Author's Notes: Updated as of 6/12/2014


Chapter 6

It was with more than a twinge of nervousness and something greater than a flickering of doubt that Barriss stepped off the shuttle into the heat and brilliant color of a day on Bellassa. She was instantly overheating in her thick, heavy dress that had been made with the snowstorms of Mirial in mind. She wished that she had anything that would be more suitable. All the possessions she owned were held in a roughly woven black bag that she clutched tightly in her hand. As she stepped away from the shuttle, she gave a cautious, cursory glance into the Force, searching for something that would indicate that she had been right to get off at this world and not the last one or the next.

She had been lounging around on the Pride of Sullust for what felt like nothing more or less than an eternity as it made its slow trek along the well-traveled hyperspace lane known as the Hydian Way. No planet before this one had seemed right, nothing in the Force to indicate where her future may lie. Something about Bellassa had grabbed her, pulled her in. Now that she was actually here however, she hoped that what she had thought she sensed was in fact, the Force and not simply her own desires.

Bellassa could not be more different from the world she had left behind. This was a world that stimulated the senses. It was hot here, but not uncomfortably so. The air was packed with the scents of flowers and spices and the sounds of laughter and music that seemed to drift from every street corner. All around her, her eyes were assaulted with flamboyant greenery and a stunning array of flowers and trees. People walked along the broad street slowly, beings of all kinds, not just the unsavory ones she was used to, the stopped at outdoor tapcafes and shops, laughing and talking with their friends. Lovers strolled arm in arm. It was a place that she felt the urge to revel in. Bright and beautiful, Bellassa was filled with everything that Mirial lacked. Time seemed to pass at a different pace here, slower, far less frantic and wild. It was one of the rare planets that was impossible to dislike. She hadn't come here because of the likeability of the planet however; it was the Force that she knew was her primary concern at the moment.

The other passengers had collected their bags, and as one, they began to walk further into the city, away from the jumble of noise that accompanied all spaceports. Barriss followed them, reaching out into the Force again with the gentlest touch, aware that she might not find friends on this world, but she couldn't sense anything that would suggest darkness. She couldn't sense anything abnormal at all, not even the faint sensation that had caused her to come here in the first place. With a sigh, she decided that she would just have to trust herself and her own judgment, trust that she had felt the Force call her here. It was uncomfortable, balancing on a tightrope with nothing to save her if she fell. The Force was her safety net, it was reliable, immune to selfish and flawed behavior, without any sense of what to do next, she felt exposed.

As the tourists ran off to look at shops and the vast lake that bordered the city, Barriss slipped into the nearest tapcaf and ordered a cool drink, choosing to sit outside, sheltered by a brightly striped awning with near fluorescent plants curling around her.

This wouldn't be the first time that she doubted the will of the Force. All the way back to the beginning of the Clone Wars, she knew something had been wrong; there had been a rift between her and the Force. She had felt that the war might be wrong, but she had sensed nothing to suggest as much, now she could hazard a guess that it had been the dark side that had hidden the true will of the Force from her. So she had ignored her doubts that war was wrong, that she should be trying to stop it, not fighting in it. After it had happened, she had had to learn to trust again, or not using the Force at all. The latter was something that she didn't feel she could do for any length of time; it would be easier to lob off her own arm, to blind herself. The Force was an integral part of her, something that she couldn't let herself loose again.

For a while, she had found it possible to stop using the Force, to let it fade from her life and to the back of her mind. It came with too many memories both dark and disturbing. She had initially felt that it had betrayed her, and at any rate, it had changed noticeably with the death of the Jedi and the reemergence of the Sith. For some months after Luminara's death, she hadn't been able to use the Force, her doubt too strong, her grief too new and the Force too dark and different. The warmth that she used to feel when she accessed it was gone now, replaced with a bitter cold that crept along her spine and sometimes left a bitter metallic aftertaste in her mouth. She could feel the dark side corroding everything that she held sacred, making it ever more dangerous to reach into the Force. Every time she did, she could feel the darkness reaching out for her, cunning and ever ready to grasp her in its oily fingers, to suck her into a life that she would never be able to leave. If the Sith weren't killed, every Force sensitive was at risk of seduction into the ranks of the dark side.

