Ahsoka stared in disbelief, her lightsaber still leveled in her hand. "I don't…" she started then trailed off. Her mind was a tumult of confusion. When she could finally force herself to think again she said almost inaudibly, "But how?"
Vader stood implacable, bathed in the purple light of the plasmic sea. Only the occasional spark from his right forearm arcing out every now and then interrupted the moment.
"Obi Wan." He said it as a curse, letting the name hang in the air. "He did this to me. Betrayed me and left me to die on Mustafar."
"No…" Ashoka recoiled. "He couldn't have."
"He and the rest of the Jedi Council betrayed us all, as well you know."
He was alluding to her wrongful accusation of treason against the Republic. The Jedi had abandoned her in her time of need, ejecting her from the Order.
"I tried to stop them, to end the chaos that they were sowing and bring peace to the galaxy, but I failed." He balled his good fist at these words and she could feel the rage build inside him.
"The Emperor found me then and gave me back my life so that I might once and for all bring justice to the galaxy."
Ahsoka was overwhelmed by the information and sat down hard on the floor, sliding her remaining red lightsaber closed.
"Is it really you Master?" she said, her voice shaking a bit.
"Yes," Vader responded firmly, "What Obi Wan left of me."
She looked back up at him from across the room. "But what about all the horrible things I've heard Lord Vader…" she paused, "I've heard you've done?"
Vader was silent for a moment.
"I've been forced to do many things in service to the Emperor that I would not have chosen to do, for he is a more powerful man than you can possibly imagine."
"Emperor Palpatine?" she sounded incredulous.
On every occasion she'd been in his presence, when he was still Chancellor Palpatine, he had seemed a rather frail man, an excellent bureaucrat who wielded plenty of political power, but nothing more.
"The Emperor took me under his wing and taught me powers I never knew existed. Power's the Jedi Council kept to themselves in order to keep the rest of us under their control."
"I don't understand?" she said frowning. "How could the Chancellor have known of Jedi powers?"
Vader turned and looked out at the roiling sea beneath them.
"He is my Master." He replied slowly. "A Sith Lord of unimaginable strength and cunning."
"A Sith Lord?" Ahsoka was taken aback.
The realization that a Sith Lord had been at he center of power in the galaxy, influencing every twist and turn of the government for years, absolutely floored her.
"How can you serve him!" She cried out standing once more. "After all the terrible things he's done, that he's made you do!?"
Vader stood silent, looking at the ground.
"He is too powerful for me!" he spun looking at her now. "For me alone." A heavy moment passed in silence.
"Join me." Vader said finally, reaching his good hand out to her. "Become my apprentice once again, and together we can rid the galaxy of his evil!"
Ahsoka abruptly sat again, overwhelmed by what was happening. She'd been alone for so long, unable to trust in anyone but herself, and to have someone she could rely on would truly be a gift. The thought of joining her old Master once more was pure joy, but the figure she saw standing on the opposite side of the room looked nothing like Anakin. And if this 'Lord Vader' had done half the things he'd been rumored to have done, how much of her Master Anakin was still in there?
She was still deep in thought when Vader continued.
"Together we can rule the galaxy and forever keep the tyranny of the Jedi a thing of the past!" he intoned, now looking beyond her out of the windows. "No longer will the strong prey upon the weak without consequences. Like avenging angels we will descend upon those who sow chaos and annihilate them with their own methods!" he was lost in his thoughts of vengeance and did not see the change in Ahsoka's face. "We can wipe the remnants of the Jedi away like so much chaff and no one will ever know they existed!"
A realization struck her and she suddenly looked at Master Voor'Kath's stone still hovering in the column. Looking back at Vader she interjected.
"You came for the stone didn't you?" It all sank into place, Daggo, the attack on the Vorta, the Imperial Commandos. "You've been searching for the stone, not for me."
Vader snapped back toward her. "You found it!" he said, "Ronai's Bane." She had not heard it referred to by that name before, but it made absolute sense. "Can it do what I've dreamed it can? Can it allow me to alter the past?"
She arose, truth clearly resounding throughout her senses. Alarm bells were sounding loudly in her mind as the consequences of someone as single minded as Lord Vader controlling the stone became apparent. Ronai had tasked her with destroying it to keep it from the very type of person that stood before her now.
"It is too dangerous…" she dreaded what was coming.
"Dangerous?" Vader replied, "Only to our enemies."
"It has to be destroyed." Ahsoka turned and looked at the rotating stone. "That is why I brought it here."
"Destroyed!?" Vader said, confusion and irritation in his voice. "You would destroy the means to right all the wrongs ever committed in the galaxy? You would destroy the power to dispense justice to all those who have wronged others?" He started walking toward the column now. "No! We must use it!"
"I can't let you!" she said grasping the lever in her hand. An intense silence filled the room as Vader stopped and turned to face her.
"Then you would betray me too." His sudden rage permeated the chamber. "Just like Obi Wan, you would take everything I've strived for and leave me with nothing."
