Twin Sunrise Chapter 1, a star wars fanfic

AN: This fic was started when the Darth Vader comics were still coming out, so there are some elements that are not canon because of that, and some things are not canon because of authorial choice.

0 ABY - ISD Devastator, orbiting Anthan Prime, Anthan system, Outer Rim

Inspector Thanoth was becoming a problem. Under ordinary circumstances Darth Vader would have welcomed such a high degree of competence in one of his subordinates, but this was starting to inconvenience him. The search for his son must be paramount, and he could not afford to waste time chasing over his own trail and arranging accidents for anyone who might reveal the truth, not with that pitiful pseudo-Inquisitor also hunting the boy. His Master often had strange motives and hidden plans guiding everything he did, but Vader could make no guesses as to why Sidious was showing favour towards those abominations. Did he not have the Inquisitorius at his beck and call? Did he not have Vader?

Much that his Master had done of late was concerning him. Not only Force-heresy, but the revelation that Sidious had lied to him about Padmé, about his child. He had not killed her - she had lived long enough to give birth to their son. Luke. Knowing that her death had not come by his hand had lifted a great burden from him only to replace it with another; for Luke had been stolen from him, Kenobi's final, worst betrayal. Left to grow up in the hell-hole that was Tatooine when he should have been by Vader's side all these years, learning the ways of the Force.

And to think of the times Vader could have killed him, by accident, above Yavin or at their last meeting! He had thought little enough of it at the time, had barely even been paying attention to the boy as anything more than an untrained child not fit to wield the blade he had been given. His escape had given him cause to reconsider that, but even then he had not suspected the truth. But that was hardly Luke's fault. It was Obi-Wan's. Had he feared Luke's potential? Was that why he had not seen fit to teach him anything?

Enough of this. Such thoughts were of no use, not until he had the boy in hand, until he could find out from him what had truly happened over the past nineteen years.

Vader signalled his meditation chamber to replace his mask and helmet, and then reached for his private comm. It was a pity he could not just kill Thanoth, but until the time he could arrange for the man's death in a way which did not point to him he would just have to take the risk that the Inspector had found a way to monitor his personal communication. He opened the secure channel to the Ark Angel. Thanoth may have been clever in setting a blockade, but he could not cover the whole planet, and Aphra was a better pilot than the man gave her credit for. She had navigated the storm-clouds and bought herself enough time to make the jump to hyperspace.

"Aphra."

"Lord Vader." She answered at once, and there was no sign of fear in her. He might have doubted her, her loyalty or her sanity, had he not read her through the Force. She was, in all honesty, committed to his cause. Her words to him, her appreciation of the small part she might play in his plans for the galaxy, was all true. This was not a sentiment that he encountered often and it was... pleasing. Unlike most Imperial officers, Aphra could respect him without the need to be afraid of him. And yet in working for Vader's own ends, she had become a danger to him, for Aphra now knew things that allowed her a hold over him. She had proved that when she had warded off her death with the promise of finding his son.

He would not kill her yet, but as they both knew, he would kill her.

"Prove that I have not erred in allowing you to live," he told her.

"The Ante delivered," she replied. "Skywalker is on Vrogas Vas. It's a small, insignificant mud-ball in the Outer Rim, but I suppose small and insignificant is where you want to be when the whole Empire is after you."

Vrogas Vas. The name resonated in some distant corner of his memory, but he could not think of where he might have heard it before. However he doubted that his son had gone there simply to hide. Subtlety did not appear to be part of the boy's vocabulary. He had been the same way, once. No, there must be some other reason.

And yet how to reach his son, when the Inspector remained a suspicious, capable anchor to this system? The situation would not be one where the vast might of the Imperial Starfleet would be of any benefit. Rather a small team, or Vader only, should be sufficient to retrieve the boy. As he did not anticipate being able to leave at any point in the near future, then it would have to be someone he trusted. Someone whom he knew had no other allegiances. To his discomfort, this left Aphra as the only candidate.

On the other hand, it would not do to let more than one person run around the galaxy with too much vital information about him. Aphra knew too much already, and he was committed to her eventual death. Since he had been forced to spare her, it was best she continued to earn her keep.

"I will be unable to leave this system," he told her. "Proceed to Vrogas Vas and locate Skywalker. He is not to be harmed in any way." Vader considered for a moment. Aphra was certainly capable, but she was not Force-sensitive. Even with droid assistance, he could not reasonably expect her to capture his son and - more importantly - keep him captured. Nor would it be safe to bring Luke back to him at this time.

"Monitor Skywalker's location. Do not loose him."

"He's managed to stay out of the Empire's hands so far," Aphra pointed out. "He's a smart kid. He's going to notice a tail sooner or later."

"Then approach him. Offer your assistance."

"Ah," Aphra winked. "A spy on the inside of the Rebellion. Perfect. And if it keeps me well out of the way of your Inspector Thanoth all the better."

"Indeed. Vader out."

He shut off the connection and sat back, contemplating his course of action. The Force pulsed around him, reassuring, letting him know that he had made the right decision. Yes, Aphra would keep his son safe for him until the time that he could finally make things right and let the boy know the truth of his heritage.

Luke would join him, and then, well, then the galaxy would be theirs for the taking.

0 ABY - Ark Angel, en route to Vrogas Vas

So it looked like Lord Vader wasn't quite finished with her yet. Aphra was well aware that her death was inevitable, but that didn't mean she was just going to let it happen, not if she could think of some way out of it, or at least to delay it. When the Ante had given her a bargaining chip, she had used it, but that hadn't meant she thought she would live past the next time Vader saw her. She certainly hadn't expected to be given another mission.

Luke Skywalker. The Rebel pilot who had taken out the Death Star. Pretty impressive for a kid from some backwater like Tatooine. She'd seen the place where he'd grown up and it had reminded her a lot of her own childhood; sparse, dull, and in the end your family was just a victim when somebody stronger came along. Yeah, she'd use that. Points in common were always a good bet when trying to make friends. It was interesting that Lord Vader didn't want her to bring the boy to him, given that the Emperor would be bound to look favourably on whoever caught the kid, but perhaps he thought by itself that wouldn't be enough. If Skywalker led them to the Rebel base and they could catch them all in one fell swoop…

That was the sort of ambitious plan the big man in black would go for. And all of it, all these different jobs he had been sending her on, it all felt connected in some way that she just wasn't grasping yet. The droids and the credits were obvious, as was Skywalker, but Naboo? It must fit in somewhere. Just look at Vader's personal ship. But apart from the obvious connection to the Emperor himself - and she didn't think that was it - she couldn't make it mesh with everything else.

If she played her cards right and this spying mission went well, then maybe she might actually survive long enough to work out the big picture.

0 ABY - ISB Bayonet Starfall, en route to Vrogas Vas

Hera screaming. Kanan's eyes wide at the moment of death. The spit of burning flesh, the smell. Drawing his saber out of what was now only a corpse. Picking up the lightsaber of his foe, discarded as it rolled from his slackening fingers.

No, no, no, over and over as Hera went for her blaster. Rage and pain swirling in the Force.

Leaving, leaping the way he had come, a scrabble and a run through deserted passages.

He would not kill them. There was no need. He would not let them make him kill them.

The Inquisitor opened his eyes.

His dreams had been unusually focused on the past recently. The Twelfth Brother didn't see what reason the Force could have for directing his attention to events that had happened years ago, not when there was so much to be done in the present. The Jedi Order had once pervaded the galaxy like a particularly resilient fungus, and there always seemed to be more symptoms of their memory to be rooted out no matter how hard the Inquisitorius worked. For an example take his current mission. An ISB agent in Hutt Space had reported overhearing Grakkus the Hutt - known collector of relics of the Old Republic - mention a Jedi Temple on Vrogas Vas, which was not in Hutt Space and therefore subject to the bounty that existed on all information pertaining to the Jedi. The agent would receive a generous stipend to their salary, and the Inquisitorius would, as a matter of protocol, send an Inquisitor to the temple to destroy anything dangerous and retrieve anything that might be of value.

It was routine, but the Twelfth Brother liked routine. Besides, there was satisfaction to be taken in this kind of work - the Jedi had been weak, their philosophy one which strangled and held back its disciples. Jedi lacked the strength to protect themselves, much less those they loved, not that they had been permitted to love.

The Twelfth Brother had been taken in by the lies of one of the last Jedi remaining. Perhaps not overt lies, but he had implied that he could give him the strength to avenge his family and defend the new family he had found. There had been no mention that in the end he would have to give up that family. There had been no mention of the fact that true strength could only be found in the Dark Side. There had been no mention that in the end all his convictions, the things that truly mattered would be made meaningless to him in the passive, pacifying wash of the Light Side.

No, the Jedi philosophy had been a poison, and the Emperor had been right to flush it from the galaxy even at the great cost that had taken. If only he had stopped there…

But the Twelfth Brother had learned long ago that some thoughts were dangerous to allow in your mind. If his ambitions did not align with those of his masters, then so be it, the time would come to act on them, but that time was not now. His training had taught him patience.

He would see what the Force would reveal to him when he arrived at Vrogas Vas.

0 ABY – Temple Ruins, Vrogas Vas

Vrogas Vas had turned out to be a temperate planet covered in deciduous forests, water features and fog. There didn't seem to be any sign of sentient life inhabiting it, even though it could clearly support it. Luke's X-wing could perform atmospheric analysis from low-orbit, and it was mostly nitrogen and oxygen, plus traces of other elements and compounds, none of which was harmful to most galactic species. There was no evidence of recent space-traffic, no orbital platforms, no space stations, not even so much as a satellite. The star was a fat red sun which had been in the last stages of its life for millions of years and would continue on like that for millions more. Landmass temperatures looked chilly but tolerable, and the Jedi holocron had told him that there was a temple here. So why was no-one living here anymore?

The holocron of Phin-Law Wo had not said anything about that. Luke had spent his time in hyperspace between Nar Shaddah and here listening to it again and again. It wasn't very long. On it, the Jedi Master spoke about the Force in terms that were about as vague as Ben had used, talking about the Light Side and the Dark Side, the importance of calmness and the dangers of anger and aggression, how a 'Padawan' – whatever that was – should open themselves to the Living Force and allow it to flow through them and show them the way. 'A Jedi obeys the Will of the Force'.

That was all very well, and Luke was finding it easier every time he tried to reach out to that vast well-spring, that sense of... of everything, of being connected to the whole world moving around him as one. That place where time moved as fast or as slow as he needed it to, and his body was strong enough to do anything. Now he could even just about manage to do it without closing his eyes beforehand. But he could never keep it up for very long.

If only they hadn't had to leave the Smuggler's Moon in such a hurry... In the chaos that the Empire had caused clashing with Grakkus' private army, Han, Leia and Chewbacca had managed to get him out of the arena and away through the heaving crowds into the Palace. There had been only enough time to get his father's lightsaber, Ben's journal, and this one holocron from the Hutt's trophy room before they had to flee ahead of the stormtroopers who were suddenly sweeping the corridors. At the time it had seemed as though he had chosen this holocron at random, but now Luke suspected the Force had guided his hand. It made him hopeful about what he was going to find on Vrogas Vas.

Han, Leia and the others had gone their own way. There was some trouble with a woman whom Han had known in his smuggling days that needed to be sorted out, and Chewbacca had to return to the Rebellion to debrief them on everything that had happened. Luke wasn't ready to go back yet. Perhaps after this, if this temple held the secrets to becoming a Jedi...

