Weeks after his former master first sat dazed, lost in the sea of stars rising all around him on a beautiful world, Anakin examined a different type of firmament in the sterile confines of a darkened room. It was a scatter of points of light on a holomap, each bright little circle another clutch of soldiers, weapons, or defenses far below, scattered around what passed for a capital city on this backward planet.
His job was to wipe each and every little star out, to bring a total and endless night to the odd little sky laid out on the table before him. The orders were simple: leave the capital city as intact as possible for the future Empire base that would be built there while eliminating all resistance presented. It was a lovely, simple diversion from the… troubles… he'd had of late.
You think you've escaped, old man, but I'm just taking some time to train. Just as you always taught me to do. I can wait. I can wait as long as I need to.
He pushed those thoughts aside and took a deep breath in order to carefully and completely consider the problem of this little world, this foolish place that had not seen the wisdom in remaining a part of his empire. His fine profile glowed, gilded blue and sharp in the darkness around him, as the commander described the current situation.
"The populace is a largely peaceful one without many trained soldiers, and we've done well with the smaller cities, but the capital city is ringed with well-defended artillery installations at regular intervals and dangerous fauna in the surrounding area. The artillery, huge gun turrets, have held off our air attacks and fauna our ground ones. Our three previous attempts have resulted in heavy casualties on our side in both air and ground forces."
Anakin looked over at him and tried to remember if this particular clone trooper had told him his name or not. It was strange for him not to call them by the names they'd picked up during this long, long war and old habits died hard.
The man swallowed and stood a little straighter, mistaking his wondering for judgement. "I didn't lead any of those attempts, sir. That's, uh, why I'm here now."
Anakin waved his hand at him dismissively, looking down at the map. He studied it in silence for a time, and then began speaking quietly, almost to himself, as he worked through the plan. "How dangerous are these animals outside of the city that are attacking your men?"
"They are very large lizard-like things, sir. I've seen them eat men whole. Fast, too. We can't mount any infantry attacks on the walls or even set up artillery positions before they show up."
"How long can a squad hold them off?"
"During the day, an hour. At night ten minutes at best once they get our scent. The city scanner tech makes it impossible to drop in close with small groups of men in landing ships without them being blown out of the sky by the towers, so we've tried landing further out and advancing in on foot, but it hasn't, uh, gone well with the animals I mentioned."
The lord tapped the edges of the map, and a red circle swam into view over the city, extending out further than its walls like a strange moat. The readings along the side of the map told him what he needed to know: the ionization from any speeders, ships, or even booster packs would bring a swift and fatal response. The forest came up almost to the walls themselves, but there was a decent ring of flat land between the two where any guard with a pair of eyes would be able to see approaching enemies.
The ruddy halo taunted him, a lovely little challenge that no one had been able to beat. Yet.
Anakin gave a crooked grin, the expression sharp and cruel in the dark. "I think I can do a little better than you have. I want ten of your best men. Ones that have experience doing low-tech drops."
"Ah… only ten, sir? And low-tech? You mean parachutes?"
"Yes. No boosters, no guidance, and only ten men, who I will prep tonight on my own."
The Commander looked at the angry red on the map and back at him, puzzled. "Sir, with all respect, how close do you intend to land? Barring whatever you have planned for after the landing, if you drop in the woods, those creatures will be on you before you know it. If you miss and drop in that strip of flat land in front of the city walls, the gunners will have you in a second."
Anakin chuckled, his disconcerting yellow eyes sliding up to the clone trooper. "What, that doesn't sound like fun to you?"
"I… ah…"
"You worry too much, Commander. I only need about twenty minutes on the ground for my plan to work." Anakin knew he should be harsher with the man, that Palpatine would call it weakness, but he had fought alongside so many soldiers with the commander's voice and face it was hard not to feel a solidarity with them. They were, in truth, the only brothers he had left. "I will not waste your men's lives."
He tapped the red circle off, leaving the curving lines of the ghostly blue city, and added markers to several different buildings inside. "Have the rest of the attack ships and men prep tonight for a full overrun of the city at…" he paused to check a data dial hovering above the table, "0700, as soon as the sun is up: drop ships inside the city walls at these points and door-to-door fighting until the locals are subdued. Tell them I'll be right there fighting with them as soon as we can make it inside."
