First things first. Before he looks at the new datafiles from the prince, Vader gives orders for a known band of political dissidents on Corellia to be rounded up and executed. They have overt Rebel leanings, but they aren't actual Rebels. They spread malcontent, but none has actually planned or engaged in armed revolt. These are the type of people Vader has been inclined to treat leniently. They are monitored but accommodated lest a crackdown push them to become further radicalized. But no more. Vader rounds up the Corellian Rebel sympathizers, as well as similar groups on six other systems. In all, two days later, fifteen hundred people are dead.
Is it enough? His Master says he wants dead Rebels, so Vader will give him dead Rebels. Well, dead pretend-Rebels. Almost-Rebels. Proto-Rebels. The missions have zero strategic value. These deaths will have no impact on Mon Mothma's armed revolt. But will they appease Darth Sidious? Vader is determined to show results to protect Astral. Between the threat his Master poses to Astral and the threat he poses to his son, Darth Vader has more reason than ever to kill Darth Sidious, but no more means to do it. So his strategy is to get on his boss' good side and stay there.
Satisfied for now, Vader locks himself inside his medical pod aboard his star destroyer. He takes a deep, fortifying breath and opens the first smuggled datafile. It's the surveillance datafile. Vader's attention is rapt as he scrolls through more images of the stranger who is his adult son.
These pictures are not from Tatooine. They are from inside a Rebel base. Somehow, this mysterious prince has a mole within the Rebel Alliance and that mole photographed Luke Skywalker. Like most surreptitious photographs, they aren't high quality. No one will win any awards for composition in these images. Most of the pictures seem to feature that pesky Alderaan princess more prominently than his son. Vader can only conclude that the pair are close friends—maybe even a future couple—from the scenarios he sees depicted of them together. He files that information away for future reference.
There are far fewer pictures overall this time, but what Vader sees is utterly fascinating. He sees Luke Skywalker in a Rebel pilot's flightsuit walking arm and arm with the princess and some other fellow. The trio looks jubilant. Here again is Luke Skywalker with the princess. He's cleaned up a bit and wearing a medal, looking very much the daring Rebel hero. Next, the pair are together in a casual moment in the commissary. And is that what he thinks it is? Vader peers closer and enlarges the image. Yes, it is.
Vader stares hard at the weapon clipped to the kid's belt. It's his old lightsaber. He lost it on Mustafar, or so he thought. Kenobi must have picked it up as a trophy. Evidently, he gave it to Luke. There's no other explanation. That's the lightsaber that began the Jedi Purge. Vader led the assault on the Coruscant Temple with that weapon. He slaughtered younglings with that sword. And here it is two decades later in his son's possession. It makes Vader wonder anew just what Kenobi and Lars told Luke Skywalker about his absent father.
One thing is clear—Astral's art loving prince must know where the Rebels hide in order to obtain these pictures. And that means the prince knows where Luke Skywalker is. Whoever this prince is, he has the information Vader needs to crush the Rebels and to return to Sheev's good graces, all the while protecting Astral and finding his son.
It is the perfect lure. There's no way that Vader is skipping this meeting.
He immediately grabs for the datafile with the meeting coordinates and date. When and where is he going? To Naboo next week. Ugh. He hates Naboo. He hasn't been to Naboo since Padmé's body was reinterred. He has long avoided that planet—it has too many memories. But it looks like he's heading to Naboo once more.
Every day, it seems, in unanticipated ways his past keeps rising up to confront him. The life and times of Anakin Skywalker are long gone, but his legacy lives on. Why? Vader half-fears to find out. He thought he had put his old life behind him forever. But it seems the Force has other plans. So, it's back to Naboo. He cannot pass up the chance to protect Astral and to save his son. They are his last, best hope for a better future.
Vader suspects the shadowy prince he is meeting knows all that. For as his brand-new personal TIE exits hyperspace into the Naboo system a week later, Darth Vader feels very manipulated. Suspicion has his senses on high alert. This meeting is either a trap or an opportunity. And either way, Vader risks death by being here. But he is not a man who has ever shied from danger.