She had to kill them, to destroy their poison, or at least one of them. One less would make it better; more tolerable, even killing one of them would ensure that Luminara would have peace. If she died after killing one, it would make it that much easier for the next person to try.

Even within the depths of her own mind, Barriss didn't use the world revenge. She knew with bull-headed stubbornness that revenge wasn't what she was trying to do. She was perusing justice. Killing Darth Vader wouldn't save her master; it wouldn't bring her back to life. What she was doing was simply what needed to be done. Or at least that was still what she was resolutely trying to tell herself.

With the sunlight warming her face, Barriss wrenched herself away from the past and the Force towards the things she could change. She needed some semblance of a plan. Where she was sitting now was as far as she had gotten in planning. Thinking any further had been just too daunting and wide open; there were too many options and choices that lay before her. She had to do it now though; she had to find a path that wouldn't lead her into the hands of the dark side, that wouldn't turn her into the evil that she was trying to destroy. Barriss let out a slow hiss of breath, clutching her drink with both hands as she tried to run through the options. Narrowing down her options was the first step, what was the first thing that she could do? Why would the Force lead me here? What is it that I need from here? That was the first question. It might be that she would find someone here, she might learn something that would help her, but she couldn't count on either. She had to make a plan, a real plan. She could always adjust it later if need be.

After some time, her drink long gone, a tentative plan had formed in her mind, rough and unrefined, but a plan. It was more than she had had when she arrived. The main goal of her plan was to find other Jedi. Certainly someone else had to have survived the massacre. She had been far from the best of the Jedi even at the heights of her skill, and if she had made it… Luminara's body lay before her eyes and tears began to fill them against her will. Squeezing her ceramic cup tightly in brittle hands, she willed it away. Better beings than she had died that day and the months following, but certainly not all of them. So she needed to find someone. Barriss hoped resolutely that that was why the Force had chosen to lead her here. The more there were, the better her chances, but she couldn't afford to spend years finding them, the Sith had to be stopped now, so a small team would have to do and their skills would have to be enough.

Her ice drink gone, Barriss had no reason to stay lounging in the shade of the cafe; she needed to scan the Force. It was a risky business, there could be Sith inquisitors about. According to all the rumors that she had heard and pieced together, they were Force-sensitives that weren't quite good enough to join the ranks of full Sith Lords, however, they were still dangerous in their own right. The inquisitors were helping to hunt down the remaining Jedi as well as rebel cells. She would have to go into the Force anyway. There was also the issue that any Force-sensitive could be hiding their presence, making it that much more difficult to locate one. That was the point obviously, but it didn't help her. At any rate she needed to find a hotel. Once there, she could go deeper in to the Force and look through the minds of all the individuals in this city, and if need be, the rest of the world.

She paid for the drink and left, regretting her choice of dress as soon as she stepped back into the sun, it was heavy and thick and was drawing far more attention than she was comfortable with on a temperate resort world. She needed new clothes, regardless of how little money that she had left.

The least expensive dress she could find after half-an-hour's search proved to be a dark brown concoction that clashed horribly with her skin. It was made from a light floaty material that left her narrow shoulders bare and made her very uncomfortable. As she paid for her dress she asked the exuberant sales person, "Do you know where I could find an inexpensive hotel?"

"Um, go three blocks that way and then five left, there's a good one there," the woman smiled with pointed teeth, her lekku twitching as she gestured at a wall and the city that lay beyond.

"Thank you very much." Barriss stuffed her old dress into her bag and walked out back into the heat, feeling a hundred times cooler and a thousand times more exposed.

