I realized that my section breakers weren't showing up in the posted texts. So with this one I made sure to re-enter it. Then I re-entered it again, and again, to no avail. I finally ended up using a combination of hyphens and 0s to signify a section break. Sorry for the poor aesthetics there. If anyone knows how to have a section break that doesn't look like poodoo, please let me know.
Thanks--DM
Chapter Six: The Path of Origin
The Imperial Palace on Coruscant was ablaze with rumor and intrigue. The Emperor was dead, how would his empire continue?
Sate Pestage, Grand Vizier to the emperor and acting chief administrator of the empire, felt a growing sense of anger as the rumors mounted. Grand Moffs openly scoffed at him, and just that morning Grand Admiral Thrawn had called on him to step down to let a military junta take control "for the sake of the Empire during these perilous times," the alien had said. The fleet of ships he had brought with him gave his words an ominous tone.
Sate's extensive spy network assured him that of all the grand admirals and moffs, Thrawn had the most potential to be a threat. The blue skinned, red-eyed alien was a minority of one in the massive imperial navy, and despite the emperor's dislike of non-humans, had risen up the ranks through sheer force of competence. The empire needed people like Thrawn, but Sate Pestage knew those same people presented the greatest threat to the empire's stability.
He knew he could contact Lord Vader; that the threat of the emperor's apprentice could possibly keep the mutinous elements in line, but truthfully it felt petty, like threatening an impetuous child with another parent's punishment. Vader was for all intents and purposes the leader of the empire, but both he and Sate knew the Sith lord had no interest in direct administration.
Pestage decided the only thing to do was to have the Chiss grand admiral arrested for treason and publicly executed, preferably within the next hour or two. He was about to call his aide to make the arrangements when the doors to his office exploded inward. The force of the blast knocked Pestage from his seat. When he picked himself up, he saw three things immediately: first, the imperial guards that flanked his doors were not only dead, but appeared to have been ripped apart into putty. He saw red goo going all the way up the side of his five meter high door frame, and he couldn't tell which part was uniform, and which guard. Second, he saw that the doors themselves, made of durasteel, had been shattered into pieces. Pestage knew of weapons that could melt durasteel or blast them, but nothing that would break the metal apart through sheer kinetic force. Third, and last, he saw what could only be a Prior of the Ori standing sedately in the middle of the door frame, the tip of his staff glowing with an impossibly bright shade of white.
"Sate Pestage," the Prior said, "I have come to show you the Path of Origin, so that you may worship the Ori as your gods. They have looked upon you, and you are special unto them. Come, and you shall serve as a Prior to the gods."
Grand Admiral Thrawn knew Pestage was going to have him arrested. The Grand Vizier really had no choice, and Thrawn doubted he would be the only one. The Grand Admirals and Grand Moffs were simply too powerful to be allowed to continue in the absence of the Emperor. And so, Thrawn knew, Pestage himself had to be removed from power. With Vader out on his crusade against the Ori, Pestage had little more than bluff to keep the military and governors in line. Thrawn had much more than that.
He entered his office suite in the palace and smiled as Lieutenant Markis snapped to attention. "Lieutenant," the admiral said. Behind the sharply dressed young officer stood a squad of fifteen stormtroopers. He had three hundred other troopers in and around the palace. Thrawn knew of at least three other admirals and a moff who had similar numbers in the palace. He secretly contacted each one, telling them that Sate Pestage had ordered their arrests, and that the warrant was to be issued at exactly noon that day.
It was not surprising then that when Thrawn gathered his forces and moved on Pestage's office, he and those admirals and the lone moff who had the foresight to bring personal troops met in the central audience chamber that led to Pestage's office. The separate factions eyed each other suspiciously as Thrawn stepped forward and looked over the men. Grand Admiral Reeds, Yorshiri and Tictian were competent enough men, if not particularly inspired. Grand Moff Sharsuun was inspired, to be sure, but with far more political savvy than military expertise. Still, by having the foresight to bring troops and the courage to act, it was these four men that Thrawn knew he had to work with.