The meeting coordinates are deep in the rural Naboo countryside. It is a sparsely populated area that would be the perfect spot for an ambush. With cover of darkness, no witnesses around, and ample possibilities to hide a body and the burned-out wreckage of his ship, it is an ideal location to kill him. Is he the galaxy's biggest fool for being here? Vader hopes not. But as he activates the TIE's landing cycle, he whispers a quick prayer he learned as a child just in case. Force be with me.
When he exits his TIE, Vader discovers that he is expected. Milo, his Master's old manservant is waiting for him with a lantern in hand. Has he been set up? That has always been a possibility, but Vader deemed it unlikely. Darth Sidious would not bother with such an elaborate ruse. Sheev would summon him to the palace he so rarely leaves in order to kill him. But Milo served Lord Plagueis before he served Lord Sidious, and so perhaps the riddle of who this prince is has just been solved.
"Milo." Vader's greeting is far from cordial. Neither man likes or trusts the other, and they both know it.
Nevertheless, the servant bows low in response. "Welcome, my Lord. This way into the Temple, please. He's waiting inside."
Of course, he is. If Vader needed proof he was meeting a Sith, this is it. For only a Force sensitive adherent of the Dark Side can open a Sith Temple.
"This way, please."
"Very well." Vader complies with the request but he also lights his sword. Old Milo will be the first to die if this is a ruse.
This sure isn't Exogol, Vader judges as they step inside. The small Dark Side Temple they enter is more chapel than cathedral. Well, maybe it's more like a priest hole. For like every other ancillary Sith Temple located within historic Republic territory, it was built by Sith loyalists during the Jedi era. It was a time when the Sith were in deep hiding. No one was constructing impressive edifices that might attract attention.
Inside the winding corridors, the stone walls are inscribed with Kittat runes in the vertical style of the reformed Sith. The whole place has the spare, rustic look the religion adopted after the Old Sith Empire fell and that purist Bane took over things. Bane must have been a miserly grump because he preferred things stark and plain. It is in sharp contrast to the few surviving ancient Temples that date four thousand years or more back to the glory days of the Old Sith Empire. Those sacred spaces of Darkness are richly ornamented in bold hues of red, white, black, and gold. They are full of hoarded treasures, from portraits of Dark heroes, to extravagant jeweled daggers for wedding ceremonies, to inscribed saber hilts and scrolls. The Temple on Mandalore's Concordia moon even has a repository for ashes of fallen enemies to be collected as a tribute to Darkness. Even all these years later, the place still smells faintly of incense and the ritual table has darkened bloodstains. Sheev, of course, loves it. He gets off on the occult trappings of Darkness from the various eras. But Vader finds it all a bit unnecessary.
He follows the old man deeper into the Temple, ducking for the low clearance at the final doorway. The route up to this point has been circuitous, but he committed it to memory. Vader knows he may need to make a quick exit.
Their destination is a cavernous room that is empty but for a large stone table in the center. From an open skylight high above, bright moonlight filters down from Naboo's surface. Even still, the room is draped in sepulchral gloom. Vader recognizes it as the ritual chamber of the Temple. Here an Apprentice would pledge his loyalty, a curse would be spoken, a marriage vow given, an enemy sacrificed, or a treaty agreed. This is a place of beginnings and ends, of commitments not easily broken, and of life-altering bargains.
A man stands before the table, waiting with his back turned. The figure is tall, topping even himself. Naturally, he is cloaked and hooded in flowing black. Vader would expect no less, given this choice of setting.
"Who are you?" Vader demands without preamble. He'll dispense with the pleasantries as usual.
The stranger answers with a command. "Put away your weapon. I mean you no harm." The man's voice is low and gravelly with a cultured accent Vader cannot place.
Vader considers a moment, then extinguishes the sword. But the saber hilt remains firmly grasped in his hand. He is a man who has been at war since his teenage years, and he is vigilant by nature. Plus, everything about this clandestine meeting smacks of danger. Terrible, dreadful danger. Vader can feel the Force swirling around him, its frantic eddies and flows a prologue to the imminent change to come. Yes, what happens here today will matter. And whoever this cloaked man is, he matters too. Like his cruel Master, this stranger appears to be completely ordinary in the Force. But Vader's gut tells him that is a lie. No one who can project himself into Coruscant is ordinary.