"Anything else on the scans Artoo?" he asked the astromech. Artoo warbled a reply in the negative. "Then let's take her in." The holocron had at least given him a rough location on the planet to start searching.

Soaring down through the cover of thick clouds, Luke found himself flying over a landscape of little islands separated by an interconnected network of rivers. Trees crowded close together and dipped their trailing branches into the water. So much water. It had been... what, a few months now since leaving Tatooine and he still wasn't used to it. Even in space where sonic showers were the norm there was still all the water you could drink, whenever you wanted it. No careful storage in the deep cellar, no waiting on the drip, drip of the condensers because you started the morning circuit too early and the machines are still drawing the dew out of the atmosphere... People could be so wasteful with water, and it mattered as little to them as... as sand!

Thick fog curled up from the rivers and lay heavy in valleys. Polewards, the land was beginning to climb up towards hills, and he turned the X-wing in that direction. The holocron had said the temple was perched on a mountain, looking down over cliffs to a view of the river-lands. Luke flew through a bank of cloud and then... there! A hint of sun, glinting off metal.

The temple was overgrown with trees and vines, not even the four tall pointed towers entirely escaping, but there was a large courtyard out in front of the building where Luke felt safe enough to set the X-wing down. An empty archway led into the temple itself, and a set of wide steps left the courtyard from the other side and trailed down into the forest. There was a bite to the air after the climate-controlled cockpit of the fighter – which Luke tended to keep on the high setting anyway – but his flight-suit protected him from the worst of it. His breath misted out, loosing itself in the thin fog that persisted even at this height.

"I guess we're here R2," Luke said, as the droid lowered himself down from the X-wing. "Not that it looks like much just yet."

There was a dead, deserted feeling about the temple, as though it had been many years since the last living being had walked here. The archway seemed to gape like a mouth. Luke took a deep breath in and out, then closed his eyes and focused on the Force. As gradual as sand shifting on a dune, awareness filled his senses. All around him the forest was alive, alive and wild, teeming with birds and predators and prey. But the temple... the temple was calm and... deep? Not bad, exactly, but not really safe either. If felt as though if he went inside, it would be easy to get lost in there.

It didn't feel like the Dark Side. It was nothing like Vader, who had been colder than the desert at night, and as furious as a krayt-dragon. Looking at him through the Force was like looking at one of the Hutts' pit-beasts, something deadly, barely contained and not in the least tame. This was like a dark sky hidden by clouds. You knew there were stars, but they couldn't be seen from where you stood.

Opening his eyes, he took the first steps inside.

Very quickly darkness enveloped him. There was a feeling in the air of a large space around him, but there were no windows, and whatever light source had once been here was long dead. The standard X-wing flight suit came equipped with a flashlight attached to the front however, and as he flicked it on the beam lit up the dust in the air and revealed that he was standing at the foot of a wide set of stairs. There was a statue in front of him, broken in half and quite worn, but the outstretched lightsaber it held at guard in its remaining hand was still plain to see.

It hit him then all of a sudden, the weight of loss. Before he was born there had been hundreds of Jedi all across the galaxy, probably more, and hundreds of places just like this. Now with Ben gone he was the only one left, and he wasn't even a real Jedi at all. He didn't really know anything about them. There was nothing on the holonet, nothing written down, and the only things that remained were memories in the heads of people too frightened of monsters like Darth Vader to speak them out loud, or whatever was locked up in the 'collections' of creatures like Grakkus.

From the looks of it though, this temple had been out of use a lot longer than those few decades. But from what Luke had been able to make out from Ben's journal, the Old Jedi Order had based themselves out of the temple on Coruscant, and these places had been something like... cultural sites and places that students would go to train. Jedi Trials had been mentioned.

Hopefully he could find something here that would help him.

The Jedi temple was a confusing place. Luke had spent the past few days exploring it, but it was a maze inside, and every time he tried to go deeper within, towards the sense of heavy calm in the Force, he found himself getting turned around, often ending up back by the entrance stairs. He had at least managed to find the old living quarters, which was where he had been spending his nights in front of a fire set from fallen wood he had gathered in the forest outside. It made it warm enough to sleep curled up next to it, Artoo keeping watch. It would have been warmer to wear his flight-suit all the time rather than the clothes Han had lent him, but it was starting to stink from so much time spent in hyperspace. There were also bathing pools there, run-off from a diverted mountain stream that cascaded down in a waterfall from an opening high above. If there had ever been a mechanism to heat it though, that had long-since died, and it was freezing. Luke had found that out the hard way.

At the moment he was trying to meditate. Master Wo's holocron had said that doing so was vital to touching the Force and becoming attuned to its will, as well as a way of opening yourself up to anything it might be trying to tell you. It was harder than it sounded. Every time Luke felt himself slipping into an awareness of the Force his nose would start to itch, or his stomach would growl, or he would shiver because despite the fire this planet was still damp and cold. It was as though the Force was dancing just out of his reach, daring him to come catch it. Nor had he heard anything from Ben's familiar voice echoing in the back of his mind. Maybe that really had been a hallucination. Or maybe Ben thought he was managing fine on his own, despite evidence to the contrary.

Perhaps this was enough meditating for right now. Luke stood up, stretching, and sighed. This trip was proving to be a lot less productive than he had hoped. At least no-one was shooting at him, or trying to steal his lightsaber, or enslaving him this time.

There was something coming. Whether it was the Force, or just his ears picking up something on the edge of his hearing Luke didn't know, but as he stretched out his senses it became more and more obvious. Ship engines, heading his way. Well there was no way that could be anything good! He'd seen for himself that no-one came to this planet, and now the moment he got here he had company? Why oh why had he started thinking that things were quiet!

The X-wing was still out in the courtyard, completely unprotected, and there was no way to get to it and move it in time now. By the sound of it, whatever was coming was around about the size of the Millennium Falcon; certainly not the scream of a TIE fighter, but that didn't rule out an Imperial shuttle, or a bounty hunter like Fett. Fett had managed to track him down on Tatooine even though he hadn't told anyone he was going back there. Was it such a stretch to think they could track him here? From the sounds of it, the bounty on his head was a big one.

On the other hand, Luke had an advantage that whoever this was didn't. He knew this building – or at least sort of knew it – and the stranger or strangers did not. It was confusing enough in here for someone who could touch the Force, and it had to be worse for someone who couldn't. He could lose them in the maze of corridors, and then... well then it would depend on who they were and what they wanted.

There was a balcony area nearby that looked down over the entrance hall. Luke made his way there stealthily and crouched behind the balustrade waiting for some sign of the stranger. There was no guarantee they would have a light that he could see; they might have low-light vision goggles for all he knew. Bounty hunters were generally prepared for most things. You heard a lot of stories about bounty hunters on Tatooine, mostly tall tales, but with enough truth in them that he wasn't about to underestimate whoever walked through that door.

What he was not expecting was for that person to do so shouting.

"Hello! Unknown pilot! I know you're in here somewhere; that's your X-wing out in the courtyard, right? Hey, you've not fallen into a pit trap or something have you?"

The voice was female, but that was about all Luke could tell from it. She didn't have any particular accent, nothing that would have screamed out either Core Worlder or Outer Rim 'lowlife'. Peering through the pillars of the balustrade, he could see her standing by the entrance, hands on hips, backlit by some kind of big diffused-light emitter she had put down behind her. She was wearing a flight cap with goggles pushed up over it and a short-sleeved synth-leather jacket. It looked like there might be some sort of linear tattoo on her right arm, but he couldn't make it out at this distance.

"Kriff, it's dark in here isn't it?" she called out, looking around. "I sure hope you haven't fallen down some stairs somewhere and broken your neck."

She really wasn't acting like a bounty hunter. If she was one, she'd be the strangest Luke had ever heard of. But this could all still be some sort of trick. He started to close his eyes and reach for the Force, then opened them again. He was supposed to be trying to learn how to do this with his eyes open, kriff it! He could do this! The Force was all around him, he knew this, all he had to do was touch it and it would tell him what he needed to know.

Gradually he could feel himself sliding into the Force, or was he opening up to it? Either way, he could see her now, a steady and determined presence. If he looked closer, close enough to really see her... he was getting flashes of something. Not thoughts, exactly, not words, more like feelings. She had come here seeking a specific goal, but she wasn't looking to do violence. Luke didn't sense that she meant him any harm. There were secrets there, things buried under the surface, but that was only natural. Everyone had secrets.

It seemed like at the moment, he could trust her. He stood up.

"Up here," he cried out, waving. She turned to look at him. "Sorry, I was worried you were with the Empire. Listen, I'll come down to meet you. It's easy to get lost in here."

Luke made his way back through the living quarters and down the twisting set of ramps and corridors that led to the hall, Artoo following him, bleeping in curiosity. By the time he reached the stranger, she had already set up several more of the light emitters, illuminating the room almost all the way to the ceiling. She stood up when she saw him, wiping dust off of her hands on her pants.

"Nice to meet you, kid," she said. "Name's Aphra. I'm an archaeologist."

"Explains the emitters," Luke replied. And at least that made it a bit more clear what she was doing here. There was a chance that this could just be one big coincidence. "I'm Luke."

"Here scouting for the Rebellion?" Aphra asked. Luke tensed, and she laughed. "Relax, that's a T-65 model X-wing you've got parked outside, and there's not too many of those kicking around the galaxy."

"Not going to turn me over to the Empire? I hear they've got a pretty nice bounty out on rebels these days."

"Yeah, and by now there's a pretty nice bounty out on me," Aphra replied. "Seeing as by now they know I led the crew that stole a really big shipment of credits from them. That's one of the reasons I'm out here, actually. Nice and out of the way. Somewhere to lie low until the heat dies down. So if you don't turn me in, I'll return the favour."

"How did you even know about this place anyway?"

Aphra shrugged. "Smugglers know a lot of things."

"I thought you said you were an archaeologist?"

Aphra smiled. "Sometimes people aren't too pleased when you dig up a certain thing that they think belongs to them."

"You know, you remind me a lot of someone I know," Luke said.

"Someone you like, I hope," Aphra replied.

"Heh, yeah." He missed Han already, missed Leia just as much, and it had only been a week since he had seen them last. But that had been very brief, and they had been running for their lives at the time, so it barely counted. Soon though. Soon he would see his friends again, when he was finally able to call himself a Jedi.

"I've told you why I'm here," Aphra said. "Any chance you might be able to make my life easier for me? Seen anything interesting while you've been here scouting? Or should I be finding some other place to hide, if the Rebellion is coming here to set up a base?"

"I've spent most of my time in the temple, but like I said, it's easy to get turned around. I wouldn't be in a hurry to recommend it for military use."

"So I should be safe enough." Aphra smiled. "You know, I hadn't realised that this was an old Jedi temple. My sources seem to have left out that little detail. Most of the stuff you can find in places like this is useless to anyone that can't use the powers those guys had, but you can still get good money for it, from the Empire at least if none of the collectors are feeling flush."

"There's nothing here," Luke said quickly. Kriff, if she was just looking to stay out of the Empire's way that was one thing, but he couldn't let her pillage this place! She might think there was no-one left for it to belong to, and Luke couldn't risk telling her otherwise, but... if he was going to be the last of the Jedi, that meant he had to protect what was theirs. Protect what little was left.

Aphra raised an eyebrow. "I thought you said yourself you haven't managed to explore the whole place yet?"

"Yeah, because I can't," Luke said in exasperation. "The temple won't let me!"