He raised his left hand toward her and suddenly her throat constricted. "Not this time!" He cried out angrily. "Not ever again!"
Ahsoka's feet lifted off the ground as Vader crushed her throat in his building rage. Her hands scrabbled at her neck that had barely healed from when the Commando had done the same to her. She tried to reach out with the Force but she could not concentrate with the vice around her windpipe. Helplessly she dangled, a full three feet above the deck now.
The purple light that bathed the chamber was quickly shrinking down to a small, dark tunnel in front of her as she began to lose consciousness, but she would not go out easy.
'I won't let him have it!' She thought heavily, feeling as if forming each thought was like trying to swim through thick mud.
With a mighty effort she gave a final kick of her legs as all light disappeared from her eyes. The kick did not free her neck, but it wasn't meant to. Instead, her outstretched foot connected with the column control lever on the console now at boot level.
The change was incremental, but quick as the plasmic energy built up on the lower column. While the plasmic power grew, the vice grip on her neck eased and she suddenly dropped roughly to the ground gasping. Her face hit the console as she fell and her facemask cracked loudly.
Vader looked down at his hand in disbelief. Ahsoka's vision was slowly returning to normal and as it did so she her lightsaber came into focus lying just out of reach of her arm. She reached out her hand and tried to use the Force to pull it to her, but nothing happened. The strange numb feeling that she had felt the first time she had thrown the lever was back, but much stronger this time.
Her senses were incredibly dulled as well and it took her a moment to realize that the loss of the Force was tied to the flow of the plasmic energy. It made sense as she thought about it, the machine was designed to channel the Force into the stone and it was most likely pulling from everything nearby including the both of them.
She rolled over to see Vader vainly attempting to reach in and remove the stone from the energy stream, but it was locked in place surrounded by the plasmic energy. Vader's hand slowly evaporated before her eyes as he fought to extricate the stone. An angry noise issued from him but if it had actually contained any words they were lost in the rumbling noise that now permeated the chamber.
Toxic gases were seeping in through the large crack in her mask and Ahsoka could feel the difference in every breath she took now. The mask was still mostly intact so was providing at least some protection, but she would not last long in this condition.
Lord Vader spun and looked directly at Ahsoka then, his now handless arm hanging strangely in front of him. Electricity was arcing from the partially melted and deformed end. The power flow through the column behind him was becoming so intense that the new light was starting to overpower the light from outside. In that moment, a crawling shudder ran through the station and both Ahsoka and Vader reeled from the impact as it reached their chamber.
Vader stumbled forward falling onto the central platform and, some hidden mechanism triggered, it rose stoically toward the gap in the ceiling. On his knees, he stared increasing down at her as the platform rose, right up until the moment it disappeared into the ceiling above.
Vader had just disappeared from sight when the station was rocked again by another huge rumble traveling up the length of the structure. The sound of immanent destruction was only growing louder as the chamber began wrenching apart, the deck plating buckling as large rents tore violently open.
Ahsoka dragged herself as far from the now blinding column of light as possible. Grabbing her red lightsaber as she passed it lying on the floor, she continued crawling on all fours, ending up near the broken exterior window she'd seen earlier. She had just reached the wall when, with a tremendous shudder, the floor shifted and began tilting drunkenly, threatening to send her sliding headlong back toward the instant death of the waiting column. Reacting quickly, she climbed up onto the back of the console beside her, standing on its side surfing it as the station tilted and then completely fell over into the lake of plasma below.
Immediately the station began disintegrating, creeping downward and incrementally disappearing into oblivion. In desperation Ahsoka looked around and found the broken window, now directly above her head. She pulled herself through it and out onto the hull of the foundering structure.
She didn't quite know why she was fleeing at this point. The Remnant was surely dissolving in the endless glowing lake below, if it wasn't already gone, and without it there was no means of escape. Beneath her in the shrinking chamber the plasmic column disappeared into the lake with a final pulsing blast, taking Master Voor'Kath's stone with it.
With a tangible rush, Ahsoka felt the Force flow back into her. It did little to assuage her though as doom still quickly approached, rising inexorably through the chamber below. The central platform was now gone, more than half the station consumed along with it. Ahsoka shifted over to the highest point, a cylindrical projection that jutted out about fifteen feet from the main hull, and decided that she would meditate in the few moments she had left before the end came.
Sitting down with legs crossed beneath her she did her best to relax and considered her insignificance in the vastness of the galaxy. She felt somewhat mollified that at least she'd been able to complete Ronai's quest and destroy the stone. No one could wield its power, good intentions or not, ever again. She looked up one last time to see the stars far above, but they were washed out by the dazzling purple glow emanating from below.
A sudden movement at the edge of her vision intruded on her reverie and to her utter amazement the Remnant hove into view, descending directly above her. She couldn't believe her eyes, the cargo bay door was still open as it moved closer.