"Milo, leave us," the stranger commands.
The servant bows and begins to withdraw, but Vader re-ignites his saber to stop him in his tracks. Vader is unwilling to lose the potential leverage of his hostage. He doesn't know if old Milo's life has any value to trade, but it's all he has. So Vader countermands, "He stays."
The mysterious figure now turns to face him, but his features are hidden in the shadows of his hood. The man's tone is patiently chiding. "Do not murder poor Milo. He is your ally, not your enemy. And good help is hard to find. Even for the Sith."
Milo is a spy, that much is clear. Whether he is an ally remains to be seen. "He stays," Vader insists.
"Very well." The cloaked figure does not debate the point. Neither of them is here to talk about old Milo.
Vader now extinguishes his saber and waits expectantly.
His host takes his cue. "Long have I waited for this day," he rumbles. His tone drips with satisfaction and that makes Vader even more uneasy.
So, he demands again impatiently, "Who are you?"
The stranger reaches to toss back his hood. "I am Darth Plagueis the Wise, Apprentice to Tenebrous and Master to Sidious."
Those claims may or may not be true. But what is true is that this man is horribly disfigured like himself. Standing facing one another, each draped in black, there are more similarities than differences. But Astral is right—this guy looks even worse than he does. The man has a gaping hole in his left cheek and a misshapen jaw, most of one ear is gone, and a glaring scar extends down the center of his forehead. As far as Vader can tell, the man is humanoid, but not human, with gray pink skin reminiscent of a Muun. He looks just as Astral has described, only his eyes are a familiar bright yellow and not blue. Those eyes are a sign of the Dark Side and the peculiar hallmark of a Sith.
For a second, Vader wonders what it's like to walk around with a face like that. He himself wears a mask for his breathing, but it has the added benefit of concealing his own disfigured face. No one sees but a few and they know not to gawk. Not so for this stranger who walks through life a veritable monster.
Vader takes his time to look his full before responding curtly. "Plagueis is long dead."
The comment provokes a sly chuckle. "Oh, he's not dead. Not yet." And, surprisingly, the man now smiles. "Not dead," he repeats with a note of triumph in his voice. "Not ever dead."
Vader digests this dubious claim and decides it doesn't matter whether it's true or not. This guy could be Plagueis. Or he might be another discarded Apprentice like Maul. Or maybe an early Inquisitor. Perhaps, he's a surviving early Apprentice of Plagueis. But his identity matters less than Luke Skywalker, so Vader gets right to the point. "What do you want?" This guy proposed the meeting, so he can take the lead.
"I wish to meet you."
That's it? That's it? Vader doesn't believe that for one moment. With guys like this, there's always an offer. And the subject of that offer is going to be Luke Skywalker, he knows. This guy didn't send him two sets of surveillance photos of his son for nothing.
Well, if this washed up old relic won't get to the point, then he will. Vader demands, "Where are the Rebels? Where is Luke Skywalker?"
"I don't know."
Vader calls bullshit on that claim. "You don't know," he jeers, "and yet you have photos of him at the hidden Rebel base?"
"Those are old photos. They were taken by an embedded agent in the immediate aftermath of the destruction of the Death Star. Sadly, the man was killed when your forces showed up. The Imperial Navy didn't manage to take out many of the fleeing Rebels, but it did take out the ship my spy was on. The Rebels dispersed and I lost them, like you did."
"So you have nothing to offer me?" Vader concludes.
"I wouldn't say that." The mysterious Sith now dares to chides him. "You should cloak yourself in the Force, Lord Vader. You are far too easy for a Jedi to sense. I could feel you coming in the Force miles away."
Vader bristles at this condescension. Arrogance has long been his default response to criticism. Today is no exception. So he boasts back, "I have no need to hide. There are no Jedi. I killed them."
The hooded yellow eyes of the unknown Sith peer straight into Vader's mask and seem to look right through him. "You and I both know that there are still Jedi," the man corrects him.
