Summary: What if something in Anakin's life went different after he made the transformation to Darth Vader. Watch the Star Wars Universe change as Vader strides to make the biggest mark on the Galaxy he can.
DISCLAIMER: This story is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Lucasfilm Ltd or any of its subsidiaries, employees, or associates. Godramm makes no claim to own Star Wars or any of the copyrights or trademarks related to it. Any ideas that are recognizable is owned and are copyrighted to Lucasfilm Limited or another partner of Lucas Licensing, or to the creator of the image.
A/N This story starts at the beginning of Chapter 10 of Lost Stars right after the Death Star was destroyed.
Chapter 1, Rescuing Lord Vader
A stone face commander walked up to the white faced Ciena Reed and the young lieutenant who was standing next to her, a shocked look on her face. Ciena had just figure out that a friend of her's that was stationed on the Death Star had figured out a fatal flaw to the massive moon sized base.
"Lieutenant Ree and Lieutenant Sai, take a Clone Wars era Sheathipede Class Shuttle to rondevu with Lord Vader and bring him back to the Devastator."
Ciena let out a breath that she hadn't know she was holding. Darth Vader was still alive. While him being alive could state that the worst case scenario hadn't happened on the Death Star, she wasn't very hopeful.
She shook her head to get the thought out of her mind, she didn't want to think of the worst case scenario, because if it was the she had lost not only her only friends; the Empire had lost over a million people in one shot.
After a moment the officer before her continued. "You will disclose your mission to no one, not during your journey or any time after. You will keep communication silence unless ordered by Lord Vader to do otherwise. The only other time you can break silence if the rondevu doesn't take place. If this would to happen contact me personally, I have put my contact info into the Shuttle already."
Ciena looked over to Sai and had notice her face had shifted to one carved from stone.
"You are dismissed and good luck you two." With that the officer left the bridge and Ciena was left to her own thoughts. Jude had been her friend ever since they had went to the Imperial Academy together on Coruscant.
Coruscant had been her hardest challenge yet. She had been the top of her close while she was there however her friendship with Thane had died. However, if her suspicions were true, a lot more then her friendship had died with the Death Star.
She went back to her bunker and grabbed everything she would need, thankfully they weren't too far away from where the Death Star was stationed at.
Once she had everything she went to the hangar bay where she was waved onto her Shuttle by Sai who had been waiting for her to arrive. She loaded up everything onto the Sheathipede and relaxed into the pilot seat as she piloted the craft out in the blackness of space. She set up their destination and turn the hyperdrive on, blue hyper space lines filled in view of the shuttle as Ciena finally relaxed.
As they flew through space Ciena realized that Sai was nothing like she was on the Devastator. "What are we supposed to do?" She had stated while they looked out the main window of the shuttle. "The Death Star is completely silent, and yet we are just going to fly all the way over there without permission to dock."
Ciena looked at her with a dumbstruck look. 'Of course they would send a small ship to go check out what happened. If they get there and the Death Star was still there then there was nothing to worry about, if it wasn't then they wouldn't really need permission to dock now would they.
"It will all become clear once we get there." Ciena said knowly to the complaining Lieutenant.
"Why are you so sure? It won't make any more sense than it does now." The woman face changed all of a sudden to a more smiling face as she turned to Ciena. "By the way, my name is Berisse." Her brilliant smile shown brightly against her tanned skin that was hued blue due to hyperspace. She was stout with tight braided shining hair.
Ciena and her talked conversationally while the flew across space. Ciena told her how she was only put onto the Devastator only a few short weeks she had jumped at the chance to show her around and even gave her sorrow for Nash who was a native of Alderaan when it had been destroyed. However she had said it was hard that he had to know his whole planet had been traitors, not mentioning the fact they had been completely destroyed.
They would have continued by the sensors blared to life.
"Yaven!" Berisse yelled. "Ciena drop us out of hyperspace." She was back in Imperial mode.
"You got it." Ciena hit off the switch and the blue hyper trails slowly went away. She too went back to being official as the dread from earlier had filled her body once more.
What Ciena could have expected was nothing like this. It was complete hell. Twisted metal and debris filled her viewport she gasped. No two piece were the same and many were varying shade of color, some being the gray that had once been the Death Star to others being a rainbow of colors, most likely closer to the core that had been destroyed.
"I.. I can't believe it." Berisse had said softly. "It… it's gone. Completely gone. "
The Death Star was gone, just like how Jude had stated it would. 'Fatal' was the key word in what she saw before her. Everyone was dead.
She had known well over a dozen people that had been station on there. Jude included. "Look through my eyes" She sounded hollow even to herself. Her sister had saw many things since Ciena had been sent to the Croissant Imperial Academy, but nothing as horrible as this. Aldaron was bad, but she hadn't known anyone there and while it was painful to see Nash so torn up over his planet, Alderaan had been subject to rebel territory.
She look down to her systems and saw what they had came for. "Lord Vader's signal!" A slight bit of hope filled her once more. Lord Vader had indeed survived.
