanctum of the temple, consigning himself to whatever surprises awaited next. The lights were dim, prompting him to activate his lightsaber. It cast a red glow upon the curved walls, and Vader couldn't help but feel amused, and equally comforted, by the fact that his lightsaber followed him into the world despite his armor staying behind.
Vader felt his path had been charted in advance for him by whoever placed him here. He found rooms blocked off by rubble from caved-in ceilings, while others remained open to him. He found an operable turbolift and stepped inside. It murmured to life and began to ascend. It took him to the highest floor in the building's central tower, and he took a cautious step into the following chamber. He kept his lightsaber out, for this room was darkened as well, the night sky visible through the windows doing little to brighten the empty room.
No, not empty. A lone, tiny figure sat in the smallest of a semi-ring of chairs.
"A long time has it been, Anakin."
"That name no longer has any meaning," Vader menaced, directing the end of his lightsaber towards the small, green skinned figure opposite him.
The mysterious little man smiled and wagged his long, pointed ears then waved his small walking stick in Vader's direction. "Felt your presence, I did," he continued. "A Jedi trance...for a Sith Lord, dangerous territory, that is. Now...test you, I must."
"The only thing you test is my patience." He allowed a thin smile to spread across his lips. "I believed you had fallen long ago, but reports of Jedi Master Yoda's death never arrived. It makes sense—after all, who was to train young Skywalker following the death of Kenobi? And now you reveal yourself to me, proof that you yet live. I will enjoy hunting you down. Your head will be a fitting prize for my master."
Yoda chuckled and rose from his chair. "Yes, alive I am...but I am not well. Soon, I will forever rest. But first—stop you, I will."
"You face me yourself? Where is your foolhardy apprentice?"
"Luke...not finished with his training, was he." Yoda shook his small, pale green head. "When return he does, too late will it be. Not ready will he be, when face you again, he does. Now...in his stead, act I must."
In anticipation, Vader tightened his grip on his weapon. "My defeat will not come easy."
A remarkably tiny lightsaber handle appeared, clasped within the triple digits of the Jedi's right hand, replacing his trademark walking stick. His lightsaber lit up with a fierce little green blaze, its glow mingling with the red haze of Vader's.
The Sith cleared the gap between them in an instant, swinging his lightsaber down. Yoda's blade was a blur of bright motion, swatting away Vader's strike as if it weighed nothing. The Jedi Master immediately shifted from his defensive posture into a fierce offensive, batting away at his tall foe with twice the ferocity one would expect from such a tiny opponent.
Darth Vader gathered up the Force around him and violently pushed it outwards in all directions. Yoda was flung across the room and landed against a transparasteel window pane. He recovered gracefully, positioning himself midflight so his feet landed against the window, and he sprang from it like a rubber ball, right back towards his opponent. He twirled in midair, his small green lightsaber held extended towards the Sith.
Vader crouched low as the other flew overhead. Still, the green blade managed to singe the nape of his neck.
With a growl, Vader rose back to his full height and twisted around to face his assailant, but the little Jedi Master had vanished from sight. "Have you taken to cowardice now?" Vader asked, rubbing small burn on the back of his neck. "Of course you have. You have been in hiding all these years; fleeing is only natural for you." Silence answered him in the empty chamber. He stalked out of the room and returned to the turbolift. However, the lift did not descend, rather, it rose higher. Vader knew this building well enough to know there was nothing above the level of the chamber where Yoda and he had just fought, yet he distinctly felt the lift ascend to heights unknown.
When the round platform finally came to a rest, he stepped out of lift shaft and into a completely different place, though no less familiar than the last. Steam rose from industrial equipment racks installed throughout the circular chamber, obscuring the already dim lights that inadequately illuminated its angular features. He surveyed the metal grating that made up most of the flooring, his eyes resting on the raised middle platform. In its center was a shallow pit that seeped copious amounts of steam.