The stranger cocks his head now as he observes, "You do not know how to hide in the Force, do you?" The man with the ruined face so like his own shakes his head in disdain. "Hiding in the Force is the first lesson of being a Sith, and yet Lord Sidious does not teach it. Sheev is such a disappointment . . . such a disappointment . . . "
Again, Vader bristles at the criticism. Not on his Master's behalf, but on his own. For as long as he can remember, whether Jedi or Sith, someone has found him to be lacking. It's a big reason why he's ready to be done being the Apprentice. He's tired of being everyone's failure.
His host unwisely continues his theme of finding fault. It's not endearing Vader to like or to trust him. But he persists, observing, "I know that Sheev teaches you very little of the Dark Side. I know that you were stronger as a Jedi than you are now as a Sith."
It's true, but Vader refuses to acknowledge it. He will give nothing away, especially to this man.
"It's not from your injuries. The Force did not reside in the limbs you lost. Lord Vader, you are diminished by your Master who fears you. He fears your power. Sheev worries that one day you will eclipse him. You suspect it too, yes?"
Vader makes no reply. He came here to talk about Luke Skywalker, not himself.
The towering Sith waves away one spindly fingered hand as if to indicate impatience with his stonewalling. "I know these things, you know these things . . . whether you will concede them or not." Again, those yellow eyes seem to peer right through Vader's mask, seeing things they should not. The man now challenges, "Do you know why, Lord Vader?"
So now it's a guessing game? He'll play along. Vader dutifully mutters, "Why?"
"Because Sheev Palpatine knows that you are my son."
My son. Vader frowns and keeps silent at this bold, ridiculous claim.
"Yes, Anakin Skywalker, I am your father," the supposed Darth Plagueis states in his croaking baritone.
"That's not true," Vader scoffs, unimpressed and annoyed by this blatant attempt at manipulation. "That's impossible." Whoever this poseur is, he's not even human. He couldn't possibly be his father.
A slow, sly smile creeps across the man's ruined face. "Anything is possible in the Force," he counters, sounding like an evil version of Yoda. "Technically, you are my creation. But I have always thought of you as a son."
Vader is angered now. "You lie!" he accuses.
"Search your feelings, Lord Vader. You know it to be true. Your mother Shmi was a lowly slave woman when she fell pregnant. She wasn't lying. There was no father. What was conceived in her was conceived in the Force . . . with a little intervention from myself."
"You LIE!" Vader's voice holds the warning note his subordinates know to heed.
But not this man. He persists in spinning his falsehoods. "I had been experimenting with Dark power, trying to push its limits. I pushed too hard. I went too far. And the Force pushed back . . . with you. I had long suspected that the universe defaults to balance, but your existence is the proof. In time, Shmi Skywalker would give birth to a son destined to save the galaxy. For unto us—all of us—a son is given. You are that son. The Jedi Chosen One and the Sith'ari long foretold."
"YOU LIE!" Vader roars. He let this messiah of the Force business go to his head years ago, but no longer. He will not let myths mislead him any longer.
But his host continues undeterred. "You were born humble and wretched but with the spark of the divine. You were blessed with no birthright but the Force, and you did not get that from me. You got that from the Force itself. I was merely the catalyst." The wily Sith standing across from him looks apologetic now. "Like so many children, you were an accident," he admits. "The byproduct of a moment of folly. An inconvenience, unplanned and—at the time—unwanted. They say some of life's greatest inventions were happy accidents. You were one of those, Anakin."
Vader fumes in indignant silence now. He refuses to listen to any of this. Even if it has the ring of truth.
"I never abandoned you. I did not know of your existence until the Jedi found you. Sidious was my Apprentice at the time. He was terrified of you and jealous of your power. I feared if Sheev believed you to be his rival, he would kill you. And so, I left you with the Jedi to protect you and to make sure that you would be raised in the Light. My boy, you were too young for Darkness."
"Are you finished?" Vader growls with stone cold menace.