His signal was on the edge of the debris field that filled the Yavin System.
Ciena now realized that her mission was not only to retrieve Darth Vader, but was to confirm the destruction of the Death Star.
She went onto auto pilot on her mind as she got closer to Lord Vader's Custom Tie Fighter. It was severely damaged with missing one of its Solar Array Wings and some of the Wing Pylon. Black marks convered the once shiny surface.
"Activating Air lock sequence." Ciena said flipping a few switches.
"3.. 2..1." Berisse hit the activation switch a few of a quartet of docking abilla cables from the belly of their shuttle.
With a loud click they attached to the top of the Tie Fighter and started to bring the mangled Fighter to the Stealthipode
"Have you ever met Lord Vader?" Berisse had asked out of nowhere. Taken aback Ciena stumble across her words.
"A… a no. I haven't.
"Well then I'll let you go back there and greet him." Most of the time Imperial wanted to be first to meet a commanding officer of a higher rank to look for quick advancement. Ciena didn't however care to much about advancement as long as she stayed loyal to the Empire that's all she cared about. However Ciena didn't believe for one moment Berisse was doing her any favors.
She stood there at the air lock system, her head swimming with thoughts. 'They say he's a great man. They say he even has the Emperor's favor. He can even bend the force to his will.' She couldn't believe someone could control it some completely.
She was looking for someone she could now look up to, a officer she could strive to please and Vader, no matter how powerful was a officer of the Empire. Feeling a wave of calm rush over her body she walked through the now opening locking system.
She could hear his breath as the sound of his respirator rong throughout the hanger bay. As she walked closer she saw him for the first time and she felt as if she couldn't breath.
Lord Vader was tall, his signature black helmet showed nothing, but pain for those who defied him. His chest box light up brightly as the buttons flashed in front of her. Her knees gave out before her and she knelt in front of the man they called Darth Vader.
She couldn't believe how terrifying and intimidating this man truly was. She had heard the stories that he taken on 1000's of men of once but those were just tales. There before her was the real deal.
With as much determination as she could she pushed out her voice to greet the man before her. "Lord Vader, it's a honor." It was painful, her collar felt to tight and she couldn't bring her head up, her honor not letting her. This man deserved respect and she was going to give it to him.
"Rise, tell me are you here on the Emperor's command?" His powerful voice blasted through her as she slowly rose to her feet.
"We received our orders from the staff of the Devastator Lord Vader." She said with her head bowed before him. "I do not know if they got their orders from the Emperor Sir."
She waited for a long moment as she looked through her eyelashes at the being before her. Finally after what felt like forever he spoke. "Tell me, what's your name?"
Her name? Lord Vader wanted to know her name? Shocked she stuttered out. "Cie… Ciena. Ciena Reed my lord."
Lord Vader stood there with his respirator being the only thing sounding in the room. He was going to say something, but was interrupted by a bang hitting the top of the ship. Ciena listened carefully as she heard what was footsteps on top of the roof. She tensed up as the footsteps got closer than where the main door would be on the outside.
The sounds stopped for a moment then a sharp hiss for outside told her something troubling just happened. Power then slowly started fading away from the shuttle. Ciena filled with fear then, what ever was on top of their ship knew how to eliminate their power supply. She looked over to Lord Vader who hadn't moved a inch.
"Relax." Was the deep voice of Darth Vader that creaked her tension in her body. She looked back at the airlock door which she had entered through and tried to steady herself. She relaxed her body and stood straighter as a sound of screeching metal filled her ears. She realized at that point whatever was making their way to them also had the ability to cut through the steel as well.
All of a sudden it went as quiet as a mouse except for the deep sound of Lord Vader's respirator filling the room. That was quickly eliminated as a red beam pierced the door that Ciena and Vader were in. Her eyes went huge as the door squeal in protest from the heat of the beam.
Ciena watch on in shock and awe as the beam moved in a circle shape along the airlock door. Finally it stopped once the shape was completed, smoke from the hot gashes filling the room as a large BANG filled her ears. The metal shard flew from its original space and past Lord Vader and herself, missing the first only by a few inches.
Ciena's eye peeled back to where that metal once was as a figure walked through the new opening.
"You're late." Lord Vader spoke up now and the new figure chuckled, a woman's voice Ciena noticed offhandedly.
"Glad to see you too master. Who's your new friend?" The woman's voice asked through the smoke she was walking through.
"Her name is Lieutenant Ciena Ree of Jelucan and Ace Pilot." Lord Vader said calmly as if he had already known her. She looked at Lord Vader then back at the now appearing alien humanoid who now spoke up.
"Awe you are the one my master has had his eye on, greeting. My name is Ahsoka Tano, pleasure to meet you Ciena Ree."
A/N If you have read my other stories and are wondering when will I be updating those don't worry, I am working on all of those as well and will be updating each story one by one. I hoped you have enjoyed this beginning of my dip into the Star Wars Galaxy and hope you enjoyed it.
I also do not have a beta yet so any errors you find would be much appreciated.