"Gentleman," Thrawn began, "I see that you share my discomfort with the current state of affairs. I have proposed to the Grand Vizier the need for a military council to continue the Empire's reign until such time as more permanent arrangements can be made. Unfortunately, he did not share my opinion in this matter, and apparently has taken steps to consolidate his position by removing us. It is clear that the Empire needs our leadership, but now I must ask all of you: can we provide that leadership by working together?"
Sharsuun made a point of flicking a particle from the lapel of his uniform. "Grand Admiral Thrawn, what makes you think you are capable of running the empire, in part or in whole?"
"By the Emperor's faith that I was capable of being a Grand Admiral. And I would suggest that each of us here shared the Emperor's faith in our abilities. Though he is gone, we must continue in his name or our empire will be doomed."
"I don't see any other way," Admiral Reeds said, looking earnestly at each of them. "Pestage was an able assistant to the Emperor, but we all know that's all he was. The Emperor took direct control over every major decision we faced. Pestage does not have that skill or ability. No one man does, save possibly Lord Vader himself. And he is not here."
"That brings up a valid point, though," Sharsuun said. "Lord Vader personally asked Sate Pestage to assume administrative responsibility. What makes you think he won't kill us all the moment he returns?"
"Because he needs us," Thrawn said. "You, Grand Moff Sharsuun, of all people, should be aware of Lord Vader's administrative history. He is a great warrior, but he is not nor every will be a bureaucrat. Without Pestage, who else will he have to run his empire?"
The words were less than convincing, Thrawn thought to himself, but he knew they were for show only. The men's minds were made up the moment they gathered their own soldiers to march on Pestage's office. It was merely a formality, an excuse to make them feel better about what they all knew had to be done.
"Very well, I for my part accept your proposal," Sharsuun said. "A joint military junta to rule the administrative aspects of the Empire pending Lord Vader's return." With Sharsuun in the lead, the three admirals quickly granted their assent, and the five men with their thousand storm troopers marched on Pestage's office.
Only, they were not the first. Thrawn felt a cold thrill shudder through his body when he saw the remnants of the imperial guards on either side of the door. Pestage himself stood in the doorway, but it was not the grand vizier that any of them were familiar with.
Pestage's sunken, evil eyes had become chalk white, his skin, already sallow, was now the color of bone. His voluminous purple robes of state had been shed, and now he wore a simple white robe that matched the bone-like staff he carried in his left hand. In his right, a seeming anachronism, he held a leather-bound book of real paper.
"Welcome, gentleman," Pestage said in a voice that they all recognized, only blown to unbelievable volume. "I have been reborn to serve the Ori, so that all on Coruscant may know the path of Origin."
"Kill him," Thrawn said without hesitation. He turned and shouted to his storm troopers, "fire on that man now!"
All the troopers in hearing range who had a clear shot complied. The first row knelt down to allow the troopers behind to get better shots, and as one almost five hundred blaster bolts streaked toward the lone figure of Pestage.
The former grand vizier raised his staff, and the bolts bounced harmlessly into the air over the audience chamber. The troopers ceased firing when they quickly saw their bolts had no effect. Just as quickly, the newest prior raised a single hand.
With a grunt of surprise, Thrawn felt himself lifted high into the air above his men. This, he admitted with chagrin, was a tactic he would never have been able to predict. "Those who do not follow the path of Origin must be destroyed," the Prior said.
Pestage closed his outstretched fingers into a fist. Thrawn managed to scream once as his body was bent backward with snapping force, until his head was literally between his knees, looking forward. His stunned red eyes lost their glow, just in time for his broken and shattered body to fall to the floor.
"You will all bow down to the Ori," the prior said, "or be destroyed."
0-0-0
Darth Vader rested in his hyperbaric chamber, meditating again as the medical system automatically checked the status of his damaged suit after his latest encounter with the Ori.
The suit had been damaged by another Prior when he had led a landing party against Ori forces on the planet Shuriz IV. The natives there were primitive by galactic standards and had embraced the Priors openly. What little technology existed from traders and the two corporations that had landed on the planet was quickly discarded by the natives.
The conflict was not a strategic one. Vader felt no hesitation in ordering the total destruction of the planet, but his second encounter with a Prior had proven more difficult than the first, and he wanted to gain more experience by facing a third.
