Disclaimer: I don't own Star Wars
"What is this place?" The apprentice asked as he followed his Sith Master into the deep bowels of the Imperial Palace. Around him, cold wet stone structured the floors, pillars, walls and ceiling. The only light emanated from a small antique oil lantern that Sidious held.
Darkness surrounded them.
The apprentice's fingers twitched over his newly acquired lightsaber.
"Tell me my apprentice, do you trust me?" Sidious asked. The apprentice remained silent.
The two walked to the end of a corridor where a metal door awaited them. Sidious turned expectantly towards the young blonde.
"I want to trust you master. It is necessary," the youth finally gritted out and Sidious saw that even that confession was a torture to him. Despite all his atrocities he had committed, his eyes were still crystal blue.
"Some part of you still clings to your old self," Sidious sneered as he opened the door and entered into a dimly lit hallway. His apprentice followed quietly behind neither acknowledging nor denying his accusation.
The hallway consisted of large windows displaying white, sterile rooms neatly aligned on both sides of the wall.
"You pledge yourself to me and declare yourself my apprentice but in your heart you are still the Imperial Prince Luke, son of Lord Vader."
The boy visibly flinched at those names.
"You embrace the darkside but refuse to completely emerge yourself. Your insignificant perception still believes that this is merely an endeavor. That I am merely an obstacle to overcome," Sidious told him, his words dripping with contempt.
The apprentice bowed his head. He knew the consequences for lying.
"Master… I thought that my whole purpose for embracing the darkside was to save my-to save Lord Vader," the apprentice confessed, his tone confused. Sidious narrowed his eyes. He may have driven the love out of the boy, he may have even had the boy declare under duress that he hated his father but there were other elements to that relationship that were just as dangerous as love.
Elements such as loyalty.
Elements such as principal.
"You cannot emerge yourself in the darkness for anyone other than yourself," Sidious spat and circled the youth in agitation. If the boy refused to learn this lesson, then Sidious could never truly possess him.
"Tell me boy, what do you think will happen once you save Vader's Soul? What will become of him? What will become of you?"
The blonde blinked slowly, as if he had never truly thought of the question.
"I would - he would- Lord Vader would relinquish his claim on the darkside. There can only be two apprentices and so I would take his place.' His words were slow and indecisive.
Sidious sneered.
"Do you think Lord Vader would just simply walk away? One does not relinquish anything. The darkside claims. Once you start down it's path, your destiny will forever be dominated by it."
The apprentice shook his head, unwilling to believe his master's words.
"That can't be," he murmured. His heart clenched. If what his master was saying was true, then all of his suffering and sacrifice and wickedness - everything he had gone through would have been for nothing. Vader couldn't be saved...
"Tell me my apprentice, why do you think Vader raised you?"
Still shuddering, it took a moment for the boy to collect himself.
"Blood. He raised me because I am - was his son." The emperor raised an angry hand and yanked on a cord on the wall. The dim light in the corridor as well as in the pristine white rooms suddenly grew intensely bright.
"No. Vader raised you because he needed an heir… and an apprentice," he told the boy coldly.
Blinking his eyes to adjust, the apprentice noticed for the first time that each room held an occupant. Alone, dirty and injured to various degrees, each person, some alien, some male, some female, some adult, and some youth all were chained in shackles to the wall of their respective rooms.
"Who are they?" He asked in a quiet voice, his heart still hurting from Sidious' revelation.
His master smiled wickedly at his question.
"These are Vader's previous apprentices. The force users he cast aside after he found you. You are after all, the strongest one."
The apprentice slowly fell to his knees before the window of a human male with a shaved head and dark eyes. He was completely naked and filthy. Someone his own age.
"That… no," the boy choked out and his eyes burned with tears that would not come. It couldn't be. A deep well of despair rose up within him and the boy had to close his eyes tightly as he summoned the force to conquer the onslaught of pain.
Cool darkness enveloped him.
"What do you think Lord Vader will do when he realizes that you aren't his apprentice, but mine?" Sidious asked quietly, in a softer more pitying tone.
"He wouldn't replace me," but the boy was no longer sure of his own words. He was no longer sure of anything. The apprentice looked back to the youth in the window. On the wall outside of his room was a name minted on a small plaque, like a trophy. It read 'Starkiller.'
Tears fell from beneath closed eyelids as the apprentice knelt on the dirty floor of Grand Moff Kaine's prison cell.
A terrible pain had blossomed in his head somewhere at the base of his brain and spine and echoed into the ripples of the force. The apprentice knew it was no natural ailment. Already he could feel the shadow of his master's influence fade as it expired from his mind even as he purged his master's painful lesson from his immediate memory.
He had gone too long without Sidious. Never before had the apprentice been away from him for so long. Knowledge, power, memories - his master's presence was disappearing and without it, the apprentice felt lost. He needed those vices. He was nothing without the darkness.
Still, he dare not return to Imperial Center without completing his mission.
Shaking his head, the apprentice forced himself to focus and wiped angrily at his tear stained cheeks. He didn't have time for idle dalliances.
The time was drawing near. The rebels were here. Soon they would find him.
The Executor exited hyperspace above the Seswenna System.