"Perhaps you just need the skills of an expert archaeologist to help you? Come on, I'll split the loot. It's only fair since you were here first."

"I don't think that's a very good idea. There might be traps."

Aphra grinned. "Aren't you at least a little curious?"

"If I refuse to come with you, you're just going to go anyway, aren't you?" Luke sighed. That didn't leave him with much of a choice. If he let Aphra wander around the temple alone, there could be a million things that could go wrong, from whatever 'trials' there might be that could only be survived with the Force, to the chance she might find something he needed and make off with it.

"Yup."

"Fine."

"Okay then! Let's go."

"You want to do this now?" Luke asked. "It'll be night in a few hours!"

"I don't plan to do more than a preliminary survey," Aphra explained. "I'll map and light the areas you already know, and if we have time we can think about going further in." She shrugged. "I've got all the time in the world right now."

Luke couldn't think of any reasonable excuse to stop her, aside from the truth. "Let's get this over with."

Aphra wasn't sure what she had been expecting from the pilot who blew up the Death Star, but it wasn't this kid. He was practically still a teenager, and there was this innocent quality to him that a person really shouldn't still have after killing several hundred thousand people, even indirectly. After seeing the farm where this Luke Skywalker had grown up, where his family had been executed, she'd been expecting... well someone a bit more jaded. A bit more like herself – an Outer Rim criminal, with all that entailed. He seemed far too trusting to have grown up on a Hutt dustball like Tatooine. He'd barely questioned why she was here, just accepted everything she said at face value. If this was the sort of person the Rebels were employing it was a wonder every second one of them wasn't a spy by now.

And there was this temple. She didn't know all that much about Force stuff; she'd only been a child when the Jedi Order was destroyed. She remembered the stories, if hazily, watered down as they must have been for a little kid. She knew they had been able to do incredible things – and horrible things, which was why they had had to be destroyed – and she had seen what Vader could do with the Force, although he wasn't a Jedi. He was... something else, although it wasn't the sort of thing you just came out and asked the guy. A Sith Lord, said the rumours. He was the Emperor's enforcer, had led hundreds of campaigns across the galaxy without ever having any official fixed position within the ranks, and he was involved with the Inquisitorius somehow at the high levels. Even if the rest of it hadn't been the case, no-one wanted to pry too much into ISB business, not even the hungriest rumour-monger. This temple had belonged to the Jedi once, and she suspected Skywalker was here looking for more than just a place for a new Rebel base.

What had Vader said on Tatooine? He'd probably thought she couldn't hear him, but that building had been small, and his vocoder echoed. 'The boy is strong in the Force'? That meant maybe he would be able to get past whatever kind of protections the Jedi had put on this place and find something that would... what? Teach him how to use those powers too?

She still didn't really know what the Force was. The way Vader talked about it, when he said anything at all, it sounded more like a religion. If so, the Jedi were... a different sect? If it weren't for the fact that this would make Skywalker, and hence the Rebellion, stronger, Aphra wouldn't have cared about any of this. But should she stop him? Whatever happened, the kid wasn't about to suddenly become able to defeat Darth Vader, so when he finally showed up to capture him and his Rebel friends, it wouldn't matter what Luke might or might not have learned about Jedi. And Vader had told her explicitly to tail the kid, and that would be difficult if he saw her as an enemy.

So all in all, it was probably better that she kept on playing the part of scoundrel archaeologist – mostly true – and pretended she was only interested in the relics she might find. The droids could stay in shut-down on the Ark Angel, and they could all remain good friends.

The TIE/ln was not really designed to be piloted in atmosphere, and was prone to drag and turbulence against its wide wing surfaces, but if you knew what you were doing it was perfectly safe. In some ways it would be easier to take the Starfall's shuttle when the Twelfth Brother wanted to land on a planet, but all things considered he preferred the TIE's maneuverability. You didn't want to be stuck in a shuttle when Rebels, pirates or smugglers came gunning for you.

Even skimming the cloud-cover the Twelfth Brother could sense that this planet was teeming with the Force. Of course it would be, because Jedi didn't build their temples just anywhere. It was a sure sign that the information he had been given was right, and that there was work here for the Inquisitorius. He could feel the location of the temple as well, a deep, still well that could be hiding all sorts of dangers. Dangers that he was well prepared for. Dangers that would be nothing to him.

Well, let's not get overconfident, he told himself. That was a sure way to end up with another Inquisitor's lightsaber buried in your back, if you didn't fall victim to habitual Imperial inter-service and inter-rank plotting first. Things that looked easy often weren't.

Normally the vacuum of space meant that there was nothing to carry the scream of the TIE's twin ion engines, but right now they were deafening. Perhaps that was why he didn't hear the warning beep of an incoming transmission from one of the probe droids at first, at least not until he had nearly reached the temple. The droid had been sent ahead to confirm and scout the location, and as the Twelfth Brother brought up its scans on his screen, he appreciated that caution.

There were already two ships parked in the temple courtyard. One was a typical smuggler's junker, although certainly faster and nastier than it looked, and the other… the other was an X-wing. Rebels. Here. How, or more importantly, why? There had been vague rumours that a man wielding a lightsaber had been seen on the Death Star in the company of known rebels in the weeks before its destruction, but nothing concrete, and besides, it was equally said that Lord Vader had killed him. But could the Rebellion have found some Force sensitives that the Inquisition had missed - from Hutt space, or the remoter parts of the Outer Rim - and be considering training them? There were enough former senators of the Old Republic amongst their ranks to have some memories of the Jedi.

It seemed he would be doing more here than just destroying a few artefacts.

Unfortunately his delay in responding to the droid's signal meant that he was almost certainly close enough for them to hear his TIE's approach. They would be expecting him. Well, so what? Any Inquisitor was more than a match for a few rebels, even if they included some untrained Force-sensitives. The Twelfth Brother set his TIE down in a forest clearing half a klick away from the temple. There was more than one way to skin a loth-cat, and that building had other entrances than just the main door. He would approach stealthily and hope to avoid any ambush they might have set up.

Before long, he was underneath the temple walls, looking up towards the empty, open windows high above. One Force-assisted leap later, his hands found purchase on the sill, and the Twelfth Brother easily clambered up into the room beyond. The embers of a fire still smouldered on the floor, with a pile of blankets tossed in a heap nearby. Square stone beds were arranged along both walls, but none appeared to be in use. Someone had been sleeping here, he could sense it, someone strong in the Force but completely unshielded. That was the only way they could have left so great a trace of their presence behind.

So where were they now? He called on the Dark Side, feeling it fill his veins like fire. It was always present, he never really stopped touching it, but when he pulled it into him like this it felt as though he had the strength to do anything. He looked outwards.

It was like looking at the sun. It seemed impossible that he could have missed this… this… supernova of pure, wild Force energy, this warm ball of fire shining amidst the dim campfires of the flora and fauna outside. When had he ever seen something this strong before? Not his old master Kanan. Not Fulcrum - even if he hadn't been properly trained back then he would have noticed if Fulcrum had felt like this. None of the other Inquisitors had this kind of presence. The only person he could think of was Darth Vader himself, whose cold rage could surely have drowned even this.

Just what exactly had the Rebellion got its hands on?

The sheer strength of this person in the Force actually made it harder to pinpoint their location. He felt that he could roughly judge the direction, but any more than that… But it was a start. And clearly he had to do something. If this Force-sensitive could be captured or convinced to come with him back to Mustafar…

But they were almost certainly a rebel, and so they wouldn't understand the importance of being shown how to use the Force in the right way. So he would have to kill them. It was a pity and a waste, but there it was. The Twelfth Brother had given up wishful thinking when he had given up his old name.

He followed the pull of the Force down a corridor and out onto a narrow balcony looking down into what must be the entrance hall. There were two people crouched behind the wreckage of a broken Jedi statue, pointing blasters at the door. Only two? This would be easier than he'd thought. One was a woman dressed a lot like the smugglers he'd known over the years, the other a man about his age. He was the one who burned in the Force.

The Twelfth Brother leapt, using the Dark Side to break his fall. He landed on the stairs behind the pair, drawing his lightsaber and igniting it. They spun around, swearing.

"That's an Inquisitor!" the smuggler said, already firing. The Brother deflected the shots easily. She wasn't the threat here.

"A what?" the other said.

Definitely not from an Imperial world.

"I'm not necessarily here to harm you," the Brother told them. "If you don't know what an Inquisitor does, then I'll explain. We locate Force-sensitive children in Imperial Space, and we take them to Mustafar to be trained in the ways of the Force. It's as simple as that. We seem to have missed out on you, though. But it's not too late. There's still time for you to join us. To learn how to use the powers you must know you have."

For a moment, the rebel hesitated. The Twelfth Brother sensed confusion within him, and a great pain. "I thought the Empire killed all the Jedi," he said.

"We did," the Brother replied. "Inquisitors are not Jedi. The Jedi are not what you've been told. The Rebellion has lied to you."

"My father was a Jedi," the rebel replied, and flicked aside his jacket to reveal the lightsaber hidden beneath it. "And so am I."

"Karabas," the Brother swore. This was… this was really bad. Although this padawan clearly wasn't trained, he didn't hold the saber like someone who had never used one before. Someone had given it to him. His father? Was he still alive? Even one live Jedi was capable of spreading their poison far and wide.

He gathered himself. This didn't have to be a disaster. "If he had a son, then clearly your father wasn't a very good Jedi," he said. "And that's a good thing. The Jedi..."

"My father was a great man," the rebel snapped, drawing his lightsaber and igniting the blue blade. "Before Darth Vader betrayed and killed him!"

The surge of anger from the padawan should have made him pleased, but the rebel wasn't concentrating enough to draw on the Force at all, let alone the Dark Side. And what he had said… Well. That was that, then. If this guy had a vendetta against Lord Vader, then he would never accept being taught by him. It was an essential part of training, and although the Brother thought that rage might be channelled to great effect, if he couldn't quiet it and listen long enough to learn something then he would just end up dead. If he even got that far.

No. Maybe he just wasn't persuasive enough, but he couldn't see any way of getting the rebel to come with him. So it would be death then.

Which was around the time the astromech droid shot him in the back.

4 BBY - Lothal, Lothal Sector, Outer Rim

The only good thing about their rush to leave Lothal was that it didn't give Ezra time to think. They had to keep going, keep fighting, keep trying, find a way to save both themselves and the people of this planet. The Empire wasn't exactly above killing their own - Minister Tua's death proved that much - and Lothal was only Imperial by default. And with Moff Tarkin behind this… Ezra thought he knew the man well enough from his 'object example' that was Tarkintown to be sure that he wouldn't hesitate to use the excuse they had manufactured - ruthless Rebel terrorists murdering a 'beloved' public official - to kill anyone and everyone they wanted to.

They had to get off planet. It was the only way that anyone here would be safe. If he focused enough on that fact, it was almost enough to forget that his home was burning behind him, the last remaining link to his parents nothing more than ashes. Everything he had, every last little reminder, was gone.

Perhaps that was where it had started. That anger. Well of course he was angry, who wouldn't be? No-one could see what the bucketheads were capable of and not be furious. If Ezra hadn't been angry all his life since his mother and father had been taken away, he wouldn't have spent the last few years before meeting the crew of the Ghost running around Central City causing trouble wherever he could. Wouldn't have met Kanan in the first place. Wouldn't have discovered that the uncanny instincts that sometimes pricked at him were something called the Force. Wouldn't have learned how to use it. It was all very well Kanan warning him to set those feelings aside, but he could barely remember a time that he hadn't felt this way. Deep down. He could hide it, sure, and he often did, because for so long he couldn't do anything about it. It was easier to pretend there was nothing wrong. But that's all it was; pretending. So he didn't find it too hard to push his anger far away whenever he touched the Force, but that didn't mean it wasn't there somewhere.

