Summary: Sidious' descent into the remains of the Ravager continues. His connection to the Dark Side grows stronger.

Notes: My mini-headcanon for this 'verse (thanks, to some extent, to recent revelations in the Aftermath series) is that Sidious' 30 years in Chaos has made some of his Plans fade into the back of his mind...But he's still, on some level, aware of a certain degree of urgency. He has to get off the damn planet. But he can't do it blind. Or alone.

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The Super Star Destroyer Ravager was nearly 12 miles long. When it was space-worthy, it had supported over 5000 turbolaser batteries, and countless varieties of heavy armament. The size of a small city, it had needed 13 fusion engine thrustors to keep it moving; the power equivalent of a small sun. It had housed thousands of troops, the best the Empire had to offer…The ones that Vader hadn't spirited away to the Executor, that is.

An engineering marvel. A Bastion of power. A durasteel creature of destruction.

And now…

Covering his mouth and nose with his scarf helped keep the worst of the sand and dirt and festering chemical vapors, but did nothing to hide the smell of death.

Sidious increased his pace, narrowly avoiding the black liquid dripping from a crack in an exposed pipe overhead. The fluid – likely some form of coolant, going by the noxious, sharp smell – had soaked through the filthy rag that some enterprising soul had wrapped around the pipe. Curses echoed up and down the dim corridor as two of the raiders in front slipped in a disturbingly large pool of the stuff.

Yes, coolant, Sidious thought, wrinkling his nose. A black, flaking mass was accumulating at the edges of the pool, creeping up the bulkhead like a fungus.

Or, rather, he hoped it was coolant. The lack of…remains in the corridors suggested that either the raiders or Jakku's harsh climate had cleaned the ship of the dead. He hoped that they had at least buried the fallen. Or cremated them. In uniform.

No…They'd have stripped the bodies. Stolen the cloth, the belt buckles, the leather boots, the...

If he caught any being wearing a rank plaque…

Palpatine took a deep breath.

Focus. He couldn't afford to lose his composure. Not now. And yet…

He wondered what her Captain would say if he - she…no...it was a She - was there.

Did she go down with her ship, like the Captains of the Ancient Sea?

Possibly. After Endor…Sidious did some quick mental math.

The Ravager would have been the last Super Star Destroyer. Or one of the last…

He wondered, briefly, what might have happened to his own Executor - class warship, the Eclipse.

He swallowed. The realization nearly made him stumble.

I – I don't know.

And he should know. It had been...It had been needed…

Stop it.

Chaos had not been what he'd thought. Then again, it was Chaos. It had probably taken immense pleasure in defying his expectations. In mocking him. The moment the pain ended, his twisted body whispering away to nothing in the reactor core, it had been all that he could do to pull his spirit back together.

Rage. Determination. And…

And he'd needed to do it.

A shudder racked his body, and he let out a muffled gasp as one of the rough beings behind him shoved him out of the way. He barely caught himself before he fell.

I CAN'T DIE YET.

So he hadn't.

And now…

Focus. Information. You need it.

The black maw of his memory would have to wait.

Darth Sidious righted himself and darted back into the crowd, falling easily into the exhausted swagger of the watchmen. He bared his teeth and grinned at the Weequay on his left, the one who'd shoved him. The Sith's eyes snapped with warning.

The alien backed off, lifting his arms in surprised apology and stumbling back a few paces. Sidious' grin broadened, and he strode closer to the front.

He didn't need the Eclipse. Not here.

Sidious gathered his will, and focused on the present. He'd recover his memory. He had to. And it was no time for self-indulgent fantasies. Not even…His jaw clenched. Not even both Skywalkers broken and bleeding at the foot of his throne. Begging…

Focus! Vader was dead…and possibly his son as well.

And who knew what else...

No one in Niima had been able to give him a straight answer about how much time had passed since the fiasco at Endor.

Of course, it was possible that the locals hadn't found out about Endor until long after the fact…Jakku was a world that the Galaxy in general liked to pretend didn't exist.