He went down to the planet with Jade and a detachment of stormtroopers whose sole role was to keep the native species off the shuttle. Vader felt little surprise to find a Prior waiting for him with the ever-present staff and book.
"Have you come to accept the path of Origin, Darth Vader?"
At his instructions, Jade remained on the shuttle as he walked out to meet the prior. In the distance, the Sith lord could see hordes of native Gril'anches watching and waiting for proof of their new gods' power.
"I have come to learn more about your gods," Vader said. "If they are so powerful, why have they not interceded directly in our affairs?"
"How can we learn from the Path of Origin if the gods smooth the path before our feet? The Path is the means to life everlasting. The trials of the Path ensure we are purified to seek the blessing of Ascension. There could be no Ascension, and no purity, if the gods were to smooth the path before us."
Vader slowly walked around the Prior, who stood unmoving, unflinching, his eyes at a point in the sky just above the shuttle. "Where are these Prior ships coming from?"
"From the Ori."
"The Ori are not native to this galaxy. Where in this galaxy are the ships arriving? What method of propulsion do they use to arrive here? Why are no ships over this planet now."
"All questions may be answered by the Ori," the Prior said.
Vader, though, sensed more. "I have learned what I needed," he said. He ignited his red lightsaber and prepared to dispatch the Ori. The fight was even more difficult that the first two. The harder Vader drew on the Dark Side of the force, the more powerful the Prior became in defending himself. Vader's rage towered into huge force storms, raining debris down on the Prior. With a flick of his staff, the Prior easily deflected the debris.
Vader cracked the rock under the Prior's feet; the man levitated from the ground to a new spot and renewed the battle, wielding his staff like it was a Sith lightsaber. Vader's mechanical breathing began to strain under the battle. The Prior, meanwhile, showed no sign of strain, and in fact fought with a beatific smile on his face, as if he knew the Dark Lord's end was certain. In the distance, the Gril'anches shuffled in awe. A small part of Vader's mind knew that to the primitive natives, it appeared he was a demon, cloaked in black, fighting an angel clad in purist white.
After a particularly swift exchange, the Prior held out his hand, and Vader felt himself thrown backward with tremendous force. He landed on his back with a heavy thud, and fought desperately for air. His respirator had been damaged.
Nearby, he saw Jade moving down the ramp with her lightsaber in hand. "No," he sent to her through the force. "You must not engage him!"
"You cannot defeat the power of the Ori," the Prior said as he walked slowly toward Vader. "Your power of the Force is trivial compared to the might of the gods. Accept the Ori, and you can be healed and made whole. You can leave your mask behind and be a whole man, in the service of the gods. Such is their power."
To be whole again. Vader closed his eyes and thought back to the last time he was whole; the last time he was able to touch a human being. He had been human, although already twisted by hatred and fear. But there had been times, brief though they were, that he had been at peace, curled next to the body of the one person in his life he had loved even more than himself.
He looked up at this Ori, and though he would soon die, realized that he felt no fear. Nor even resignation. He felt something he had not felt since his earliest training as a Jedi, since his life as a loving husband. It was a feeling he had felt hints of since being freed from the emperor's thrall. Darth Vader felt at peace. He was ready to join his Padmé. He sat up slowly in the dirt and studied the Prior.
"Your gods are a blasphemy to the Force, and to life itself," he said without anger, or rage. The Force flowed through him, and for a brief time he forgot his struggle to breathe. "You religion is a cancer in the galaxy. You cannot be allowed to win, for the sake of all the lives you would destroy. Should it require my life to stop you, I give that life gladly, but I will stop you."
The beatific smile disappeared. The Prior thumped his staff against the ground and brilliant white light appeared. "Those who do not walk the Path of Origin must be destroyed," he said. "If you will not join us, Darth Vader, then you will be destroyed."
A circle of light lashed out from the crystal of the staff, impacting Vader directly in the chest. He raised his hands reflexively and pulled the Force into himself. He felt the light push at him, raging to get inside, but the sense of peace he felt remained, and eventually the Prior's light passed by and through him, and he remained unaffected.