At the time, Kanan's idea to steal a shuttle in the factory district had seemed to be their only real chance of escape and the best plan they had. The problem was, that wasn't a coincidence. It was all by design. A trap. Finding the portable shield generators, maybe that hadn't been intended by the Imperials, but that didn't matter much when the jaws of the Empire's might were closing around them. The first sign that something was wrong was the chill. It was like all the air had been sucked away into the great blackness of open, empty space, taking him with it, tearing his lungs from his throat and making his blood ripple and boil. Then silence, spreading in a tidal wave. All of it coming from just one spot.

Kanan had felt it too. Stiffened beside him, turned slowly, lightsaber springing into his hand. There was a gap between the huge doors leading into the Sienar warehouse. Someone standing there, a figure in black, just a silhouette in a shaft of moonlight coming from some skylight far overhead. Then the snap and hiss of a lightsaber igniting, and a thin line of red blossomed in the figure's hand. It felt like the bottom of Ezra's stomach had fallen out.

Another Inquisitor? There was more than one?

As the Inquisitor stepped forward, breathing in harsh, regulated rasping, the squad of Stormtroopers spreading out behind it was honestly the least of their worries. Acting as one, following the prompting of the faint training bond between them, Ezra ignited his lightsaber in time with Kanan, dropping into guard position just as he'd been taught. In that moment, it didn't seem like much use at all.

The air hummed as saber met saber. The new Inquisitor seemed unbelievably strong, pressing down on Kanan with only a single-handed grip against all the force of a double-handed defence. Then a wave of the Force snapped out, throwing he and Ezra backwards before either of them could react. Ezra landed hard, rolled, gasping for breath. Kanan recovered more quickly and leapt to the attack once again. Ezra could only watch how little good it did. With dismissive ease the armoured figure had Kanan's wrists in one hand above his head, dragging him off his feet. Sith, the Inquisitor was tall! In that crushing grip Kanan's hands loosened and his saber clattered to the ground. Then a flick of one arm sent him flying to crash against a pile of crates, slumping, dazed. Ezra watched in horror.

Now it was his turn.

Again that casual push of Force energy, throwing him meters, pushing him up against the leg of one of the unfinished walkers. It closed around him like a fist. It felt familiar; it felt just like the way that last Inquisitor had used the Force. It was suffocating. There was anger in it, but a cold, impersonal anger. Ezra was afraid, and he couldn't fight it.

"Your Master has deceived you," the Inquisitor said. His voice was a low, threatening rumble, distorted by the mask, "into believing you can become a Jedi." As he spoke the invisible fist tightened, closing around Ezra's right arm, forcing the lightsaber he held towards his own throat. He tried to resist, but the power of his muscles was nothing compared to the power of the Force.

His throat was free, he would have had time to shout some final, defiant words, but nothing sprang to mind. Defence of Kanan? Kanan had never lied to him, he'd promised exactly what he could give. Ezra knew Kanan had never been a Jedi Master, but he'd still been a Jedi and there was still so much that he could teach him. Sometimes Ezra found his lessons a little frustrating, difficult to grasp, but he had made so much progress already. But how to put all that into words? How to describe the hope Kanan had given him that he could actually do something about the Empire, could actually get some revenge - real revenge - for what had happened to his parents. That he could make a difference.

The blade of his saber crept ever closer to his neck.

Then someone was shouting, and the coiled strength that held him vanished in an instant, letting him slide down the cold metal with enough time to get his feet under him. It was Kanan, leaping back into combat, exchanging rapid blows that seemed to do nothing to concern the Inquisitor. But with that mask he wore, it was impossible to read him, impossible to tell if he was even breaking a sweat. Reaching out to the Force was no help; there was nothing but a wall where the man was, a wall made of cold fire and rage.

Ezra had to do something. He was operating now on instinct and the Force, letting it flow through him, guide him as he joined the fray. Yet after a few smooth parrys from their enemy he was sent flying yet again. The Force was protecting him from feeling the results of all those impacts, but it could only do so much.

Kanan was locked saber to saber with the Inquisitor. The blades crackled and buzzed against one another. Then the masked man did something complicated with his lightsaber, flicked it in a great whirling arc that broke it away from Kanan's and…

It happened so fast. One moment Kanan was standing defiant, the next he was on the floor, clutching his arm or… the stump where his arm had been.

Things became… less clear after that. Ezra's memory played tricks on him - he knew he had screamed, he knew he had tried to attack, but… There had been an explosion, the AT-ST walkers coming crashing down in front of them in a shower of flames and sparks, forcing the Inquisitor to jump away to avoid it. Zeb had run forwards, grabbed Kanan and heaved him over his shoulder, stumbling under the weight as he turned back towards the shuttle. Sabine had called out to Ezra, urged him on, but suddenly a red lightsaber was blocking the way and there was nowhere for him to turn.

It hadn't been abandonment. Even after everything that had happened… afterwards… Ezra refused to see it as that. It had been survival, the only option. Hera had made the call, and she had taken off, blaster bolts filling the air behind the shuttle as it accelerated skywards.

And Ezra had been left, alone, expecting death.

Only it turned out he was more useful to the Empire alive.

4 BBY - Imperial Shuttle Mistraal, Lothal System, Outer Rim

Sabine opened her eyes. Her head was spinning. What had she been doing? Everything seemed fuzzy. What was the last thing she remembered? The Sienar factory… they had found the shuttle, and picked up some portable shield generators to boot, then... there had been a fight. Imperials!

She tried to sit up, but her muscles groaned in protest. She felt like she had been kicked in the ribs by a nerf. There had been someone new commanding the troops, she remembered. It was starting to come back to her. A tall figure in black armour, masked. He'd had a lightsaber, like the Inquisitor. She had tried to shoot him and… well that explained why she felt so terrible.

Someone was making noises of pain nearby. Short gasps, breathing fast. Sabine turned her head.

Kanan was slumped against the far wall, Hera sitting next to him with a med-kit spread out on the bench beside her. His face was screwed up in agony as Hera did something to… to the place where his arm wasn't. Karabas. She had seen it happen, but perhaps she hadn't wanted to remember. It all seemed so terrible. Everything had gone so wrong. They should have escaped, they should have rubbed the bucketheads' noses in their own incompetence like they always did, no-one should have gotten hurt…

Zeb saw that she was awake, and came over to help her up, his big paws gently sliding her helmet off, leaving her hair mussed. "You okay?" he asked her softly.

"Yeah, I'll live." She looked around, checking to see if everyone else had made it away in one piece. Zeb and Hera were fine, there was Chopper lurking in the corner, but… "Where's Ezra?"

Everyone suddenly looked a lot more uncomfortable.

"We had to leave," Hera said eventually, her voice unsteady. "It was that, or we all died."

"You mean… we left Ezra back there!" Sabine shot to her feet, quickly regretting it as her vision went grey around the edges, and she felt herself sway as her head span with dizziness. Zeb steadied her. His ears were laid flat against his skull. He looked about as happy as she felt. "No, we have to go back for him!"

"We will," Kanan said through gritted teeth. "I'm not leaving him with that thing."

"Yeah, what was that?" Sabine asked. "Another Inquisitor?"

"No. Something… worse. A Sith Lord. The ancient enemy of the Jedi. If he has Ezra…"

"We will go back for him," Hera said. "But we need to know more first. That's why we're not leaving Lothal. Not yet."

"So where are we going?" Sabine asked.

"To someone who is sneaky and underhand enough to get us the information we need."

Kanan groaned, although not from pain this time. "Calrissian."

4 BBY - Imperial Command Centre, Lothal, Lothal Sector, Outer Rim

Ezra had expected to be killed, not taken captive. The moment the shuttle had taken off he had been surrounded by stormtroopers, the Inquisitor looming at their head. But instead of being shot he had been stunned, and the next he knew of it he was waking up in a prison cell. He wasn't sure exactly how long they had left him there. They didn't bother to feed him, but there was a sink he could drink from, and a toilet, and they had cuffed his arms in front of him.

After some time, a couple of bucketheads appeared, and he was escorted along a bunch of bland, grey, Imperial corridors and shoved inside an office which contained two familiar faces. One was Agent Kallus. The other was the blank mask of the new Inquisitor. He was an oppressive, heavy presence in the Force, but he didn't seem to be projecting that same cold and rage as he had during their fight. The noise of his respirator was very loud though, echoing throughout the room. It was so pervasive it was almost as if he could feel it under his skin, inside his head.

"So," Kallus said, sounding far too pleased with himself. "The rebel Ezra Bridger, also known as Specter Six." He smiled at Ezra's expression. "You see we do know a little something about your band of terrorists."

"We're not terrorists," Ezra replied, not able to stop himself from protesting. Even despite his fear of the Inquisitor, wordless and menacing. "We're doing what we can to protect the people of Lothal from you."

"If it wasn't for rebels like yourself, there would be no need for harsh measures," Agent Kallus replied. "Obedience in return for protection. Is that so very much to ask?"

"Your protection isn't worth very much. Just look at Tarkintown!"

Kallus shrugged. "Non-humans," he said dismissively. "And trouble-makers. Little better than menaces like yourself. Generosity and mercy are only offered to those deserving of it."

"I'm guessing that doesn't include me," Ezra said. Had they just wanted to gloat before they killed him? Or was this all working up to something else?

"It could be, if you tell us the location of your friends, and of the Rebel Fleet in this sector," Kallus replied.

"That's never going to happen."

"You may change your mind after a little persuasion."

"Torturing the boy will not be necessary." The Inquisitor spoke at last. Menace dripped from every word. "The others will come for him. Their compassion is their weakness."

"No, they won't," Ezra said quickly. He realised he had broken out in a cold sweat. Karabas, how was he so terrifying. "They know they'd be walking into a trap."

"No, that has already happened," Agent Kallus told him. "The moment they boarded that shuttle. But as it happens, we don't actually want them to come for you. It's much better for us that they run home to the Fleet, and lead us right to the real prize."

"No…"

"Of course, as long as you're still alive, they won't do that," Kallus continued. "So we will have to make it clear that you are dead. A public execution should do nicely, don't you think?"

Ezra couldn't say anything. They were going to kill him, and broadcast it all over the holonet. Kanan, Hera, Sabine, Zeb… they would all be forced to watch it. Everyone would. All of Lothal. They would be more afraid of the Empire than ever. They would lose what little hope they had been able to give them after the tower broadcast. And he was powerless to stop it.

He looked away. As he did so, his gaze fell on the Inquisitor's belt, and the lightsabers hanging there. Two… one of them was his own! If he could only get it, if he used the Force… If he attacked them here and now, even if he couldn't kill either of them, maybe they would be forced to kill him and then…

Even if he died, here, now, it wouldn't be the same as a public execution. He could spare his friends, his family, that pain at least.

He reached out with the Force, reached out with his anger and his desperation towards the small clip where his saber hung and pulled…

A hand in a leather glove reached out and pinned the weapon in place. The dark red lenses fixed their gaze upon him and Ezra shivered under that inhuman stare. "A valiant attempt," the harsh baritone said, in a way that might have been mocking. "He has potential. It appears the Jedi has not made him useless."

