Chapter 14

The first few weeks after Kristoph's death were the worst. Karis was barely functioning. He stumbled through his life feeling as if half of himself was missing. At first he tried to go back to his daily routine, but everything reminded him of his loss. Even though his supervisor moved his office to another floor and gave him a different assignment, he found he couldn't even walk into the building without having a panic attack so finally he quit and went looking for another job.

He left the apartment he had shared with his brother and moved as far from their neighborhood as he could afford to go. It helped a little to make these changes, but the gaping wound Darth Vader had inflicted on his soul ached and began to fester.

He had meant every word he said when he promised vengeance on Vader. He was just unsure about how to go about achieving it. The man, if he even was a man, was impossibly strong and absolutely ruthless. On top of that, he was a Force user which complicated matters further. How did you fight someone whose powers so far outstripped your own?

Karis sat in his new apartment one night mulling over the possibilities. In every scenario he imagined, he ended up dying in a matter of seconds. Also, to make someone suffer, you had to understand them well enough to know what they really cared about. By all appearances, Vader was nothing more than a cold blooded killing machine who murdered without a hint of remorse. How did you hurt someone like that?

As he sipped thoughtfully on a beer he realized something. Vader might not have any visible weaknesses, but whoever was actually in that suit was certain to. It was time to find out who was really under that mask.

Finding out was far easier than Karis was expecting. He sliced into the Empire's official records looking for anything regarding Darth Vader. Being a former employee had it's benefits. He knew exactly what security systems were in place and how to circumvent them. It didn't take long before he was sifting through hundreds of files. What he found was interesting.

All the information he could find was recent. There appeared to be no mention of Darth Vader before a year ago. Most had to do with missions he had been sent on and contained no useful information. However, there were large amounts of data from the Emperor's personal medical droids which included a wealth of interesting clues. Everything from his age to his midi-chlorian count was recorded along with detailed descriptions of the extensive burns and severed limbs that kept him trapped in a life support suit.

It was the midi-chlorian count that gave it away. With a count that high, Karis knew that whoever he was he had almost certainly crossed paths with the Jedi at some point. That gave him an idea. He quickly sliced into the confiscated records from the Jedi Temple and searched their medical records for the midi-chlorian counts of members. There was only one match. Anakin Skywalker. All the other physical evidence lined up as well. Same age. Same blood type. Same dental records.

Karis gasped in shock. The Jedi hero of the Clone War was actually Darth Vader?! No wonder they wen't looking for Skywalker! He was right there all along, relentlessly pursuing his former comrades.

Once he had a name, Karis dug up everything he could find on Anakin Skywalker. Slowly he pieced together the major events of his life, starting with his pod racing victories on Tatooine all the way to his appointment as Chancellor Palpatine's Personal Representative on the Jedi Council.

There had to be more thought Karis. While he had a lot of information on Skywalker, there was nothing there that could be exploited. He had spent the vast majority of his time with other Jedi, especially Obi-Wan Kenobi who had been his former master. Obviously he didn't care about them anymore. What was he missing?

On a whim he did a general holonet search for Anakin Skywalker +gossip. A lot of unrelated results popped up. He was about to close the search window when one article from a celebrity news site caught his eye. It was over a year old. "Trist at the Senator's Apartment! Late Night Visitor Caught on Tape!" Beneath the salacious headline was a grainy picture of a cloaked figure leaving her apartment building. It was impossible to tell who. The article went on to name several guesses as to the person's identity one of which was Anakin Skywalker. Was it possible it really was him? Not that it mattered, the Senator was dead after all. But maybe…Karis looked harder at the picture. The figure was tall and well built under the cloak. The hood obscured any view of a face, but the hands were visible and one was covered with a black glove. It was probably nothing, but this was potentially the first sign of anything personal about the fallen Jedi so he started investigating further.

Karis didn't know much about Senator Amidala except that she was from Naboo and that her death had been widely covered on the news approximately a year ago. The story was especially tragic because she had been pregnant at the time and there had been much speculation about who the father might have been.

He searched for pictures of Padme Amidala and hundreds of images filled the screen. As he looked, he began to notice that in a large number Anakin Skywaker could be found somewhere in the background. Had they had a relationship beyond that of Jedi and Senator? It was a big leap, but if they had, could he have been the father of her child?

Some fast slicing pulled up her death certificate. She had died on Polis Masa. He paused. Polis Masa had become a well known refuge for Jedi after Order 66. What reason could an expectant mother about to give birth have to be on an asteroid belt in the middle of nowhere? Could that simply be a coincidence? Cause of death was listed as unknown. Unknown? How odd. He had absolutely no proof, but his instincts told him he was on to something.

He tried in vain to access the Medical Center records, but they ran on their own unique system which wasn't connected to anything else in the rest of the Galaxy. If you were trying to cover something up, this would be an ideal place to do it.

As soon as he was able to get away, he rented a starship and started the long journey to the outer rim. The answers he needed were on Polis Masa.

…

Luna and Obi-Wan stood on the ledge looking over the Lars farm. In the distance, Owen could be seen checking the vaporators for storm damage. Everything appeared to be in order. No black shadows appeared on the horizon.

"So what do we do now?" Luna asked. "I'm not feeling any inspiration yet."

"Just be patient. The answers will come when your mind is quiet and you are at peace."

As they watched from their hiding spot, Beru walked out the door of the house and headed for one of the outbuildings. A few steps behind her came Luke running as fast as his chubby little legs would carry him. He held a toy starship in one hand pretending to make it fly. He wasn't paying attention to where he was going and ran straight into Beru at full speed. She turned around to scold him, but he held up his toy as a peace offering and grinned up at her so endearingly that she shook her head and laughed. She picked him up and swung him around in a circle as he shrieked with laughter.

"He's adorable!" Luna sighed, passing the binoculars to Obi-Wan. "Someday I want one just like him."

Obi-Wan, who had been focused on searching for any clues that might help them gain more insight into the dream stopped cold. Luna wanted a child someday. As a Jedi, procreation was out of the question so he had put the possibility out of his mind entirely and never even considered it. Now that things had changed, was that something he was willing to revisit? He wasn't sure. What if he couldn't? Could he let her go someday to pursue that dream without him? The thought of her carrying someone else's child made him ill. Then he pictured her with his child growing inside her and something vital and primitive roared to life in his heart at the image.

He mopped his brow and glanced up to see Luna giving him an amused look. "Relax! I said someday. Besides, I'm on repress meds so we have nothing to worry about!"

Obi-Wan blushed furiously. Focus, he thought to himself. There are far more pressing matters at hand than imagining yourself as a father.

Luke was back on the ground now running back and forth in front of the small shed Beru had gone inside of. Without warning, he tripped over his feet and fell flat scraping his knee on a rock. He wasn't badly injured, but he screamed and tears filled his big blue eyes.

Luna froze beside him. Her eyes focused on Luke and she sat totally still hardly breathing. She was having a vision! A few minutes later, she gasped for breath and the glazed look left her eyes.

"What did you see?"

"It was him. The man who is coming. He's so angry…but desperately sad also. He's on his way."

"Where is he now?"

"I don't know. A hospital or medical center maybe? It is very sterile looking and it feels remote somehow. He's searching for information."

Obi-Wan had a very bad feeling about this. "Did you see any other beings?"

"There are droids. And a being I've never seen before. It didn't really have a face. Only eyes."

Oh,no. His fears were confirmed. "Polis Massans".