"How…?" the Prior said, clearly stunned that Vader was not vanquished.
"The Force is my ally," Vader said, before impaling the Prior between the eyes with his lightsaber.
The now familiar flash of fire came and cleansed the remains. Vader walked past the ashes on the ground back toward the shuttle as the angry natives charged them. "Lift off," Vader instructed. "Inform Admiral Piett to executor order Base Delta Zero on this planet. These creatures are too loyal to the Ori to save."
The captain of the shuttle complied as the soldiers piled in. Vader sat near the front; moments later Jade joined him. "Master," she said softly, "what happened? Why do you feel different?"
So she could feel it as well. Vader smiled under his mask and realized that even with the Ori threat, since the death of the Emperor a great shroud seemed to have been lifted from him. His meditations came easier, now, and things that in the past would have infuriated him now seemed inconsequential. Not a single officer had died under his command since the war against the Ori began, the longest stretch ever where the Dark Lord of the Sith had not had to punish somebody with his or her life. And then there was the visit from Obi-Wan.
"It is not time to explain yet," he said at last. He turned and noticed for the first time her grimace. "Are you injured?"
"That light burned," she admitted. "None of the other soldiers felt it, but I did. I still do."
He took in her presence in the Force, and immediately sensed the rage that had been the cornerstone of her adult life. In his mind's eye, he could see the Prior's light still lingering within her Force presence, augmenting and somehow interacting with that rage to form a physical response of pain. He saw immediately that if the process continued, in time would be lethal.
The Prior's light had literally been a weapon directed against the Sith. "Go into a meditative trance," he said, "as I have taught you. The Prior has injured you, and the injury will grow worse in time. The trance should eliminate its effects."
"You weren't affected, Master?"
"No."
A weapon directed at the Sith, and Darth Vader was not affected.
As soon as he returned to his chambers, Vader entered his hyperbaric chamber. The moment it sealed itself, mechanical arms raised his helmet and mask off, and Vader gasped for breath in the purified air of the chamber. Another mechanical arm plugged itself into his suit to run the diagnostic, while additional arms reached down from the ceiling to begin repairs on his chest.
"Display active," Vader said. His natural voice sounded reedy and thin, but the chamber computer acknowledged the order and the interior wall of the chamber blinked into a large rectangular display.
"Display image 1001, Vader priority one override." The computer acknowledged his command, and in moments he was staring at an immersive dimensional image he had not looked at in over twenty years. More, in fact. As he looked it, he seemed to fall into the picture of a beautiful young woman, clad in a luxurious blue gown that hung from her body in classical lines, promising beautiful secrets underneath. Her head was bent down at an angle, but she was looking up from beneath her lashes at him with a secret smile, as if she knew something that he did not. Behind her, a breath-taking lake sparkled under the Naboo sun, while in the distance blue, snow-capped mountains rose in splendor. It was the most beautiful thing Vader had ever seen, before or since.
His eyes stung with the need to shed tears his seared tear ducts could not produce. "Computer, display image 1023, Vader priority one override. Side-by-side comparison."
Luke Skywalker's face appeared. It had been an image taken directly from the rebel database at Hoth, and re-assembled from the corrupted original left behind by the rebel's attempt to obliterate their database. The eyes were definitely from the father, but Vader could see much of the boy's mother in his face.
"M'lord?" Piett's voice barked through the chamber. Vader crushed an urge to revert to his old ways at the interruption. He knew the admiral would not interrupt him in his chamber save for the most important issues.
"Speak."
"Lord, we have received a priority transmission from Coruscant requesting your immediate attention."
The computer had completed its repairs on his respirator; Vader ordered his helmet and mask replaced, and in moments stepped from the hyperbaric chamber, feeling refreshed in a way he had not felt in decades.
"I shall receive it in my chambers," Vader said. Instantly, a holographic image of Sate Pestage appeared.