Agent Kallus nodded. "I shall see that he is transferred to your ship personally, Lord Vader. Once the execution has been recorded, of course."

Ezra hadn't believe it was possible to feel any worse, but he found that he was wrong. They were going to fake his death. And afterwards… He had no idea what this 'Vader' had planned for him, but he was sure he wasn't going to enjoy it.

0 ABY - Temple Ruins, Vrogas Vas, Outer Rim

The moment Aphra saw the Inquisitor, she knew she had to kill him. It was far too much of a coincidence to think that he had shown up on this planet accidentally at the exact same time that Luke Skywalker, hero of the Rebel Alliance, was here, and that meant that someone had sent him. Vader had told her there were others after Skywalker, that Tagge had reassigned the Empire's search for the boy to someone else. It was reasonable to assume that that someone would have the authority to requisition an Inquisitor, particularly if they also knew Skywalker was able to use the Force.

The only thing that could reliably kill a Jedi was another Force-user, after all - although the kid wasn't really a Jedi. That's why the Inquisitorius existed in the first place.

But in this case there was only one Force-user that was allowed to have Skywalker, and that was Lord Vader. Aphra was well aware this was probably going to get her killed, but she had to stop him from getting his hands on the prize. If she failed… then Vader's plans failed. She had better hope she was dead if that happened.

The red lightsaber deflected the shots from her blaster with infuriating ease. Aphra swore under her breath. Then the Inquisitor started to speak. Started to negotiate. He was making Skywalker an offer. Not one the boy would take, not under normal circumstances - she hadn't known him for long but that much was already obvious - but Force-users could get inside your head, play with your brain. Surely Skywalker would notice, surely he of all beings would be able to resist but… She needn't have worried.

"My father was a Jedi," the boy said, defiantly, drawing… his own lightsaber. "And so am I."

Kriff it! So he already knew what he was, or what he was capable of becoming. He already knew the kind of weapon the Rebellion could turn him into. Even setting aside what he had done in the past, Aphra could only imagine the sort of danger he could become if he continued on down this path. A Jedi could kill an army. The Jedi generals of the Clone Wars had been ruthless, without mercy, and utterly deadly. The Old Republic had dressed this up nicely with their propaganda when the Jedi Order benefited them. It had taken the Empire to reveal the unadorned truth behind the lies, and Darth Vader to eliminate the threat to the New Order.

Of course, the Empire had its own propaganda, and Aphra was smart enough not to believe everything they claimed was true, but enough of it meshed with what little she remembered from the stories of her early childhood to make sense.

She was ambivalent about the Empire, but at least as a regime it knew how to be strong. She had nothing but contempt for the weakness of the Old Republic.

Skywalker and the Inquisitor were facing off, neither yet seeming willing to be the first to attack. Then the Inquisitor spoke again. "If he had a son, then clearly your father wasn't a very good Jedi," he said. "And that's a good thing."

Aphra could have told him this was the wrong tack to take, and she wasn't exactly known for her diplomacy. As might have been expected, Skywalker got angry.

"My father was a great man," he snapped. "Before Darth Vader betrayed and killed him!"

Huh. Interesting. Aphra filed that piece of information away for later. She wasn't surprised by it; Vader was well known as a Jedi killer, although she wasn't sure how the concept of a betrayal fit into that. She couldn't imagine Vader, so devoted to his religion, having anything to do with the opposing cult of the Jedi. Something told her it was sure to have something to do with the bigger picture of Vader's plans that she was still putting together. She raised her blaster again, hoping to take advantage of the distraction Skywalker posed to get a shot off at the Inquisitor. But before she could fire, there was the snap of an electrical discharge, and the Inquisitor collapsed. On the step behind him was Skywalker's astromech droid, shock probe extended, beeping proudly.

Are we sure that thing's not related to BT-1? she asked herself. It was certainly old enough to have some pretty non-standard code. Pre-Clone Wars, at least.

Well, that made taking care of this problem a lot easier. She strode forwards, intending to take a point-blank shot at the Inquisitor's head, only for Skywalker to step in her way. He stared her down, insisting on keeping their enemy alive. And alright, maybe he did have a point about getting information out of him first, but honestly it would be safer for her own mission if they didn't talk. The Inquisitor might not know that she was connected to Vader, but she couldn't take the chance that he would reveal something that would compromise this tenuous connection.

But if she killed him, now, that would be certain to drive Skywalker away.

There was only one thing to do. She would have to hope that Lord Vader's direct authority trumped the orders of some new and temporary master. She would have to make a call.

She gave in. "Fine. If you don't have the good sense nature gave a gundark, that's your problem. I'll look in my ship, see what I've got that we can use to tie him up before he comes to." And it would give her some time in private there.

Going out to the Ark Angel, Aphra immediately went to the comms and sent out a hail on Vader's personal frequency. Please let him be available to answer it. She would pray to whatever the Force was if that would help. But it turned out luck, or the Force, was on her side. The channel opened.

"Lord Vader," Aphra said, as the holoform of that impenetrable mask flickered into being. "We have a bit of a complication."

"For your sake Aphra, I hope nothing has happened to the boy."

"Not a scratch," she replied. "But not for want of someone trying. An Inquisitor turned up."

Even from millions of miles away, she could almost feel the temperature dropping. Perhaps she was simply getting used to reading his moods, especially his temper, which was on a hair-trigger as it was.

"I trust they have been eliminated," Vader said, or rather practically growled. Oh yes, very angry.

"Skywalker's droid stunned him. Then the kid wouldn't even let me kill him. So no. Unfortunately the Inquisitor is very much alive, and I can't do anything about that without losing our target's trust. I especially can't guarantee what this guy might or might not say when he wakes up."

Vader barely hesitated. "I am sending you my personal authorisation code. Ensure that the Inquisitor receives it, and promise him that if he acts against either of you in any way, he will have to deal with me."

"Great," Aphra said, feeling a lot more relaxed. "Problem solved, unless this guy is a lot crazier than he seemed."

Vader terminated the connection without another word. Left behind on the screen, a long alphanumeric code blinked steadily. Aphra copied it over to her data-pad, erasing the original afterwards. Tempting as it might be, she knew Vader wouldn't let her keep this any longer than she needed to have it.

Then she went to find the strongest cables she had. This Inquisitor wasn't going anywhere before she had a chance to talk to him.

Luke clipped his father's lightsaber back to his belt, breathing heavily, more from emotion than exertion. "Well done Artoo," he said, looking up to where the little astromech stood over the stunned body of the stranger, shock-probe out and still buzzing. He felt shaky all over as the adrenaline drained out of him, still on edge after what the man had said to him. Ben had warned him about the Sith, about Darth Vader and the Emperor, but he had never mentioned that there were more of them out there than just those two. He turned to Aphra, who clearly knew more than he did about these 'Inquisitors', but she was already striding forwards with her blaster trained on the prone body, looking determined.

"Wait!" Luke shouted, darting forwards so that he was between the two of them. "Don't kill him!"

"In case you didn't notice kid, he was about to try to kill us," she told him. "And he's not going to be alone."

"I know, TIEs don't have hyperdrive," Luke said, impatiently. "I know he must have another ship somewhere, probably in orbit. But that means we need to know what he knows. He's our prisoner now."

"Keeping an Inquisitor prisoner is like playing with fire - not a good idea."

Luke didn't say anything. He knew this wasn't a good idea, but he wasn't about to stand aside and let someone be shot in cold blood. It just wasn't right. Even if he was angry with them, that wasn't any kind of justification. After a few long seconds, Aphra rolled her eyes at him and holstered her blaster.

"Fine. If you don't have the good sense nature gave a gundark, that's your problem. I'll look in my ship, see what I've got that we can use to tie him up before he comes to."

Luke relaxed. "Thank you Aphra."

He sat watching their prisoner while he waited for her to return. The man looked about his age, maybe a little older, with tan skin and hair dark enough to have a bluish sheen to it. He was wearing form-fitting black armour with Imperial Cogs painted onto both the shoulderpads. The lightsaber that he had drawn on them - which Luke had been quick to pick up - looked more like a blaster when it was turned off. Certainly nothing like any of the other sabers he had seen, even amongst Grakkus' collection. It had been red, like Vader's. And his eyes had looked to have a yellow tint, which was not exactly human-standard.

Aphra came back after some time with an armful of hauling cable that was usually used for reeling in smaller objects in space. She looped it around the Inquisitor's ankles and wrists, knotting it securely. "That should hold him for now," she said. "I guess now we just wait until he wakes up."

"What is an Inquisitor anyway?" Luke asked.

"Where did you grow up that you don't know that?" the smuggler asked him.

"Tatooine."

"Well that explains a lot. Look, he said most of this already, but if you're a kid who can do something the other kids can't, even if it's something small, the Empire sends you for special aptitude tests. And if you do well on those… then an Inquisitor shows up. They ask all sorts of strange questions, and then they take some kids away with them, and those kids are never seen again. I guess they go off and become new Inquisitors. I did the first round of tests, but I guess I didn't have whatever it is exactly they're looking for."

"And they're all like… this one?"

"I wouldn't know," Aphra replied. "I've never met one before."

3 BBY - Plooma, Veragi Sector, Outer Rim

Nothing had been the same since Ezra's death. It was his own fault. If he had been quicker, if he hadn't forgotten so much of his training in the years he had tried to pretend that he had never been a Jedi, Kanan might have been able to protect him. He had no illusions about his ability to actually defeat a Sith Lord - he was no General Kenobi or Skywalker, he knew that much - but he might have been able to hold him off long enough… But instead he had failed, lost an arm for his troubles, and as good as sentenced Ezra to death himself.

What right did he have to call himself a Jedi? What had he been thinking, taking on a Padawan when he had never been anything more than that himself? Had he really been arrogant enough to believe that he could teach Ezra enough to survive, when he knew the dangers that were out there?

He kept remembering that day, when his world had fallen apart. His Master telling him to run. He had fled, and he had been running ever since. The Empire had destroyed the Jedi Order and he… he hadn't fought back. Hera had convinced him that he should do something, but he had been too afraid to go as far as she wanted, do as much as she wanted. She had been the one to liaise with Fulcrum. She had been the one to insist they go to the Rebel Alliance. Kanan had…

He had been a failure. A coward.

Could he change that? Could he be any better than what he was, or was this all he was capable of?

That was why they were here, on Plooma. Because the Rebellion had sent them to strike a blow against the Empire. It was nothing they hadn't done dozens of times on Lothal, and this planet was just out-of-the-way enough to have similarly green and inexperienced troops garrisoning it, despite the fact that it was home to such an important military target. It was impossible for the Empire to buy too many TIEs and that meant Sienar couldn't build too many factories to churn them out. Factories ripe for destruction.

"Spectre 5, have you finished setting the charges?" Hera asked over their comms.

"Affirmative Specter 2," Sabine replied. "Let's blow this place."

"Okay. Specter 2 to all operatives. Meet back at the rendezvous point. Time to leave."

Kanan had finished his own task here some time ago, destroying the mainframe that controlled both the security and fire control systems. It would be impossible for anyone here to prevent this now, and their explosive devices would be free to wreak havok. Making his way towards the Ghost, he reflected that his had been altogether too easy. There had been a low-level buzz moving through the Force ever since they arrived on this world, and as of yet he had found no cause for it. But his instincts told him that he would find out before they left. He had a bad feeling about this.