The only thing that anyone seemed to be sure of was that the Empire was, for all intents and purposes, dead, and the corpse mutilated beyond all recognition. After patching together pieces of conversation from the junk dealers, spice smugglers, and the occasional bounty hunter that wandered in and out of the Outpost, Sidious had constructed a picture of dueling factions, of Grand Admirals turning on Moffs, of the Rebellion whittling away at the edges until centralized command was a thing of the past.

Yes, there was a Remnant, of sorts, but the Rebellion had come out on top, christened itself the New Republic, and commenced making nice with as many systems as possible.

Not that such things had much of an impact on the day-to-day on Jakku.

Sidious winced as an overhead light flickered, and then died.

Given the rate of decay of the insides of the Ravager, he estimated that at least three decades had passed since his original body had been destroyed. Unkar Plutt, he was sure, had a more exact number. The junk dealer kept general track of the days and seasons, after all, to manage the offworld supply lines. Which meant that he should know the Standard run of years.

Sidious just hadn't been able to find a way to ask without raising suspicion. 'What year is it?' was nearly guaranteed to raise a few eyebrows, no matter where he found himself.

They might not even be using the same dating system…

Rey could not tell him much. Her knowledge of the universe was all about survival, on the tools of her trade. He wasn't even sure if she could read… Beyond her blueprints and charts, anyway.

He'd need to change that.

As for less conventional sources of information…Rey tended to avoid the rowdy fireside gatherings, held in the Outpost when there were more offworlders than usual out and about. They'd loll about, talking, gambling, trading, and telling stories, each more outlandish than the last.

Waste of time, she'd snapped, the first time he'd asked about it, hoping for a new (if unlikely) source of information. There was often truth to be found in wild tales…

Once, he'd hung back on the edge of town, watching the fire near the bunkhouse climb high, the roar nearly drowning out the rising din of three different languages, and the clatter of pots and hard rations. She'd tapped his shoulder and, when he'd continued to watch, walked away to their speeder. He remembered her face, gone sharp and still. Fairy tales. For little kids. I need to...We need to get home. Are you coming? He'd nodded quickly and followed, noting the change in her voice.
He'd only gotten her to stay once, a few weeks after he'd grown well enough to come into town. A sandstorm had stranded both of them in Niima for the night, along with a half-dozen annoyed spacers and the usual mix of Plutt's scavengers and goons. Sidious was sure after a half hour of being crushed shoulder-to-shoulder with beings of several species, each exuding their own unique stink, that she would have much rather faced the sandstorm. The Sith was inclined to agree, especially when one or two of the locals got curious.

He'd stayed at her side, wary, when an old woman and her husband stepped up to their bench and took him apart with their eyes. Rey smiled coldly at their greeting, and squeezed closer to Sidious on the bench.

"This will be over soon," she'd said, leaning close so that he could hear her over the roar of the storm.

Sidious had watched her carefully, curious about how she behaved around other beings. And the way her spine had tightened when the old couple moved to sit across from them…

That seat's taken, he'd said, and lifted his feet up onto the empty spot on the bench. The woman had opened her mouth, but quickly shut it as his gaze pierced her. The pair had moved on, and found a spot on the floor next to a cluster of ragged humans passing a flask around. He could smell it from across the tent.

Rey had relaxed, just a little.

There was a story there, he knew. He'd made a mental note to ask her later.

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Notes 2:

1. Yes...I'm kind of doing backflips in light of the Aftermath Trilogy stuff.
2. This means things will likely get reallllllly trippy. And Sidious NEEDS to remember. The fate of the Galaxy is at stake!
3. Two more parts left. This is kinda short, and another multi-parter because of pacing. And it looks like the title has more meaning than the original, casual, worldbuilding-y plan. IT WAS FATE. THERE ARE NO COINCIDENCES. xD
4. Trying to finish Part 2 today. Hopefully it'll happen.