The commander looked at the map and back at him, face carefully blank. "Yes, sir."
The men were brought to him, another group of strangers with a familiar face, another set of unbelievers quietly convinced he was taking them on a suicide mission but none daring to say such a thing to his face even as he promised them victory. "I always win, gentlemen." They nodded politely even as they doubted him, but he was too excited for the coming battle to care.
He did wonder, as he sat down to meditate later, if he should be proud of their obedience or annoyed at their weakness. Were they all this timid back in the day?
It didn't matter. He'd take this city, just as he had all the others before it. Let the brave ones live along with him. Let the weak die.
When the drop-door slammed open, revealing a night sky awash in drifts of moonlit clouds and the first grey glimmerings of dawn, Anakin grinned at the gust of wind that ripped through his hair and tightened his grip on the cord strung overhead along the cabin. The land below was the uneven black of a forest, and the lights of the city glowed faintly somewhere ahead.
The ten men he'd requested were lined up behind him, silently waiting as the ship rattled with the groan of the engines course-correcting for the wind now battering them.
"Now!" he barked through his com, jumping out into the empty embrace of the sky. A heady thrill shot through him as he fell, speeding like a rock toward the hard earth far, far, below.
Your end is here. It was hard not to laugh into the wind even as it fought with him to steal his breath away, rolling in the intoxicating power of his emotions. Confidence. Bloodlust. All of the things he'd meditated on carefully for the last several hours, blocking out all thoughts of previous failures with Obi-Wan and the assassination attempts, and turning the few that slipped through anyway toward his own cause as he folded frustration and rage into the mix.
Now he fell to earth, a wingless angel of death for any who would oppose him.
Anakin Skywalker is here.
He was never Vader in his own mind in moments like this. When the song of battle coursed through him, he was always Anakin.
And he was here to make this planet pay for its defiance.
He spun, finding his balance, and watched the other men trail out behind him, tiny dots strung along an invisible line in the blackness. Their chutes opened just as his did, a rough jerk on his shoulders and stomach, and then he was drifting in the night wind the ship's sensors had promised would be there. They moved quietly through the night, poison drifting on the breeze, toward the eastern wall of the city.
After a few minutes, the dark spires of their target rising up ahead like a small hill, Anakin felt a dim tug on the Force. It came from a few unseen creatures below, loping through the forest at the same pace as the chutes. They were large, and they had spotted him. He could almost feel them looking up at him.
He grinned down into the night and tapped the goggles he wore, turning on the com. "We drop in ten seconds. Three hostiles closing. I'll handle them while the rest of you land." He yanked the goggles down and snapped them into place on the chest of the flight suit he wore.
The trees were just below him now, gently swaying in the breeze, and he felt and then saw one of the creatures slam into the trunk of a larger one and skitter up it to the canopy. It reared its huge, angular head, teeth glistening in the moonlight, and waited for Anakin to drift directly into it.
In one smooth motion, Anakin drew and slashed his saber across his chute's cords, falling forward and dropping down into the tree's branches even as the beast snapped its large mouth onto Anakin's chute. He spun against the trunk, slamming his saber back into place on his hip, and climbed up the back of the beast even as the thing shook its head, trying to tear through the soft fabric of the chute.
It gave a roar and tried to shake him off, but Anakin growled and climbed in rough jumps up its back, gloved hands tight on the thick horns and scales growing along its spine.
The men slowly drifting in were still too far away they couldn't make out much of what they saw, but the end of this battle was clear: the red line of a saber lit and slashed across the writhing thing waiting for them at the top of a tree.
Anakin jumped away and caught himself on the branches of another tree as the dead lizard crashed to the ground, a sharp and acrid smell thick in the air.
The other two beasts were catching up quickly, having slowed to follow the scent of the men still drifting above. They were almost within sight of the city walls now, he saw as he jerked his head back to look over his shoulder. The men would land just inside the forest, safe from sight of the city gunners if the animals didn't flush them out after they landed.
Jumping from tree to tree, working his way down, Anakin ran as fast as he could in the dark, counting on the Force to guide his steps. He slipped once, boot scraping rough bark, but managed to roll out of it down to the next branch.