Darth Vader watched impatiently from the viewpoint of the bridge as the nearest of the two Star Destroyers in the system started its approach. It was clear that a recent battle had taken place. The remains of several TIE fighters and X Wings floated amongst the debris of a rebel cruiser. To Vader's annoyance the rebel fleet itself was long gone; the cruiser was not the infamous Liberty.
Leia's presence in the Force was muffled by the great distance between them, she was not here… but Luke's was surprisingly close. Perhaps all was not lost.
"Commander," Vader called, barely waiting for the man to come to attention before issuing his orders.
"prepare my shuttle for immediate departure and stand by to intercept any crafts leaving or entering the system."
Han watched in despair as the Millenium Falcon was slowly devoured by the flames and heat. They had shot his ship with a ion detonator. Even as Chewie scrambled to counter the flames Han knew the damage would be excessive.
"I'll kill you! I'll kill you!" The smuggler snarled as he turned towards the pale humanoid female that had caught him. Trying to charge her, Han tripped over the netting he had been encased in and fell flat on his face.
Aura Sing stared amusedly down at her bounty before a warm flare in the Force had her redirecting her attention to Solo's companions. Her two counterparts had no such warning and when one of them got a little too close to smuggler's crew they had been decapitated. Aura could hardly believe her eyes.
The woman lying on the ground had gotten up and was rapidly charging towards them with a lightsaber in her hand.
Old lessons from her time in the Jedi Temple had Aura aiming her blaster away from the lightsaber and towards the unsteady sand surrounding the Sarlacc Pit. The woman was strong in the Force but nothing would help her if the ground beneath her feet gave way. Now all she had to do was force her towards the edge…
Her surviving lacey seemed to understand what she was trying to do as he slowly advanced on the woman and forced her away from the ship and towards the Sarlacc with his own blaster. The woman was not Jedi. Aura could already tell by how she struggled to deflect both of their blasters from two disparate angles.
"Leia!" Han's muffled voice called out.
A sharp warning flared in Aura's senses just before a blaster bolt was redirected towards her. Summoning her own reflexes Aura dived behind her swoop barely under the cover of a nearby boulder. Another bright Force wielder entertained the scene and Aura knew just by the brown robe and his old age that this one was a Jedi.
The odds were suddenly not in her favor.
Creeping around her ship, Aura snagged Solo's net and quietly began to drag him towards her bike. All the while she watched this newcomer who also wielded a lightsaber. His movements were graceful in power. Her lackey didn't stand a chance.
Forcing her leg over the woop bike, the bounty hunter left just as the Wookie put out the Flames on the Millennium Falcon.
The Togorian's whiskers twitched nervously as she watched the two aliens approached her ship yard.
The Drach'nam, Chay Praysh, she recognized but the human male with white hair and a broad chin she did not know.
"Where is it?" the human demanded. Praysh walked at a much more leisurely stride but like his partner, there was a dangerous raging aura about him.
"Where is what?" the Togorian asked calmly only for the Drach'nam to backhand her sharply.
"Don't play dumb, H'sishi. Where is the yacht?" Praysh asked in a cool voice. The Togorian fought the urge to switch her whiskers again. It was a sign of fear.
"We have many yachts," H'sishi began, only to for the human to pull a blaster out and aim it at her head. Before she could react however, Praysh was pulling the human's arm down.
"Bardin don't you know that aiming a blaster at a Togorian will do nothing but anger them," he admonished with a chuckle. The human - Bardin - scowled deeply before withdrawing his weapon. H'sishi would have been amused if she didn't know how Praysh operated. Her old slave master had incredibly cruel and inventive ways to draw out information from someone.
"It's obvious that my old slave does not in fact have the yacht in her possession. Judging by this meager scrap yard, I'd wager she sold it," the Drach'nam concluded, his voice starting out pleasant only to end on a dark note. Bardin inclined his head in interest before shooting a dark look at the Togorian.
This time H'sishi's whiskers did twitch as she thought of the snarky redhead who had flown off with her only bargaining chip. Yes times were tough, but H'sishi was quickly coming to realize that a lack of funds was much more preferable to a lack of life.
"Now, who did you sell the Winning Gambit to?" Bardin demanded darkly.
Mara Jade sat back in her luxury yacht as it zoomed through hyperspace. She had just finished reprogramming the ship's name from the Winning Gambit to the Jade's Fire.
Her master would surely disapprove of the less than discreet name, but Mara couldn't find it in herself to regret the action. As long as she completed the mission and pleased the emperor, any spoils of war would remain hers.
"... bring the boy back alive."
Her master's voice rang loudly in her mind and Mara fought to keep her mind and emotions at ease. The spoiled prince didn't deserve her master's attention. Unfortunately, until her master lost interest of the prince fell from the emperor's grace, she could do nothing but wait.
The computer alarm chimed in warning and Mara brought her focus back to the cockpit controls.
She was fast approaching the Seswenna system and the ship's computer was urging her to bring the ship speeds out of hyperspace. Mechanically, Mara followed the computer's instructions. She loved the yacht.
Her happy musings were disrupted when she recollaborated the speeds and the Jade's Fire dropped out of Hyper Space above Kaine's planet, only for the Force to warn her of immediate danger. Mara's supernatural reflexes and piloting skills were the only thing that saved her from smashing the Jade's Fire against the Executor's starboard haul.
A menacing black presence, larger than life itself invaded her senses.
Mara narrowed her eyes in recognition.
"Vader."