Looking back down at the chamber below, dismay welled anew as she saw the plasma devouring what remained of the station now only twenty feet away. Leaping to her feet without a moment to spare she crouched and launched herself straight up into the air. All the might of the Force and her legs combined to rocket her upward toward the dangling ramp. Her outstretched fingers barely clamped onto the lip at its extreme lowest point and, with a vice grip, she wearily dragged herself up onto the ramp. Crawling on all fours she collapsed into the cargo hold in absolute disbelief that she'd made it.
She ripped the broken facemask off her head and flung into a far corner where it promptly shattered completely. Fresh clean air from the ship flooded her lungs in large gulps. She savored the sweetness of it, such a stark contrast to the thick, metallic taste of the atmosphere that had leaked in through the crack in her mask. But there was no time for her to savor this small joy though.
She did not know if Vader had escaped or if his inevitable reinforcements were already on their way. As quickly as she could manage she ran toward the bridge, punching the cargo bay door control as she ran past it to close the ramp behind her. Her lungs burned from the gases she had breathed in but there was no time to stop at the med station now. Bursting into the cockpit she took a brief moment to pat R4 on the head.
"You saved my ass down there." R4 chirped that he had merely activated the thrusters when the deck had shifted under the ship. "A 'Your welcome' would have sufficed." She retorted.
"Did any other ships leave the station?" she asked dreading the answer. R4 beeped that one other short range shuttle had departed just before he had taken off from the platform.
'He escaped then.' Some part of her was relieved, she'd seen how much her former Master had changed but hoped that part of his former self still existed underneath the façade. She doubted though that they'd ever meet as friends again now that she had denied him what he had desired most.
'No, I've made a powerful enemy today.' She thought sadly.
"Spool up the hyperdrive R4," she said aloud, "we've got to get out of here fast."
They had not even cleared the atmosphere when the orbital bombardment began. Canon fire rained down past them to disappear in the ocean of plasma below.
"How much longer?" she called out, banking hard to roll the ship sideways and present a smaller surface area for the incoming fire. Ahsoka didn't hear R4's response as a direct hit scored on their hull, but it didn't matter. Whatever timeframe R4 had given would not be soon enough.
She jammed the controls downward and they plummeted back toward the planet's surface. There were no places to hide down here but she hoped the energy output from the plasmic ocean might interfere with the targeting scanners of the ship in orbit.
It appeared to be working as the number of shots that impacted the shields decreased dramatically. Flying this close to the surface of the plasma at speed was extremely difficult though and required every ounce of her attention. She wanted to check the energy shielding status but dared not look away from the controls for even an instant.
As suddenly as it had begun, the orbital bombardment ceased. Confused, Ahsoka hesitantly gained some altitude. The reprieve was short lived however as a squadron of short ranged fighters screamed downward, a hail of automatic blaster fire preceding them.
Ahsoka reacted instantly, hammering the altitude control fully back and punching the throttle to make the Remnant careen skyward. The maneuver bought her some precious distance from her attackers, but they were fast and more agile than the much larger Remnant. Even with all the modifications she'd made, the ship had been designed for hauling cargo and not the deadly dance of an aerial dogfight.
Her pursuers had gained back the distance now and the torrent of shots had resumed. She took a quick glance at the shielding status and her heart sank. The aft shielding had only five percent power remaining and in a moment that too would be gone.
R4 beeped loudly alerting Ahsoka that the hyperdrive was ready. That was good news but they were still in the inner gravity field of the planet and could not jump.
Hyperspace jumps were always performed at a minimum safe distance from large gravitational bodies. This was because the intense gravitational forces could easily confound the precise calculations of a jump. In addition, the effects of objects with significant mass extended into hyperspace. If a ship traveling through hyperspace were to pass through a location that in normal space contained a star, the gravitational plexing that connected hyperspace and normal space would instantly destroy the vessel regardless of its shielding or size.
The problem was that there was no way to detect gravitational plexis once you were inside hyperspace, and if you drifted out of the safe corridor you could pass through one at any moment. And it wasn't as simple as plotting a course to avoid stars either as they were not the only phenomenon to create hyperspace plexi. This was why it was so important to ensure you were within the boundaries of known hyperspace corridors and did not deviate from your calculated pathway. And of course that was just the danger while actually traveling through an unknown corridor. If, on the outside chance you somehow stumbled upon a safe one, on the other end there was always the chance you'd drop out inside a planet or star. Taking unknown hyperspace routes was paramount to suicide.
Alarm bells sounded now as the aft shields failed entirely. In a moment the Remnant's hull plating would fail as well and they would break apart in a spray of twisted metal and flame. Ahsoka realized it was certain death to stay and almost certain death to jump, but she opted for the slim hope over none at all.
Without hesitation she reached over and mashed the manual hyperjump control lever forward. In a flash of light the ship speared into hyperspace leaving devastation in its wake. The closest of the trailing short range Imperial fighters were partially pulled into hyperspace along with the Remnant and disintegrated in a streak of red hot fragments. The fighters that had more distance spiraled wildly out of control, most disappearing into the ocean of plasma below. Only two of the fighter squad emerged from the carnage to limp back to the Vengeance orbiting the now silent planet below.