The two beasts, bulky shadows up ahead, slowed at this new intruder trying to flank them and stopped for a moment, as if conferring, while his men drifted overhead. They were behind him now, these creatures in front.
Come on. Come on! He drew his saber, breath hard in his lungs and body tense, excited and afraid at the same time as he stood alone in a pool of red light in the blackness of the trees. It makes me strong. All of my emotions bring me strength.
They make me invincible.
One of the lizards gave a loud, piercing cry, almost like a bird, and then they both charged at him, crashing through the forest.
He leaped to the side of the first and whipped his hand out, sending a wave of the Force to slam its head into a thick tree trunk. The second one scrambled over its dazed brother, pointed snout just a black shape in the night but its angry hissing as loud as a swarm of locusts, and Anakin jumped just in time to land on its back. The Force lifted him in another jump back to the first animal, where he cleanly impaled it through the head all the way up to the saber hilt.
His second opponent crashed into a thick line of trees, unable to stop its own momentum, and when it tried to draw its head back out Anakin was there again, stabbing his blade down with a savage glee.
The men were landing now, some of them having seen a bit of what was going on, others too busy trying not to get caught in the trees to notice.
He hopped down from the serpentine body, now just a pile of motionless flesh, and tapped his com. "We're in. Move half a klick in toward the target, assuming a defensive ring position around me as we go."
"Yes, sir," came the chorus of replies as the last of the men disentangled themselves from their chutes.
Anakin walked along through the trees, nodding to the shadows who joined up with him as he went. "As we talked, I need ten minutes. Keep those things off me. I think one might have called out to others, but I don't sense any coming just yet."
They walked through the woods, Anakin unzipping the top half of his flightsuit. He reached inside to the shirt he wore, to two small items tucked into one pocket. His fingers wrapped around a small pebble, a memento of the last time he'd seen his former master, and then moved to clutch the small, cold jewel that had once been Padme's.
He hesitated before choosing, and as they came to a stop inside the tree line, no one saw what he took out of his shirt.
The men were standing and kneeling in a ring around him, silent in the predawn grey of the woods, the rustle of leaves overhead loud in their ears.
Lord Vader was still, eyes closed, for an uncomfortably long span of minutes as the dim skies above began to blush pink with the coming dawn. A few of the men dared glimpses over their shoulders at him, but he was motionless, and they started to wonder what insane death the famed warrior had planned for all of them.
And then a harsh groan from ahead got all of their attention. They whirled, expecting one of the lizard things to be on them, tearing and ripping, but nothing was there. Only trees and shadows and the faint smell of earth.
It took a moment to realize where the sound was coming from.
Far up above, past the lacy shadows of the trees, one of the huge gun turrets was slowly swiveling to point in toward the others that ringed the city, its immense cannon lowering to shoot almost directly across rather than up into the sky.
The squad leader lowered his gun and turned to look back at Anakin, stunned, before waving the rest of them back into their defensive positions.
The lord was glaring up at the tower, one hand raised while the other stayed clenched at his side, gritting his teeth but a dark, evil pleasure in his eyes. It was impossible to reconcile in the mind, but it seemed like the massive gun towering overhead was following the movement of the Lord's hand.
The monster of a machine jerked to a rough halt, and fired, lighting up its grey silhouette with an intense pulse of light. Once. Then it turned like a man possessed and fired again. And again. Each deafening shot was perfectly timed to the faintest of movements of the Lord Vader's hand, like a conductor leading an orchestra of one.
The other gun turrets exploded in the distance, unseen but the fierce blasts felt as small earthquakes out in the forest. A few leaves shook loose from overhead, spinning softly down around the soldiers.
They held their position, watching the trees for further attacks, but the growing destruction behind them frightened every creature in the forest away, the power radiating off of this strange man in violent waves almost sending a few of the men running off themselves.
Death began to rain down from the air attack now fully possible and almost painfully easy as the troopers, one by one, turned to look at the man standing in the middle of them as their coms crackled with the fight overhead.
The young man caught the squad leader's eye, and smiled at him with a cold, terrifying serenity even as the massive tower above ground to a halt and powered down, pointing down into the city itself and the troops now landing there en masse.
Above the roar of fire and ship engines, he said, almost too quietly to hear, "I told you. I always win."