The indicated hotel was exactly where the woman had said it was, it was small, but looked not too out of date and reasonably clean. A good enough place for her to spend the night. She found herself in a bright room barely big enough to walk around the narrow, rough-blanketed bed after dolling out yet more of her dwindling reserves to the Sullustian at the desk. She sat upon it and crossed her legs, folding her hands on her lap as she delved into the Force. She went carefully at first, watching searching for any presence of the dark side. When she didn't sense the normal taint, she kept going, letting her mind expand further and further as she felt the minds of the hundreds of thousands of beings that lived and worked, loved and cried in the city. Normal minds were lights or distant stars, glowing and bright with a unique spark. As she looked, she found several beings with untapped potential for the Force, but nothing like the brilliant sun that was the mind of a trained Force sensitive. She was searching for what felt like hours when she found them, her consciousness spread thin several miles across. The Jedi weren't projecting, not really hiding, but if she hadn't been actively looking, she wouldn't have sensed them. There were two. One of them shone like a supernova, almost eclipsing the flickering glow from the mind of the other. The supernova could only belong to the mind of a master! Excitement bubbled up in her. A master was beyond what she had hoped for, she hadn't even dared to dream one had survived, let alone that one was here, on this world.

They sensed her and she tried to reach out, to let them know that she wasn't a threat, but suddenly her grip on the Force slipped and fell from her mind like water pouring out of cupped hands. Her bright blue eyes burst open and she took in her surroundings in an instant, thanking the Force for leading her to this place. She had been sitting there for a couple of hours, for now, the sun was gone and faint stars were appearing slowly in the darkening sky. Barriss decided not to waste any time, unfolding her aching legs , she swung off the bed and began to stroll as fast as she could without drawing unnecessary attention to herself, her light dress flapping disconcertingly around her ankles

Outside the lobby, the air was cool, her skin pricking as she met a slight breeze that put an edge into the almost humid air. She wished that she hadn't sent her old dress off for cleaning. Instead, she focused on where she had felt the presence of the Jedi. It was a challenge, the real world resembled very little what she had seen in the Force, but after some wanderings and a few wrong turns, she found the minds she sought.

Barriss stood in front of a warehouse far from her hotel, well off the beaten path. She hesitated for a long moment before summoning her courage and knocking, the sound punctuating a quiet night. She felt a presence brush against her mind, but it vanished before she could determine who it was. Instead, she felt the minds of people as the moved towards the door, they were tense, fearful but brave and strong. The door groaned, light spilling into the twilight. Barriss looked up into the face of the person who had opened it, and gasped.


Vader sat in his chamber, the night growing long and deep around him, but he made no move to go to sleep. He didn't need sleep very often, in fact, he tried to avoid it as much as he could. Sleep was no refuge for him, dreams tormented him, dreams of death, anger and sorrow, or worse, dreams of a happiness that could never again be his, a life, a future that he had destroyed. Instead, he meditated, the dark side filling him, anger and rage enveloped the air around him. Its power over the light was undeniable in that moment. Darkness would always win, no matter what dead Jedi might have thought, the dark side was stronger, it was strength.

His breath hissed in and out, automated, mechanical, deafening. He was forever surrounded by the noises of technology, the whirring and clicking sounds of his joints, the thud of metal feet against metal floor. Most of the time, he managed to tune out the constant noises. Then, randomly, he would hear it, hear the sounds that accompanied him everywhere he went. When he did, he wanted to scream. It was just so loud compared with the relative silence the typified the movements of the human body. If only it would just be quieter, if he could just turn it down. As he clenched his fists, he was suddenly reminded of something that he wanted to fix. The Dark Lord opened his eyes, facing the white walls of the chamber where he sat, cross legged in his chair. He stood up and moved swiftly down the steps to find his toolbox, he couldn't remember exactly where he had put it, but it had to be somewhere around here. His left arm needed a major series of upgrades. He had spent some serious time fixing up his right arm so that he could fight better. He was going to stop there, but now the left arm was holding him back, he had really noticed the defects while sparing with Arden. The trouble would be remembering what he had done last time, it had mostly just been a trial and error process until his had worked as he wanted it to.