The mystery Sith ignores the question. "Sidious usurped me before I could lure you out of their cult. And then he lured you himself. Sheev knew that he who controls the Chosen One, controls the Force. He knew that if he could stunt the development of the Sith'ari, he could remain in power. And so, Sidious now holds you back like the Jedi once held you back." Again, those piercing yellow eyes seem to look through his mask and into his soul. It's very uncomfortable. Holding his gaze steadily, the man practically purrs, "Everyone fears your power, Lord Vader."
Is the strategy to stroke his ego? Well, it won't work. Still, when Vader doesn't respond, the sly stranger takes a few limping steps forward. He's emboldened now and his words slow down. They are less a crescendo of revelation and more a slow unfolding truth. "All fear you because they recognize the destiny you portend. The Jedi and the Sith both know the role you will play in their downfall."
"Those prophesies are fairytales," Vader dismisses them outright. And if they're not, they are just further evidence of his failures. It's humiliating.
"You don't believe that," the man snaps as he approaches a few steps further. "Search your feelings and swallow your fears, Lord Vader. You are the Force made flesh, equal part saint and sinner, a fully human person and yet the greatest instrument of the Force. You brood in your castle. You brood on your ship. Miserable with your life, wondering why the Force has forsaken you. It has not! You have turned your back on it! Heed the call and serve your true Master: history! Fulfill your destiny, my son. Join me-"
Vader cuts him off. "We're done. Don't bother contacting me again." He turns on heel and begins to exit the room.
And that's when the zealous Sith makes his offer: "With my help, you can be rid of Sidious forever."
Vader half-turns to challenge, "So I can be your Apprentice instead?" His words drip with sarcasm. While deposing Sidious has much appeal, Vader won't exchange one lying, manipulative Master for another. He's not the gullible fool he once was.
"My son, whether you will admit it or not, you need a teacher."
"I have a Master. I don't need another." Vader long ago grew tired of having someone tell him what to do. He fell for the father figure Sith Master routine once already, he won't do it again.
Vader resumes walking out. He's done here.
The man calls after him, "You were once the favorite son of the Force . . . the golden boy . . . the next big thing . . . the one with big dreams and grand plans to rule the galaxy. Oh, I know, I know. We were all that once. It's a hard fall. I know that too."
Vader keeps walking.
"Look at me!" the Sith commands, gesturing to his own deformities. "Do you think I have not suffered as you have suffered? Do you think I do not know loss and disappointment? I buried a real son, my Lord. He was ten years old when Sidious beheaded him while sleeping. My boy—my biological boy—didn't even have the Force. He would never have been a threat to my Apprentice. But Sheev killed him anyway for spite. Like he killed my wife."
"So you want revenge?" Vader pauses and half turns again. "You want back the Empire you plotted?"
"I want more than revenge. I want to annihilate the ideology that led to their deaths."
"You cannot annihilate Darkness and the lust for power," Vader counters. "You seem to have a heavy dose of it yourself," he observes with disdainful sarcasm.
"What you say is true, but I can end the Sith with your help," the persistent stranger proposes.
"Get to the point," Vader growls. The longer he lingers here, the more dangerous this is. He's not here to play games. This guy needs to spit it all out.
"Together without our combined strength, we can kill Sidious—"
"Sheev has all sorts of contingency plans," Vader interrupts. "Clones and fleets and a slew of standing orders so all Hell will break lose if he dies."
"All that matters is killing him. It won't be hard to dispose of his loyalists," the other man contends.
Vader sees it differently. "Sheev will be hard to kill. He's been obsessed with immortality for years. He spends a lot of time pouring over old Sith books searching for secrets. He may have found some."
"He stole those books from my library. They contain knowledge, but not the knowledge he's looking for. I wasn't foolish enough to write that down."
"So he is still mortal?" Vader has wondered this.
"Let's hope so."
"You're not certain?"
"Well, he's got part of immortality down," the Sith admits. "And thanks to that trick, you're alive."
Vader's eyes narrow. "What do you mean?"
"There are rudimentary ways of prolonging and sustaining life in the Force. It's the reverse of Jedi Force healing. Instead of giving your Force energy to another, you take Force energy from someone. In the old days, there were Sith bodysnatchers. They were the Force equivalent of vampires, feeding off others and then jumping their consciousness to a new host body when finally their mortal form had aged too much. It's how Sidious killed your wife."