The mechanical breathing that filled the room came to a stop as the refreshed feeling left Vader. "Yes, Lord Vader," the prior who had once been Sate Pestage said. "I have found the path to Origin. Even now, the glory of the Ori is being made known to all of Coruscant, and the whole of your petty empire. Your admirals and moffs have been shown the way, as have the other leaders here. Your feeble efforts to stop the Ori are now at an end. Come back and accept the power of the Ori, or you will be destroyed."
The transmission ended. "Piett," Vader called.
Piett came immediately into Vaders quarters and snapped to attention. "M'lord?"
"Coruscant has fallen to the Ori," Vader said. "I must assume the military leadership there has either been converted, or killed."
Piett gaped. "By the stars…m'Lord, what are your wishes?"
"Contact all the fleet elements throughout the empire for an inter-fleet conference. I need to know the status of all assets before we can determine our next step. For now, we are the only thing standing between the people of the Empire and the Ori."
The conference, once Piett was able to contact everyone, looked grim. There were a total of fifteen regular admirals still free from the Ori taint, plus a handful of moffs. "There were almost two thousand Star Destroyers at Coruscant when the Grand Vizier fell," Admiral Pelleon noted. "I know of many other ships that were lost to tainted worlds. We have a total of two thousand ships ourselves, plus your vessel, Lord Vader, but the fleet is spread throughout the galaxy. If it came to civil war, we would be hard pressed."
"What of our production facilities?" Vader asked the assemblage of holographic images.
"The Kuat and Seinar shipyards are still ours for the moment," Admiral Kellis said. "In fact, we still retain most of our production facilities, but I have to assume the enemy will move against those soon, and with all the worlds that have fallen, we will have personnel issues very soon. And, m'lord, I must point out another threat. What of the Rebel Alliance? If there were any time to attack, it would be now, while the empire is at its weakest."
"True," Vader noted, "However, I do not believe the Alliance will attack at this time. I believe they are waiting. They must realize the Ori are a greater threat to them than the Empire."
"What do we do next, Lord Vader?" Admiral Jonis said. Vader looked over the holographic images and held up a fist.
"We fight for the Rmpire. I have sent you all the tactical summary of my encounters. Study them, and learn from them. The vessels we've faced so far have not fared as well against kinetic attack. Use shield buster torpedoes or your own ships in concert with turbolaser batteries to destroy the enemy as quickly as you can. And then execute a Base Delta Zero on each and every tainted planet. We will wipe this plague from the galaxy."
The admirals bowed as a whole to the dark lord, and one by one flickered out, leaving only Piett. The admiral studied his commander for a moment, then bowed but did not stand to leave the conference room. "M'lord, may I speak?"
"Speak, Piett."
"We have determined there are over 80 tainted worlds so far, mostly on the outer or mid rim, but with Coruscant fallen, we can expect more core worlds to fall. We are discussing hundreds of billions of sentient beings. Are we going to kill them all? What kind of Empire will be left?"
Piett waited for the Sith lord's wrath and knew his life could very well be forfeit. Instead, Darth Vader turned and walked toward a window. "I know of no other course, Admiral," he admitted after a moment. "These Priors are more powerful than any but the Jedi, and there is no longer a Jedi order to fight them. And now there is no Emperor, nor Imperial Center."
Piett cleared his throat, nervous to be hearing an admission of doubt from the most powerful figure in the empire. "Lord Vader, I owe my command, and in fact my whole career, to you. I would gladly give my life for our Empire, upon your order. I beg your forgiveness for saying this, but are there really no more Jedi to fight them?"
Just as Obi-Wan had said, Vader mused.
Again, Piett waited for the wrath, and again was relieved to find none. "You know of Skywalker?"
"I know of yours and the Emperor's interest in him," Piett said. "Therefore I assumed it was because he was a Jedi."
"He is a Jedi, I feel it," Vader said as he stared through a viewport at the stars. "Untrained in many ways, but with great power, like his father."
Piett said nothing more, letting the thoughts move on their own in Vader's head. He turned at last to leave, but stopped at Vader's next words. "You have served the empire well, Admiral. I am giving you a field promotion of Grand Admiral. I will inform the others of your rank and responsibilities. You will serve as high commander of the fleet under me."
"Thank you, m'lord."
"Do not thank me yet," Vader said. "You may regret the promotion all too soon."