He found his toolbox amid a pile of wires and twisted hunks of metal. He grabbed it, and climbed back into the chamber. He could technically fix his arm anywhere, but he wanted to do it in there, where he could watch what was going on in the galaxy, where he was least likely to be interrupted. Despite the sounds of life support that trailed him, it still seemed too quiet in the rest of the apartment, like a crypt. Peeling off as much of the suit off his torso as he could, he observed his arm, looking critically at the metal that glinted the harsh light. It was a little slow, he thought as he twitched his fingers, watching the joints respond according to his mental commands. Pulling out a screwdriver, he began to unscrew some of the bolts on his arm, feeling it become less and less responsive as he twisted.

It was an ugly prosthetic, all metal and sharp edges with not the slightest attempt to make it look human or even organic. As it was, it sufficed. Looking down, he had the heads-up-display in his helmet highlight a singular wire that needed replacing before it corroded any more. It ran all the way up the arm and into the remaining flesh and blood bicep where he could feel a slight tingling sensation as the wire connected with his nervous system. With his right hand and complete disregard for pain, he yanked out the wire, all feeling in his lower arm going dead. It hung, a limp weight as he rummaged through the tool box, searching for a similar wire that he could replace it with. When Vader found a likely wire, he yanked it out, tools spilling and clattering into his lap and down onto the floor. He ignored it, analyzing the wire. It would have to be cut and the ends modified slightly, but in the end, it would work better than the old one, or it should.

It took a considerable chunk of the night to modify the wire and feed it through the complicated snarls of metal and other wires, and then he had to connect it. When he did, an electric shock filled the remains of his left arm and he grimaced, but he could move his hand again and it seemed at the moment, that it was working better. Now, onto the next task, trying to get his fingers to close more fully.

Tinkering was one of his favorite ways to pass time. When he was fixing things, making them better, he didn't have time to think about himself, about anyone else, it was just him and the next problem for him to solve. Fixing things was easy; no one problem could stump him for too long and it was useful, practical. It made a difference, made the galaxy just a little bit better.

As Vader puzzled out how to make the fingers work more efficiently, he reached out to Arden's mind, observing it from a distance. She had finally fallen asleep, curled up in a ball of blankets on the floor. He was confused as to why she had chosen that as her resting place with a bed right beside her, but not curious enough to look into her mind and potentially wake her up. He could always ask her later. For the moment, she wasn't dreaming and he hoped that her mind stayed blissfully empty. She needed all the sleep she could get.

His comlink began to beep, the sudden noise loud enough to blanket the sounds of his tools and his breath. He glared at it with a baleful eye, somehow, it always managed to interrupt him when he least wanted to be. "What is it Admiral?" He asked, growling through clenched teeth as he rammed the parts of his arm back together.

"I wanted to discuss our plans upon arrival." Prittick was too damn awake at this time of night and it was already getting on his nerves.

"Fine," He snapped, biting off the end of the word.

"Ten minutes, briefing room." The insufferable man signed off before Vader had a chance say anything else, even if he had wanted to. In moments, his temporary peace had been shattered. These moments were so rare and treasured and now of course he was being called to do his duty. With a sigh Vader stood up, putting back on his armor, covering up the flesh and metal alike and went to meet the man who he would much rather kill than talk too. He paused in front of Arden's door, almost ready to go in, but her mind was deep in dreamless bliss. Instead, he spun and continued to walk down the hall.

The ship seemed completely deserted; most of the crew was on a sleep cycle again, even though here was no differentiation between day and night in space. Instead, the ship kept to Coruscant standard time, as that was where most of the officers lived and where troops would go on shore leave. He found Prittick where he had said he would be, sitting in a dark room round an large, black, oblong table with a couple of other high ranking officers on the ship. "We will be arriving at Kashyyk at 0500 hours. Intelligence indicates that they are aware of our coming and other rebellious sectors have joined forces to create a fleet to stop us from subduing the world." They had started without him, typical.

"Lord Vader, we were just…"

Vader cut him off with a wave of his hand as he walked around the table. "Is the rest of the fleet going to meet us at Kashyyk?"

"Yes, they will arrive a couple minutes before we will." The Dark Lord nodded, standing behind the chair of the Admiral so he wouldn't have to look at his ugly pointed face. His voice couldn't be helped.