"What?" That gets his attention.
"Sidious drained the Force from your wife to sustain you when you were injured. He could have chosen any victim to kill, but he chose her. He knew the pain it would inflict."
"He killed Padme?" This possibility had never occurred to him. It's like a punch to the gut to know that not just himself, but also his wife, fell victim to Darth Sidious. Suddenly, Vader is enraged. "Sheev killed Padme?"
"Absolutely," the stranger confirms, then immediately promises, "I will help you get your revenge."
And, wait—is he being further manipulated? This could be more lies. Whoever this guy is, he's offering all sorts of answers designed to lead him to the same conclusion: to trust him and to join his conspiracy. This is the mode of the Sith, Vader knows. They tell you insidious lies that you want to believe as inducement for their own goals. But he's no fool. These are not the answers he needs: namely, where are the Rebels and where is Luke Skywalker? But even so, this maybe-Plagueis has got his attention.
The man considers aloud now. "The ability to drain and to restore with the Force is not the same as immortality, but it will still make Sheev harder to kill. That skill is far more concerning than whatever he's done with cloning."
"Why?" Vader is fishing for information. For the event that he and his son together need to kill Sidious.
"Come now, Jedi General," his host smirks, "you know this. You can clone the body, but you cannot clone the soul. That's why your clone troopers were individuals even if they were all twins. Moreover, cloning a Force sensitive being does not yield a Force sensitive being." The other Sith chuckles. "Sheev probably could clone me. He has my left ear somewhere. But the most he will get is my big ugly Muun brother. Sheev will have to provide the Force part himself."
"What if he is truly immortal?"
"Then he cannot he killed. He must be driven out. Like I was."
"And yet, here you are," Vader drawls with marked lack of enthusiasm.
"Yes. By grace of the Force, I endure," maybe-Plagueis announces piously. There's no Sith Master like a reformed Sith Master apparently.
Vader is cynical, as always. "Why would the Force allow two of you Dark immortals to wander around forever? Death is the way of things, the way of the Force."
His host shrugs. "Perhaps it is to prove a point to those stubborn Jedi. Evil never dies, my son. Hope cannot die either. The two sides of the Force are eternal. They persist. Kill all the Jedi, and the Light still survives. Kill all the Sith, and you have conquered a religion, not evil. And that is the way it should be. The Force will endure, the Dark Side and the Light Side will persist, but the false idols we Force users have worshipped at for over a thousand generations will fade into history."
They can agree on that, at least. Vader gripes, "Those orthodoxies are a lie. They need to die."
"Assuredly. The only solution—and it is an ongoing solution, not an end—is to balance the Force. And for that, the galaxy needs you."
Are they back to this? Vader shuts that discussion down. "It's too late for that."
"No, it is not."
His insistence is tiresome. "Why would Darth Plagueis, who successfully plotted the return of the Sith Empire, want to destroy it all?" Is he just a hater looking to spoil things? Or is this guy looking to be top dog again? He must be tired of sitting on the sidelines as Sidious rules.
But the stranger has a different answer. "I have seen the Light," he says with a completely straight face. The man has gravitas to spare when he speaks of the Force. "Forgive the pun, but it is true. I have seen the limits of the Sith religion. Like you as a young Jedi saw the errors of your cult's ways. It is time to move past all that. You will be the one to lead us into the future."
There he goes with the Chosen One crap again. Annoyed Vader drawls out with maximum skepticism, "Why does an exiled Sith Lord care so much about a Jedi prophecy?"
"Because it's true. Let Master Yoda consider you the Chosen One, but Master Plagueis will consider you to be the coming of the Sith'ari. It's merely semantics. We are both right. That prophecy is the one thing the two religions can agree upon. Each from their own perspectives, they arrived at the same truth. Do not discount that coincidence, for it is the will of the Force. One day soon, the Jedi and Sith distinction will no longer matter. Future Force users will learn the Dark and the Light, and they will wield them both. We will start with Luke Skywalker. You can teach him the Light. I will train you both in Darkness. Then together, we will destroy Sidious."
