This story has more action than I've written in a long time. I've kinda missed it and hopefully there will be more action scenes in the future. No kidding, I can actually see this story having more than 50 chapters but I don't know if I have the stamina to write that much. We'll see as the story progresses! I have a ton of ideas that I hope I can get around to soon!
Happy Reading!
Chapter 2
Vader closed his eyes, letting his rage swell and consume him, trying to force the world around him to react to the power of the emotions he was feeling. The ground should tremble and trees bend to his will. But none of that happened. The world around him was calm and in the distance, the sweet songs of birds continued to be sung as if his presence meant nothing. A low growl started in his throat and erupted into a roar as he turned to face the Jedi. She looked as confused as he felt but perhaps this is the advantage he needs. While neither of them seemed to have the Force as an ally, he still had his size and brute strength. What did she have? She stood about a foot shorter than him and her frame narrow. He could crush her here and now and then worry about getting away from this wretched place.
His red blade hummed as he started to approach her slowly before charging her head on. The Jedi readied herself, bringing her blade up in a defensive stance meeting his blade as he made his attack. She spun low, ducking under his cut that would have decapitated her before leaping high as he countered with a sweeping low cut. Vader continued to pile attack after attack on the Jedi, using speed and strength to try and overpower her. She kept to a defensive strategy, blocking and spinning out of the way of over-charged attacks and only attacking frequently enough to throw him off. She stuck to the balls of her feet, continuously moving backward under his attacks and after one powerful side-swiping cut, she ducked under his arm, running fast and out of the way of the tree his lightsaber had cut clean through. The unbalanced tree trunk hissed as the blade cut through the full width and slowly started to topple over right on top of him.
Vader had been so focused on his prey he hadn't noticed she had been guiding him right where she wanted him until it was too late. The tree started to fall picking up speed as it neared the ground. Diving out of the way, he rolled before the trunk crushed him only to find a green lightsaber in his face. Reigniting his own blade, he beat the blade out of his face, leaping to his feet and meeting her attack with his own. He pressed her, trying to force her to submit under his strength alone but she was stubborn. Despite the way her knees sunk lower and lower against his strength, she would not give in. The Jedi eventually maneuvered out of his hold, spinning to pick up momentum before using a tree to spring herself up into the air above him. Her blade came down over his head. Vader jumped back out of the way but she kept coming. Landing on the ground, she pushed off again, this time feinting to his leg before diverting her blade at the last moment to his face. His eyes went wide when he realized his error and closed them as he cried out from the sparks flying against his face.
The Jedi landed a few feet behind him but made no move to finish the job. Vader took the moments reprieve to level out his breathing. His eyes squinted as the visual receptors in the mask started to fail and his left eye was exposed to the bright natural light. Slowly he turned to face her but she was gone. Without the Force, he could not locate her. The sound of a lightsaber igniting was his only warning as she attacked from his side. Vader blocked her attack, only to stumble back from the surprise attack and she knew she now had the upper-hand. She pressured her attack until he fell flat on his back and her blade came down fast, cutting straight through his right hand. Vader roared in pain as he brought his singed arm to his chest, ignoring the green blade that was pointed at his face.
"Do it, Jedi," He hissed. "Finish it."
Her eyes narrowed at him for a moment, looking hard at the stump she had left, most likely noticing for the first time that his arm was not made of flesh and blood but of metal and wires. The Jedi lowered her blade and deactivated it, "No," She said. "Murder is not the Jedi way." Turning away from him, she started to walk away from him.
"Then you guarantee your own demise!" He shouted.
"Maybe," She said, turning her head to look back at him, "But at least I know I've bought myself a few days to get off this world. Without the Force, you won't be able to beat me with just your offhand."
He watched as she disappeared into the forest, waiting to see if she would change her mind but she didn't. Vader scoffed as he rolled onto his knees clutching his arm to his chest. Typical Jedi. Even in exile, they clung to their idealistic philosophy while refusing to accept the truth of the galaxy. Victory is not just besting an opponent in combat but ensuring that they never get the opportunity to seek revenge. It is because of this that the Jedi are all but extinct. They had their chance to snuff out the Sith generations ago but they didn't and that mistake inevitably led to the ultimate victory of his own master.
Glancing down at the stump of his hand, he inspected the wiring carefully counting each frayed wire and assessing the full extent of the damage of the hand laying in the grass. There was little doubt that the limb itself was in fairly good condition but it would be nearly impossible for him to repair it completely. He did keep spare limbs in his rooms on his Star Destroyer but there was no telling how long it would take for his men to find him. And should the Rebels arrive before them, he was bound to become their prisoner. Vader stiffly got to his feet, taking the severed hand with him as he backtracked through the forest back to where his ship had crashed. The medical kit he kept on his TIE fighter was better than the ones the average pilot had on their ships, his being specially designed for his unique needs. Spare parts for his respirator, tools for his prosthesis, as well as the typical bandages and bacta patches and disinfectant found in every kit.
A light rain had started to fall by the time he reached his still smoking ship. Dark clouds inched towards him, warning of an impending downfall but with only one arm and no access to the Force, he would not be able to build a proper shelter. instead, he rummaged through his wreckage, pulling out the medical kit and emergency supplies and set up a small camp huddled under one of up-turned wings while he got to work trying to salvage his arm. There wasn't much he could do with what he had but he was confident he could get it at least semi-functional. The speed of the rain increased slowly as he worked, laying his arm over a small pile of scrap metal he was using as a table, he deactivated the nerve response as he set about removing the singed ends of the wires. It wasn't easy to do with rain pelting down and water dripping onto his head, but he continued to work, using spare wires from his kit to reconnect the arm to the hand.