"Good." Vader said, waiting for someone else to talk, because he really didn't know what they were going to do to Kashyyk or what he should say.

"We don't anticipate much in the way of resistance from them, it will be a haphazard attempt at best. Reports indicate that they will have at most three capital ships. Our task force will be three Star Destroyers in addition to our own. After their fleet has been destroyed, we will commence bombardment on major cities. To our knowledge, the Wookiees don't have planetary shields, but we should be ready for them." The Admiral stopped talking and looked around, daring anyone to question the plan.

"I don't think we should bombard the planet." Another man said, staring at Prittick rather than Vader, he resented the man instantly.

"Why?" He responded before the Admiral could open his astonished and shocked mouth.

"The Wookiees are incredibly strong. I think they would be more beneficial to the Empire for us to enslave them for manual labor around the Empire." Prittick nodded slowly, absorbing the idea that Vader repulsed immediately. He hated slavery no matter how much he tried to tell himself that it was helpful, even beneficial. The part of him that was still Anakin denied the use of slavery with all that it was. He gripped the high back of the chair tightly, forcing himself to remain silent. He couldn't deny or approve this, all he could do was say nothing while distant memories flickered in the back of his mind. He said nothing, listening to everyone's agreement, conflict wreathing his mind.

"It is decided, I will contact the Emperor to see what he thinks of this." Said Prittick as he left, everyone following him, leaving Vader alone and clutching the chair struggling with the parts of him that were still Anakin. As though she were sensing his distress, Vader felt Arden's mind begin to work his dismay into her dormant consciousness, twisting it into a dream. As he made his way back to his chamber, her dream began to slide into a panic-woven nightmare that reverberated through his mind. He went into her suite as fast as he could, finding her thrashing on the floor, blankets snarled around her, whimpering in fear. He knelt down beside her, shaking her shoulder, but her mind was too far gone, feeding off itself and trapping her deep inside. Instead, he reached into her consciousness, trying to wake her up that way. Before he knew what was happening, he had been pulled into her dream as well. Flashes of horrors raced through his mind as it joined with hers, broken scenes of dark rooms and blinding lights and red lava wastes. How much do you know? He wanted to ask, but it was too late.

She was laying on a table, bound, bleeding, terrified and broken. He felt each of the cuts that covered her body, felt every bruise. He might as well have been her, the line that divided them all but gone. Their muscles were tense and shaking, coiled in fear, lungs burning. Their eyes were heavy with fatigue and yet wide open, unable to sleep, unable to calm down or relax.

He remembered himself for a moment and tried to pull them both out of this, but then the dream pulled him back in.

The whole room was a surgical white that nearly glowed with cleanliness. They looked, searching for some faint sliver of hope of escape. There was none. A droid rolled into the room, bright red eyes seeking them out. They tried to scream, but were silenced by a gag in their mouth. Their breath and heart were racing as the droid spoke in a cold, mechanical voice. "Shall we try this again?" They struggled as one, writhing beneath the bonds that held them firm.

The droid held out one of its arms that had needles for fingers and they recoiled, pushed their head back against the metal table that they lay on. The needle was stabbed into their neck and every sensation exploded with pain filling every cell, a stinging pain as though they had fallen into a bed of needles. The gag was removed and they screamed, almost drowning out the voice of the droid as it asked, "What are the access codes for the Republic ship's computers?"

"I don't know!" The words were ripped from them with a scream and a wail as the pain continued. "I don't know!" Vader remembered who he was again and pulled himself from her pain, fighting to remember what was real, dragging her mind with him, back into the present, into reality. "I don't know!" Arden screamed again as she woke up, voice cracking with pain and fear. He felt the ache in her lungs as she took in the real world. Gasping with relief, tears sliding down her face, she leaned into him and he wrapped his arms around her shaking frame, feeling the frantic pounding of her heart.

It's okay, he repeated over and over, his mental voice quiet, her breathing ragged. You're safe, it's alright, you're safe now.