Ah . . . there is the real offer. The guys sounds as if he truly believes it, but Vader is unimpressed. "You would use me to achieve your own revenge."
"It is our revenge. And your opportunity. I taught Sheev Palpatine everything he knows. But I did not teach him everything I know." The cloaked man with the ruined face limps forward some more. Then he moves closer still. Now Vader can see up close the full extent of the damage on his face and it is considerable. "Sidious was a satisfactory Apprentice. But I knew that you would one day come along to replace him. And so, I saved all my best secrets for you. Sheev was only ever a placeholder for you, my son."
My son. The lie grates. If it's a lie. But Vader pushes those doubts out of his mind. "You speak treason."
"No, I speak as a Sith. It is a time-honored tradition for an Apprentice to supplant his Master. And in this case, it won't be motivated by the usual selfish reasons. Consider the matter, Lord Vader. With my help, you could rule the galaxy with your son at your side. A dynasty of Skywalkers. Grandfather, father, and son. All allied and unstoppable in the Force, with the ultimate power of Light and Dark."
It's a surprisingly tempting thought, but quickly Vader brushes it aside. "Why should I trust you?"
"Because we are family. And because you will never get a better offer." The man who looks like a walking corpse and speaks with the conviction of something from the holochron vault, steps closer still. He's uncomfortably close, but Vader refuses to be the one to back up. He will not be intimidated.
"This is it—this is the endgame of the Force. You, me, and the boy. We will finish what you started with the destruction of the Jedi Order. We will overthrow Sidious and end the Sith. We will witness the final destruction of the old gods of Light and Darkness. Henceforth, there will be no more Jedi and no more Sith. A new era will commence."
"Those are grandiose words." Vader still refuses to cede ground. They are toe to toe now. Mere inches separate his mask from his counterpart's gargoyle face. Oddly enough, the man's expression is strangely hopeful, not threatening. Damn, this guy's act is good.
"We are the new gods, the Skywalkers," the mystery Sith urges. He looks proud. "My son, you were born for this. You were born for greatness."
"I will not be your pawn," Vader growls back.
"Take some time to reconsider. This is an open offer."
"I will not be your pawn. That answer is final."
The man nods his understanding. "I have waited a long time for this chance. I have shown much forbearance. But I warn you, Lord Vader, that I will do this with you or without you. I will be on the right side of history."
Vader scoffs. "If you could do it on your own, you would already have done it."
"True. But I can do it with Luke Skywalker."
Vader blinks, then explodes before he can stop himself, "Don't you go near him!" He'll be damned if he lets Luke Skywalker fall into this zombie Sith's influence. As it is, Astral is already in his sights.
"Long have I watched him—"
"Don't you go near him!" Vader's thumb is itching to light his sword and give this guy more scars.
But those piercing yellow eyes yet again look right through his mask. Giving him pause. And that's the moment when the Sith renews his pitch. "Together, we can find him. Together, we can save him from Sheev."
"I will not be your pawn!"
"Very well." The man backs down. He sounds almost kindly now as he steps back. "Take care, son. Sheev will kill you if he learns that we have met."
"Then why is Milo here?" Vader gripes.
"Never fear, I will take this episode from his memory. He will not betray you. Milo is as loyal as they come. He will know how to contact me should you reconsider."
"I won't."
The elder Sith looks him over one last time and smirks. "You do not disappoint, I'll grant you that, Lord Vader."
The stranger now heads for the door, moving slowly with a twisting, labored effort. Surely, there must be other grave wounds concealed beneath the man's cloak, Vader thinks watching him go. He can't help but wonder. Pain is something he himself understands well.
The meeting is over. In its wake, Vader is left with more questions than answers. He's more confused and uncertain than ever. It's as dispiriting as it is unnerving. And he's curious, despite his better judgment. So, he calls out after the retreating figure, "Wait-the other twin. Does she live?" Does he have a daughter?
"Yes." His host turns as he lifts up his hood to conceal the worst of his disfigurement. "But for now," the man replies, "she remains safely anonymous."