He was just crossing a gantry above the factory floor, the complicated machinery of the starfighter assembly line laid out below him, when the tingling became a scream. He whirled around to find that he wasn't alone. A gangly humanoid had just appeared in the doorway behind him. There was no mistaking that sleek black armour even without the Imperial cogs on the shoulderpads. An Inquisitor. He was masked, so there was no telling exactly what species he was, but the Empire usually kept their human agents for the Inner Ring and Core so the stuck-up xenophobic Imps there didn't get offended about taking orders from a non-human.

There had been rumours that another Inquisitor had been assigned to hunt him down, so Kanan wasn't overly surprised by this. At least he had turned up after they had completed their mission, or at least were close enough to doing so that it would be impossible to find and defuse the charges before the bombs went off.

Kanan drew his lightsaber and began backing carefully away along the gantry. The Inquisitor wasn't blocking his escape route, so there was still a chance that this might not come to open battle. Although his new arm was a good quality prosthesis, it was less responsive through the Force than his flesh arm, and he had found it difficult to integrate it into his sense of himself that allowed him to let the Force flow through him and guide his actions in battle. If you couldn't be sure where all of you was, you couldn't trust yourself in the acrobatics that were necessary for saber combat.

Still. The Inquisitor hadn't even drawn his own lightsaber yet. He approached cautiously, hands spread apart in a pacifying gesture. This was very unlike any of the Inquisitors they had met so far. The Pau'an had been arrogant, the Fifth Brother aggressive, and even the Seventh Sister had only talked in order to taunt him. What did this one want?

"Kanan!" the Inquisitor shouted. The voice had an electronic edge from the masked helmet, but there was still something… familiar… about it. He reached out with the Force, but the Dark Side was thick around the other, too thick to penetrate.

"SPECTRE has killed three of your friends already!" Kanan replied, holding his saber at guard. "Back off, or you'll join them."

"Kanan, I just want to talk," the Inquisitor said. "About the Jedi, about the Light Side… I need you to know the truth."

"What are you talking about? Sith lies? The only truth I care about is that the Emperor had my friends, my master, killed! That the Sith have constructed an Empire of evil, and we will do everything we can to see it brought down!"

The Inquisitor shook his head. "The Inquisitorius… the Sith… they've shown me what the Jedi were really like, in their own words. You were one of them once. You knew, even if they'd brainwashed you since birth not to see what they really were."

Kanan rolled his eyes. This was certainly a new tack, but frankly this was absurd. What were they expecting out of this? For him to renounce the Jedi in the shock of epiphany and join them? To start terrorising the galaxy?

"The Jedi stole children, Kanan. They tore them away from their parents, their families… away from everyone that loved them. They turned them into emotionless killing machines, sent them out onto battlefields, onto planets full of a hundred dangers they were far too young for! You should know…"

"I don't know," Kanan interrupted him. He'd heard enough of this nonsense. This was Imperial propaganda, plain and simple, and he'd heard more than enough of it in the years after the Empire was founded. Turn people against the Jedi Order and they were more than willing to turn in what few survivors there were. "And don't claim you can know anything about me or what I've been through."

The Inquisitor's head tilted to the side. "Do you really not know who I am?" he asked.

"Should I?"

"Haven't you looked?" When Kanan said nothing, the Inquisitor reached up to touch a hidden release on his helmet and the panels slid aside to reveal…

"No." The word fell from Kanan's lips before he could stop it. Ezra… But it couldn't be. He was dead, they had all seen him die, cut down by the firing squad on Lothal… But it was, Ezra had grown but he hadn't grown that much. Kanan would know him anywhere. If the Dark Side hadn't cloaked that familiar presence in the Force...

"The Jedi weren't what you thought," Ezra said. "They weren't what you told me. This way… it's not easy, but eventually I'll be able to change things. Change the system. Make the galaxy a better place. You could do that too. Come with me, see what they've shown me, and I know you'll understand."

Kanan didn't know what answer he would have given to that. He didn't have time to come up with one, because it was at that moment that the bombs went off.

Fire erupted from the factory below. Shrapnel whined through the air, and one particularly large piece of shapeless metal came whirring up through the gantry between them, leaving the steel lattice in tatters and opening a gaping hole. Ezra took a step back, flames reflecting in his eyes, giving them a tint of yellow… or perhaps they had been like that before but Kanan hadn't wanted to see it. He spat that familiar Lasat curse they had all picked up from Zeb.

Kanan's comms crackled. "Spectre 1!" It was Hera's voice, screaming. "Spectre 1, where are you?"

Kanan tried to speak and found his mouth was too dry. He swallowed, his throat rough, then managed to force some words out. "On a gantry above the factory floor."

"Don't move," Hera ordered. "We'll come and get you."

Kanan had no time to ask how; a flurry of blaster fire erupted from the hanger door at the end of the building and the Phantom barrelled through the opening left behind, soaring over the raging fires towards him and making a tight mid-air turn so the rear hatch - already open - pointed his way. Kanan shook himself out of his shock and made the jump, landing lightly on the small platform.

Left behind - just as you left him behind before, left him to the Inquisitorius, Kanan told himself - Ezra turned away to make his own escape from the crumbling factory.

Kanan made his way through the Phantom to take the co-pilot's seat next to Hera.

"Are you okay?" she asked him. "What happened down there? Another Inquisitor?"

"I'll tell you when we get back to the Ghost," Kanan replied.

0 ABY - Temple Ruins, Vrogas Vas

Ezra - no, the Twelfth Brother - woke up. For a moment he had almost forgotten himself. That was a part of him he had left far behind. He was lying on a flat stone surface, and as soon as he tried to move, he quickly became aware that someone had tied him up like a Life-Day roast. Strong cables, and strong knots as well. Even picking at them with the Force, he couldn't see himself working loose anytime soon.

"Hey, Inquisitor," someone said from right next to him.

He turned his head. It was the smuggler from earlier. Karabas. He hadn't thought to look for droids, and even if he had they weren't easy to detect in the Force. The one who shot him had been easy to miss because of how bright that padawan boy was. Overconfidence, he thought to himself. Warned yourself about that. Speaking of, said padawan wasn't here, or at least, he wasn't in this room right now. Good. If he waited for the right moment...

"Here, pay attention," the smuggler said. She was holding a datapad, and as he looked back to her she held it up so he could see it.

Oh. Oh, this was very bad.

That was Darth Vader's authorisation code. Which meant he had just stumbled into an operation he definitely didn't have the clearance for, and had probably gone a long way towards cocking it up too. He did his best to look apologetic.

"So here's how it's going to be," the smuggler told him. "I'm Doctor Aphra, droid archaeologist, coder, smuggler, and working directly for Lord Vader. The kid is Luke Skywalker, and he's going to be leading us all the way to the main Rebel Fleet if I play my cards right. You are in a kriff-load of trouble and are going to keep your mouth shut if you know what's good for you. Understand?"

The Twelfth Brother nodded. He really didn't trust himself not to say something that would dig him even deeper into this nice hole he'd made for himself.

"So who sent you?" Aphra asked, conversationally. "Tagge? That Mon-Calamari cyborg, what's his name, Karbin?"

"Uh, neither," he replied nervously. "This was meant to be a standard mission. I had no idea either of you two were here before I saw your ships."

"Do you really expect me to believe that?" Aphra asked scornfully. "A little too much of a coincidence, don't you think?"

"There is no coincidence, there is the Force," the Brother replied automatically. It was a saying that held just as true for the Dark Side as the Light.

Aphra sneered. "I suppose if you want to keep that much to yourself for now I don't really care. It isn't me you'll have to deal with in the end, and you of all sentients should know what Lord Vader is like as an interrogator. All I want from you is to know that you won't mess this up. Say nothing to the boy about any of this. Don't touch him, don't think about touching him, don't even go near him if you can help it. If he asks you questions, answer him, but keep the answers as short as possible. He's Vader's prize when this is over."

"I get the idea. So," he said, gesturing with his bound wrists, "are you going to let me up?"

"Of course not. The kid wants to talk to you first. Find out what you're doing here and who you've brought with you. Stick with the bantha-fodder story you tried on me just now, it'll work on him. And no Force funny-business."

As soon as he nodded his agreement, she was on her comm. "Better come back Luke," she said. "He's awake."

0 ABY - Temple Ruins, Vrogas Vas, Outer Rim

Luke entered the sleeping chambers to find Aphra standing guard over their prisoner, who looked a lot less intimidating tied to a bed. The young man was scowling, but not at Aphra or him, just at life in general and this situation in particular. Luke recognised that look. It was one he'd worn a lot on Tatooine when he wanted to go out with his friends and instead had to stay home to harvest water from the converters. The position he was trussed up in didn't look too comfortable either, but then, he had been trying to kill them. A little discomfort was alright. It was killing him that Luke objected to.

As he approached, he checked that the two lightsabers clipped to his belt were properly secured. After Vader had pulled his saber away from him with the Force so easily on the factory moon, he had become more careful.

"Has he said anything yet?" he asked Aphra. She shrugged.

"He's pretty tight-lipped," she replied, shooting a glare at the Inquisitor. Luke sighed. He didn't really have a plan for what to do about their prisoner. He still wasn't finished with the Temple, not by a long shot, but they couldn't just keep this guy around while he searched it. What if his ship came looking for him? What if he managed to escape? He'd entertained some ideas about making the Inquisitor check in with his friends to tell them everything was fine, after he told them why he was here, but Luke knew he wasn't exactly the most convincing person in the galaxy.

He might as well give it a try though. No harm in that.

"What's your name?" he asked.

The Inquisitor said nothing. Aphra tapped the blaster holstered at her side with a meaningful expression. "The kid asked you a question."

"I'm the Twelfth Brother," the Inquisitor said reluctantly.

"That's not a name," Luke protested. "What do your friends call you? You might be an Imp, but you've gotta have friends."

The Inquisitor scowled. Maybe not. Maybe Sith didn't have friends. Luke couldn't imagine Darth Vader hanging out in the mess of a Star Destroyer, or going out drinking on shore leave. If he even could drink, in that suit he wore. After another glare from Aphra though, the Inquisitor said, "Ezra. Bridger. That's the name I used to have, before I became an Inquisitor. The name of a naive boy, who knew nothing of the world."

That was probably aimed as a dig at him, Luke thought. But he didn't really care about being thought of as naive. "So. Ezra," he said. "Are you here because of me?"

"I don't even know who you are, apart from a rebel and an untrained padawan," Ezra replied. Luke thought back to how he had felt Aphra's intentions earlier and tried to repeat the trick. It was easier the second time; he remembered how it had felt. The Force felt strange around the Ezra; thick, almost oily, and strangely cold. It made it harder to tell what he was feeling, but Luke felt pretty confident that he was telling the truth. "I came here because of the temple."

"Huh? What do you mean?"

Ezra rolled his eyes. "It's a Jedi Temple," he explained. "The Jedi philosophy is corrupt, a plague on the galaxy. That's why their Order had to be destroyed, and why the Inquisitorius has been tasked with eliminating all traces of their teaching that remain."

Luke had to bite back his anger. How dare they?! He knew the Empire was destructive, he knew that the Emperor was the root of all their evil, that he and Darth Vader had been behind everything that had happened, killing his father, driving Ben Kenobi into exile, murdering his aunt and uncle… he just hadn't imagined how far their hate would take them. No wonder it had been so hard to find out anything about the Jedi, about his father. No wonder the holonet had been scoured clean of any reference to them, obvious Imperial propaganda aside.. If an entire branch of Imperial Forces were dedicated to that… if all of them were Sith…

But turning that anger on the Inquisitor in front of him wasn't going to help anything. He needed to persuade Ezra to do what he wanted, and that wasn't going to happen if he shouted at him.