"For you, a hard memory, this is," came the voice of Yoda, echoing throughout the dimly-lit chamber. Vader scanned the room for a glimpse of the small Jedi Master, and soon located him sitting atop a boxy battery droid, playing with his deactivated lightsaber.
"What kind of a test is this?" demanded the Sith Lord.
"In you, a change I sensed." Yoda dropped from atop the droid. "A flicker of hope, I feel. Yes, when fight, we did, in the Jedi Council Chamber. Felt it in you, I did."
"I fear you have become an old fool." Yoda merely allowed a smirk to hop across his wizened face, causing Vader to frown. "Hope is for the weak." With a flick of his wrist, he sent his activated lightsaber spinning in a horizontal arc towards the small figure before him. Yoda deflected the airborne blade with his own, activating it miliseconds before impact, but the Sith's assault did not end there. The hovering weapon struck again and again, but Yoda was quick as ever, dodging and parrying the blows expertly.
The Jedi Master reached out with his own Force abilities and wrenched the red blade from Vader's Force hold. Before the Sith Lord could counteract the interference, Yoda sent it flying straight towards the other's chest. Vader quickly twisted his torso to the side just as the blade was about to impale him, and he even managed to snap his hand out quickly enough to retrieve it in midflight.
This had created just the diversion that Yoda desired. The small Jedi used a well-placed Force tug on Vader's feet, which caused the latter to fall backwards to the ground. Yoda was upon him in an instant, hammering down on him with his small weapon. The Sith Lord held up his own blade and blocked the Jedi Master's barrage, but the onslaught kept him effectively pinned.
While Vader defended against Yoda's assault with his lightsaber, he balled his left hand into a fist and slammed it against the Jedi Master as he came in for another attack. Yoda was knocked aside, which allowed Vader a moment's respite to rise to his feet. He raised his glowing blade high to end the stunned figure below him once and for all.
The dazed Jedi quickly sent out a small Force push that sent the Sith Lord back a step. Yoda rose back to his feet, rubbing the spot on his head where Vader had struck him. "That feeling within you—remains, it does."
"You are persistent," Vader deadpanned. Yoda just stared back.
"Hmm? What's that, you say? Pain…betrayal…loss!" Yoda jumped high to reach the exhaust cables above Vader. He sat down on a thick cord that drooped towards the ground. "For eight hundred years have I trained Jedi, Anakin. But the loss of a student; to anything else, impossible to compare, this is."
Vader blinked at the other, bemused. "You would compare your loss to my own?"
Yoda nodded in agreement. "But of death, I speak not. When lose a student, I did, always to the Dark Side it was. But my greatest loss, Anakin—you, it was."
"Enough!" Vader slashed the cable that Yoda was sitting on, sending a thick blast of exhaust out of one of the severed ends. Yoda had already jumped off safely, landing about seven meters away from the Sith Lord.
As Vader composed himself for another attack, the entire structure began to shake. Explosions rocked the chamber, and he watched in utter amazement as the place fell apart all around him. Giant slabs of metal tore apart and began to drift off to the cloudy surface of the gas planet far below. Vader too was falling. He looked frantically about for Yoda, but the other was nowhere to be seen. He fell closer and closer to the orange-tinted clouds, and, before long, they entirely enveloped him.
His momentum came to an abrupt halt, and the clouds cleared away. He was back in his private chamber aboard the Executor. After catching his breath, he took another moment to let the reality of the situation to sink in.
Vader hit the release switch for his pod, raising the top half towards the ceiling of his chamber. He stood, allowing himself a smile from under his mechanical death mask. Somehow, he was free of Yoda's grasp. He silently vowed to never again attempt a technique utilized only by Jedi.
Just as he was about to exit to the chamber, he heard the familiar hiss of a lightsaber being activated. He slowly turned his head and looked to see the figure of Yoda standing squarely on Vader's seat in the double-shelled pod.
"This ship…nice it is."
Continued in Part II