Hours passed slowly as he reconfigured the limb, securing the hand in place with electrical tape. His hand was not perfect and much sensation had been lost from the heat of a lightsaber cutting through the limb but he could move it. His middle and ring fingers were stiff and didn't flex as well as they should but he had enough range of motion to get by with. Pulling his helmet off, he glanced at the gaping slash that had cut through the black metal. Damaged beyond repair, he tossed the helmet against a tree and pulled his cloak tightly around his shoulders as tried to keep dry in the storm but with little success. His clothes were drenched and water dripped down his face constantly. He needed to make a better shelter once the storm lets up, set up the emergency beacon, and find a source of food and water to sustain him until help arrived. But until the rain did let up, he was stuck waiting. Vader had never been a patient man, the kind who preferred action to words and one that was always working on something. Combat training, working on droids or ships… it was only when he was asleep or in a bacta tank that he was completely still.
With nothing else to do, his mind drifted to the Jedi. When he'd passed her ship on the way back to his, he hadn't seen any sign of her. Perhaps she figured the crash site a too obvious place to make camp or maybe she found a cave to set up in. He wondered if she had already set up her emergency beacon before the storm started. If she had, maybe the Rebels were already on their way. That meant he would definitely need to find a different camp. Vader squeezed his eyes tightly shut as he let out a yawn and rolled his shoulders, feeling the bones crack as he relaxed into the crude stool he'd made from scrap metal. Glancing at the dark sky, he hoped the rain would stop soon.
Drip…
Drip…
Vader scrunched his eyes shut tighter against the light tapping of water against his face, his body fighting to stay asleep despite the annoyance. Light streaked through a crack in his shelter, shining into his eye and the smell of rain still lingered in the air. At some point during the storm he had fallen asleep now, hours later and closer to dawn, the rain had finally stopped but instead of getting started with setting up a means of rescue, he wished he could just sleep a little while longer. He was tired and stiff and sleep was always hard for him to come by. Prophetic visions had haunted him since he was young and terrible memories plagued his dreams more often than not. As uncomfortable as he was sleeping against the cold hull of his ship and despite knowing how urgent a rescue was, he wanted to enjoy what little dreamless sleep he could.
Drip…
Drip…
With an angry grunt, he opened his eyes and pushed his shoulder against his ship, righting himself. Anger flowed through him as he had been rudely awoken by the rain dripping through the cracks. Sleep would not come back easily to him and it certainly would be interrupted again if he didn't make a more sturdy roof. Dragging his hand down his face, he wiped the water away and stood, swaying slightly, he braced his hand against the ship's hull, shaking his head to try and clear it of its lethargy. Vader let out a shaky breath as he started to walk, shaking out the sleep from him as best he could. Mud squished beneath his boots and covered him past the ankle, some splashing up to dot the lower half of his cloak and near the top of his knee-high boots where his pants were tucked. His clothes were still wet from the rain, soaking through to his skin underneath and making him feel cold. Vader ignored it, climbing back up his ship and jumping down into the cockpit to activate the emergency beacon. Firing it up, the red indicator started to blink, alerting him that the Imperial distress signal was working. Now all he had to do was wait. With luck, it would be only a matter of hours before help arrived. And when it did, he would have an army at his command to hunt down the Jedi. Sheer numbers would crush her just as it had when the Jedi were caught off guard during the Jedi Purges.
Vader walked around the wreckage of his ship and assessed the positioning of it. Without the Force, he had to be careful how he rearranged the wreckage especially if he didn't want it falling on top of him while he slept. Grabbing a large piece of metal debris, he started to carefully dig on the opposite side from where he slept. The rain had softened the ground enough that he could sink his ship a little farther down into the mud. Without full use of his dominant hand, the work passed slowly and much slower than his working pace, the ship started to sink further down into the mud, tilting to the side until the partially torn off wing he had been using as a canopy stood at a higher angle and one he could prop up with a big enough piece of debris. Satisfied with the angle, he used the edge of the metal he had been using to dig, to pile the mud against the ship, in an effort to give it a sturdier foundation and one that he hoped would hold up. He then walked the length of the crash site picking up any large piece of metal he could. With his lightsaber, he heated the larger pieces together until they were high enough to reach the wing of his ship. Propping the makeshift beam in the mud, he buried the base of it and used it to keep the rest of the wing from falling down. Holes still dotted the wing and with smaller pieces of metal, he heated them enough that he could patch them to the wing itself. Standing back from his work, he checked to make sure it could hold up while checking through his rations for something else to eat. His stomach rumbled. tired, hungry and thirsty, he quickly realized he didn't have enough food to sate his appetite and with night falling, he wanted to make sure he found something edible and a water source before morning. Heaving a sigh, he re-clipped his lightsaber to his belt and began the search for supplies.
He walked slowly through the forest as if on autopilot, examining what he could to try and track activity in the area that could lead to an edible food source. He'd found traces that indicated an animal had passed through but found no way to track its current location. The chills that rippled through his body distracted him and he knew very little of the creatures that dwelled on this unknown planet. Still, he walked, trying to keep track of the direction his camp was in. Vader panted as he walked, his pace slowing unexpectedly until he stopped completely. His vision had been spinning for some time and he had been able to ignore it but now no matter how much he tried to push past it, he couldn't. Even the simple task of putting one foot in front of the other had him stumbling even standing still he could feel the ground beneath his feet spinning as if trying to knock him over. Something was wrong. But the realization came too late as darkness shouted his vision and he felt himself fall.