Luke was observant; Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru might have tried to shelter him from the dangers of Tatooine, particularly those posed by its criminal element, he had still learned a little something from those trips with his friends to Mos Eisley. The best smugglers and bounty hunters didn't throw their weight around to get what they wanted. They spoke softly and quietly, and let their reputation do most of the work. Not that Luke had any kind of reputation with the Inquisitor - not without giving out his full name, and that result of that wouldn't be the kind of reputation he wanted. But he could do the first two.

"I came to this temple to learn about the Jedi and about the Force," he said. "So you can see why I'm not going to let you do what you came here to do."

"I can see that much," Ezra replied, rolling his shoulders to demonstrate that oh yeah, he was still tied up. "But I'm telling you the truth if you would only listen. The Jedi weren't heroes. Maybe if you've got some sense you'll find something here that'll make you see that."

In the Force, Luke could feel his conviction. He really believed what he was saying, what he had claimed earlier as well in their fight. Of course, he would. That didn't mean anything. Even the worst Imperial, even Darth Vader, surely didn't know how terrible they were or they would stop. People could do horrible things and they justified it to themselves somehow.

"I believe that you believe it," he said. "Anyway, that's the only reason you were here? To destroy the temple. How? Explosives? Call in an orbital strike?"

"That's a little over the top," the Inquisitor replied. "No. The building itself doesn't matter, but there's bound to be something the Jedi left further inside." He shrugged. "At least you came to the right place. But you can't go in, right? It won't let you."

Luke scowled at him. "How did you know?"

"Because it's obvious the only training anyone has given you is how to hold that lightsaber of yours. You're strong, but you're fumbling around in the dark. Holocrons aren't going to cut it. If you want to learn to use the Force, you should let me go and come with me. The only sure way to learn is to learn from someone, and the Sith are the only ones left."

"And I'm just supposed to take your word for it?" Luke asked.

"Trust your feelings," Ezra replied. "Trust your instincts. You already know it's true."

"Sounds like bantha-shit to me," Aphra said. "How about you stick to things we can actually prove, huh?"

Luke tried not to let his frustration be too obvious. It was true that he hadn't learned very much from Master Phin-Law Wo's holocron, and that he hadn't had any luck so far in reaching the inner depths of the temple. But he hadn't been here long, and he had Aphra to help him now.

"When is your ship expecting you to check in?" he asked, changing the subject.

"Not any time soon," Ezra replied. "Searching a temple from top to bottom isn't a quick task."

Aphra smirked. "Then what's to stop us from killing you now you've told us that, and getting on with things?" she asked - rhetorically, Luke hoped.

Ezra returned her smile. "If you were going to kill me, you would have done it already," he said. "Don't try to hide it; this padawan here doesn't have the stomach for killing."

Aphra let out a small bark of laughter, although Luke couldn't see why. He would have thought it was just part of the bluff, but that wasn't what the Force was telling him. And she regretted it… for some reason. He shook his head. It didn't matter right now.

"You keep calling me a padawan," he said. "Why?"

"That was what the Jedi called the children they stole when they sent them out onto the battlefield," the Inquisitor replied, with venom.

"What do you mean?" That made no sense. Probably Imperial propaganda. What little Luke had managed to find about Jedi on the holonet had been clearly only that; he hadn't read it. Perhaps he should have, just to see what sort of lies people like Ezra were being fed.

Ezra shook his head. "You won't believe me. I can feel it - you think I've been brainwashed. That they lied to me. I heard these things from Jedi holocrons kept under lock and key on Mustafar. The Jedi didn't hide what they did, what they believed. They just had everyone fooled into thinking that was the only possible way to use the Force, and they suppressed, supplanted and destroyed every other Force tradition in the galaxy for generations!"

"If you can feel that much of my thoughts," Luke replied, fighting to keep his calm, "then you can feel that I'm going to decide this for myself. Once I get into the temple's heart, then I'll see what the Jedi artifacts show. Perhaps it will agree with you, but I don't think so."

Ezra was clearly thinking about something. He glanced over at Aphra, who had been uncharacteristically quiet throughout all of this. Luke hadn't known her very long, but it was obvious that she usually had something to say about everything. But the Force was… well, even a smuggler and an archaeologist wouldn't know much about the Force. Han didn't, and he had been born before the Clone Wars. Aphra certainly had too. There was a long moment of silence, and then Ezra seemed to decide.

"If you really will believe the evidence of your own eyes and ears… if that's what it takes for me to persuade you… then I'll help you."

"What?" Aphra shouted, losing her composure for a second..

"You'll… what?" Luke didn't know how to react.

"I'll help you," Ezra repeated. "To get into the center of the temple. Of course," he added, "if it makes it easier for you and your friend here to accept, please do assume I have plenty of ulterior motives for this - beyond the obvious, I mean."

"No," Aphra said immediately. "Absolutely not. That's a terrible idea and we are not doing it."

That's what Luke might have thought too at first, but he wasn't really so sure. He trusted the Force, even if he didn't have enough experience with it to be confident that he was reading its eddies and currents correctly, but he could feel it nudging him, telling him that this was the path he ought to take. If they did this, then something good would come of it. The Force was less specific about what.

"Wait," he said. "Let's think about this. Even if the ship isn't expecting to hear from him soon, if we have to spend a few days finding our own way into the temple, that's going to change. We don't have much time. This is a chance to get what we need now, and get out."

"He's going to double-cross us!" Aphra shouted. "You cannot be this naive!"

"You came here to hide from the Empire," Luke said. "And obviously Ezra coming here means you'll have to leave, go somewhere else, but you might at least get something out of it, right?" He was hoping that, like Han when they'd first met him, the promise of credits would be the best way to persuade her that this was the right thing to do.

"Nothing's worth dying, Luke," Aphra said, clearly furious. "I'd like to live to spend all these credits I put my ass on the line for!"

Ezra was watching them calmly. He seemed to be willing to wait and see how this played out. Or maybe he was worried Aphra would just shoot him if he said anything more - she was angry enough right now that Luke wouldn't entirely put it past her.

"The Force is telling me we should do this," he said, trying another tactic.

Aphra rolled her eyes. "The Force is the Force, whatever! Did you maybe think that he's better at it than you? If there's any way to lie using the Force, I can bet he'd know it."

"I don't think the Force works that way," Luke said, a little hesitant. Ben had never mentioned anything like that, he'd always said to trust the Force, but then Ben hadn't told him a lot of things. He hadn't had time to tell him a lot of things.

"But you don't know, do you," Aphra said, sensing victory and looking triumphant. "No, what we should be doing is leaving this guy right here, since you won't kill him, and high tailing it off this planet. There's bound to be other mud-balls out there where you can learn about the Jedi, and in the meantime, don't you have the Rebel Alliance to get back to?"

"No," Luke replied resolutely. "I'm not leaving. I don't know that I'm going to get another chance and I need to know about whatever's inside the temple."

Aphra made a wordless noise of frustration. Her glare was white-hot, but Luke had seen scarier. Mostly from Leia, come to think of it…

"You don't have to stay," Luke continued. "If you want to leave, you should. This isn't your fight."

"And leave you alone with this guy? No chance," Aphra replied. "I'd rather not have your death on my conscience, thanks ever so much."

"If you're staying, then we're going with my plan. Ezra's plan, I mean."

"Are all Rebels as nerf-headed as you?"

"Some of them."

"Then fine!" Aphra said, then turned her glare on Ezra. "And I'll be watching you every step. Make a move, and the blaster bolt to your spine will be the last thing you ever know."

"Trust me," Ezra said with a smirk. "The feeling's mutual."

She could not believe this kid! What kind of arrogant idiot would trust an Inquisitor, would just… let them go free to wander around murdering them whenever they felt like it! This was literally the worst plan she had ever heard of in her life, and Aphra was including in that some of the questionable ones she had made when she was first starting out in this line of work. Kriff, how in all the stars and heavens was she going to keep this guy alive long enough for Vader to get his hands on him?

She tried to calm herself with the reminder that Bridger had seen Vader's code, that he couldn't possibly be as stupid as Skywalker was, and therefore wasn't about to actually kill them both. Small comfort. If only she'd had some warning of where that conversation might go beforehand, then she could have ordered the Inquisitor not to speak about the Temple or about Force-stuff at all. Instead he had taken advantage of the fact that she couldn't interrupt without giving the game away to lead them off on this goose-chase, keep them here until… what? There must be some kind of plan in this.

Keep them here until reinforcements arrived, in the form of whoever had sent him in the first place? If it was Karbin or Tagge, then that was just about the only thing that stood a chance of saving Bridger from Lord Vader's wrath. So perhaps that was it. She couldn't see any other legitimate reason. Certainly Bridger couldn't really hope that this would somehow lead Skywalker to join them or go over to the 'Dark Side'. Not after what he'd revealed during their fight.

Could he?

She watched as Luke drew his lightsaber just long enough to cut through the cabling keeping the Inquisitor tied up, deactivating it and clipping it back onto his belt quickly. Bridger took some time to stretch and work the kinks out of his muscles from being confined in one position. He gave her an awkward smile that might have been meant as conciliatory, but she was having none of it.

She was going to have to be quick and clever and think on her feet if she wanted to get herself and the kid out of this in one piece.

Ezra was seriously questioning his own sense of self-preservation. He'd seen the code, he knew who Doctor Aphra was working for. The smart thing would have been to do just what she asked and keep his answers short and sweet, and not go off talking about the Force, about the Jedi, and absolutely not volunteering to help the padawan. Why had he done that? To be honest, the only reason he could give himself was that it had just… felt right.

It wasn't anything the padawan had done - he might be powerful, but even he wasn't strong enough to perform Jedi mind manipulation unconsciously. No, this had been something else, something more subtle. The Force itself. He didn't claim to be particularly attuned to either the will of the Force, or the wills of the Sith made manifest through the Dark Side, but he had still felt it. The Dark Side had been whispering to him, deep down, saying that this boy was someone important, that he should stay close to him. He would even say that it had been strangely… protective? But that didn't make any sense. This Skywalker boy had already proclaimed his allegiance to the Jedi, and he seemed very firm in his convictions.

Although hadn't Ezra been like that once? And he had still been able to learn better in time, with guidance. So perhaps what he was feeling was potential. That if Skywalker were to fall to the Dark Side, then he could be a truly great Sith.

Either way, he had already made this promise, and he had better hold to it.

0 ABY - Nar Shaddaa, Y'Toub system, Hutt Space

In the end, Inspector Thanoth had been easier to dispose of than he had expected. After losing Aphra despite the trap that had been set for her and the seeming impossibility of escape, the Inspector had not been presented in the best light. As Vader had had no knowledge of that particular aspect of the plan, when Tagge called the both of them to account, it was easy enough to shift the blame. Since Tagge had been in a foul mood in any case - for that pitiful pair of false-Inquisitors Morit and Aiolin had also failed in their task of eliminating the Plasma Devils - he had been in no mood for mercy.

So that had been the last of Inspector Thanoth. A pity in some ways - he could have been useful, if the circumstances had been different.

For the moment however, Vader had one more task to complete for Tagge before he would find himself free to travel to Vrogas Vas and retrieve his son. Perhaps Tagge meant to throw him this scrap because he feared Vader's temper might heat to a boiling point were he not to be indulged a little, or perhaps it was meant as a taunt. It mattered little - Vader welcomed this mission. Apparently his son had run into some difficulties on Nar Shaddaa prior to travelling to Vrogas Vas and now he would have the pleasure of interrogating a Hutt to find out what information he might have gleaned about his son during their brief contact.

Although his pleasure was short-lived. Tagge had not seen fit to inform him of the precise nature of that contact.

How dare he! How dare this slug even think of presuming to ownership of his son! His child was free, had been born free, should never have known the pain, the indignity of being a slave. And of course it would have been a Hutt. Vader remembered Hutts. He remembered Gardulla. He remembered how they treated their property.

Sergeant Kreel - once of his own 501st, long since seconded to the ISB and the Inquisitorius due to his particular talents - finished his recounting of the events with clear hesitancy. Vader could feel his apprehension, verging on fear. He did not know how to interpret Vader's silence, but the slight degree of Force-sensitivity he possessed was sure to leave him aware of the white-hot rage that was burning within him right now, drawing the Dark Side with it. It was filling the room, a heavy blanket of power summoned by his hate, thirsting to obey his will.

Grakkus sat in the corner of the room that held his treasures, chained and under heavy guard. His cybernetic legs had been de-activated.

Tagge would be angry if he killed him. The Emperor would be angry. The Hutts were too powerful and too useful to take action against in this way, even though this sleemo had been collecting forbidden Jedi artefacts. That wouldn't be enough of an excuse.

Vader did not care.

Grakkus did not deserve a quick death. Choking would be too swift for the likes of him. But this was a room full of weapons. And the Dark Side was eager to allow him to use them.

When the crate lid slid open, the stormtroopers stirred nervously. When a dozen lightsabers floated up out of it they took a step backwards. Grakkus chuckled, but Vader could feel his terror. "Of course, these artifacts are the Empire's now," the Hutt said, fat tongue slithering over his lips. "I am sure you will deal with them as…"

The sabers activated in mid-air. The first two took the slug's arms off at the shoulder. His screams mixed pleasingly with the shocked cries of the troopers. Vader stalked closer, hand raised, directing the movements of the blades dancing around the Hutt. The slaver recovered enough to croak out some pitiful, useless protests; that he could not do this, not to someone as important as Grakkus, that he had allies, that Vader would make enemies the Empire would not want. He ignored them. The words were unimportant. All that was important was that the Hutt suffer.

Slowly, methodically, from the tail upwards, Darth Vader began to carve up the creature that had dared to threaten his son.

0 ABY, Temple Ruins, Vrogas Vas, Outer Rim

Ezra was wasting no time in making good on his promise. As the padawan had pointed out, his ship was not going to wait forever to hear from him, and although it would be easy enough to contact them and order them to stay well away from this kriff-storm of a mission, it would be a lot harder to make that action believable to the boy. Luke, that had been the name Doctor Aphra had given him. Luke Skywalker.

Ezra frowned. That name was familiar somehow. As though he had heard it in a story a very long time ago.

Well, no time to go digging through his memories trying to work it out, at least not right now when he had much more immediate problems to worry about. Besides, sometimes these things came quicker when you just let them be worked out subconsciously. All that mattered was that Luke was Lord Vader's target, that he was a member of the Rebel Alliance, and that Aphra's mission seemed to be to use him to infiltrate the Rebel Fleet. That Luke was also a padawan seemed just a secondary bonus right now, although no doubt that killing him or turning him would please Lord Vader when he brought the inevitable strike force crashing down on the Rebels.

Would it please him more if he arrived to find that the boy had already made the first steps towards joining the Dark Side? Ezra really hoped so. It was likely to be the only thing that would save his neck.

Luke was currently leading their little group through the temple passages to the deepest point he had thus far been able to reach. He and Ezra were at the front, that little astromech droid directly behind them with his shock-probe extended in case of any 'funny business', and Doctor Aphra was bringing up the rear with a rucksack full of light-emitters and a scowl aimed at Ezra's back. So far there hadn't been any opportunity for her to get him alone, but the moment there was, Ezra was sure he was not going to enjoy what followed.

He pushed the thought out of his mind. Focus. The Force was strong here, the Light Side especially so. The Jedi here would have cultivated it over the years, although the presence of a large group of Force-users tended to leave a residue of themselves upon any place they spent a considerable time anyway. Just take Mustafar as an example; the whole planet was enveloped in the Dark Side. It barely took the slightest brush of anger to reach out and touch it. Of course, the original Jedi inhabitants of this world would have been from a time when the Old Order was much more spread out, before they decided to consolidate their power in the political centre of the galaxy, no doubt so that they could better manipulate events to their liking. The temple had lain long abandoned, and the Force was beginning to return to a wilder, less focused state.

And even in the strongest stronghold of the Light, the Dark was always there. It just required more from you to come to your call.

They were coming up onto a place where the Force became thicker. Luke stopped them at an intersection of several passages. He looked… unfocused. His Force-presence, still ridiculously strong, was pulsing as though uncertain.

"Here," he said, sounding apologetic. "Here's where it starts to have this effect on me… I just get all turned around. I think I'm taking the right passage, but I just end up right back where I started. I tried marking them, but it didn't seem to matter."

Ezra reached out his senses, feeling the shape of the Force here. He could see what Luke meant. The Force was like a barrier here, meant to confuse, to turn aside those who sought to enter. It was easy enough to push it away if you knew what it was. It wasn't a lack of willpower the padawan was lacking, just the training to know what to do with it.

"I don't feel any different," Aphra said from behind him, a little too close to be comfortable.

"You wouldn't," Ezra replied. "This is only meant as a barrier to Force-sensitives. The dangers ahead wouldn't be of any concern to those who can't use the Force. But the reason it's here is as a test. If you can get past this, then you are ready to face what comes next. If you aren't ready, then this will protect you from walking right into trouble."

Luke's resolve wavered for a moment, then firmed again. It was amazing how little shielded he was. It was only the sheer strength of him that prevented Ezra reading every flicker of emotion that went across his mind - it was a bit overwhelming to look that close.

If he had lived anywhere less remote than Tatooine, there would have been no chance he could have gone unnoticed to the Inquisitorius. They would have sensed him from orbit.

"So tell me how to make myself ready," Luke said.

"Wait just one minute," Aphra said behind them, clearly angry. "Didn't Bridger just say that going further without being properly trained was dangerous? I didn't stick around to watch you get killed by some vague Force trap Luke!"

"I don't think the Jedi would have filled one of their Temples with deadly traps though," Luke protested.

Ezra rolled his eyes. "Of course they would," he replied. "The Jedi Trials of Knighthood weren't a walk in the park. If you failed, that was it. Although to them failure meant a lot of different things."

"What do you mean?"

"Not just not being strong enough," Ezra answered. "The trials also tested the padawan's adherence to their philosophy. Playing on their emotions, trying to make them use the Dark Side. If they did, they failed, and they would be trapped forever. Until, I'm gonna assume, they died from lack of food and water."

"And you're willing to lead me into that?" Luke asked skeptically. "Won't you end up trapped, using the Dark Side?"

"That's why I'm relying on you," Ezra admitted. "I'm hoping your strength is going to win out over lack of training. Although if it doesn't, then I know how to use the Dark Side properly, which is more than could be said of any Jedi who fell into using it by accident during a trial. I think that should be enough to get us both out. And if we do end up trapped, then Aphra can pull us out. Seeing as she won't be affected by anything in there."

"If I have to pull anyone out, I'm leaving you in there," Aphra replied with heat.

Ezra shrugged. "Luke'll make you rescue me," he replied. "I hope."

"It's not going to come to that," Luke said, clearly trying to be diplomatic. "Now, let's get on with this. How do I get past the barrier?"

Ezra sighed. "It's… not something you can explain, or a holocron could do it. It's much easier to show you."

"Show me by using the Dark Side?"

"I don't know how to do it any other way," Ezra said, although… that wasn't quite true. He remembered there had been the temple on Lothal. He remembered… but all that was in the past. It belonged to a person who wasn't him anymore. "Just… reach out and feel what I'm doing."

He took a deep breath, in then out, and centered himself. Here he was, the Twelfth Brother, and he knew himself. He was anger, anger at a galaxy which had not allowed him to be strong enough to protect those he loved, not until it was too late. He was anger that became power, became justice. He was a weapon in his own hands, an instrument of his own will. He was the darkness, forged and made solid, a blade to cut through that which was unimportant down to what mattered. He was, and the Force was how he was manifest in the world.

Doubts didn't matter. Uncertainty didn't matter. Confusion didn't matter.

Forget the unimportant. Let it burn away in the fires of anger, leaving only the cold core that was you.

And then walk through the mists of disorientation and distraction to the truth that was on the other side.

Ezra stepped forwards, through the gateway to the temple depths, to the other side of the barrier, with the Dark Side wrapped around him like a cloak. Then he turned back, to see Luke watching him with intense concentration, clearly fighting the effect that told him that Ezra was no longer there, that nothing was there and that he should turn back and return to the outskirts of the temple.

"I think… I think I understand," the padawan said quietly. "I think I can do it. Do it my way, I mean."

This would be interesting to see. Ezra let some of the purity of the Dark Side slip away - it wasn't easy to maintain that certainty of self and purpose for long without some sort of goal to aim towards - and leaned against the wall to watch. Luke approached the gateway, stopping just shy of the edge of the barrier, and sank to his knees in a meditative pose. He closed his eyes, and reached out into the Force.

It had been hard to look at the brightness of his Force presence before - it was far worse when he was actively trying. Ezra had to withdraw into himself for his own protection, hiding behind his own shields. The padawan was calling the Force to him, unlike a Jedi who would have only opened himself up and allowed the Force to come or not as it willed, but he wasn't calling on the Dark Side - at least, he wasn't calling on anything using his anger, or his hate, both of which Ezra knew he had within him. What was he thinking about, in there? What was this boy's sense of himself?

It was becoming almost impossible to tell where Luke ended and the Force began in the wash of it that surrounded him, that surrounded all of them now. Still with his eyes closed, Luke slowly got to his feet and walked forwards, the barrier wrapping around him as he went. He didn't so much penetrate it as slip through it. Then the Force gradually drained away, and Luke opened his eyes, blinking.

"It worked!" he exclaimed, grinning enthusiastically.

Ezra didn't reply. Luke didn't seem to have any idea how strong he was, how strange he was, how different. Just what was this boy?

"Well done both of you on walking forwards ten feet," Aphra called to them, although Ezra could tell it was meant as gentle teasing. "So can I come join you now or what?" She didn't wait for a reply, but started approaching before Ezra could object.

"I'm not sure that's the best idea," he said. "The tests won't affect you directly, but that doesn't mean we will be safe to be around when we're caught up in them. We might not recognise you - or we might think you're someone else entirely."

"So I'll hang back a bit," Aphra replied. "But if you think I'm waiting for you out here, well…" She gave him a meaningful look.

"Thank you Aphra," Luke said. "I feel better knowing you're going to be around."

Ezra sighed. Luke was going to get a nasty shock when he found out who Aphra was working for, that was for sure. "Let's get going then."

The corridor stretched out ahead of them, enveloped in shadow. He could feel the anticipation in the Force, the feeling of being watched, of the curiosity of that not-quite-sentience. Or sentience on some other level very far apart from that of humanity. The old Jedi had set forth their commandments to it, their criteria, and the Force was still following them all these centuries later.

He led the way onwards, towards the tests he knew were coming.