AN: I don't normally like my notes at the beginning of the chapter, but it's needed for this one.

This chapter serves as a set up for two things. One, for a future part of this story. Two, as a seamless transition to the rest of the remaining arc in this part. This subplot was planned from the very beginning. Before I even had a word of this story typed. That future arc also would have required me creating some slave culture lore. Frankly, I didn't feel like doing that. This story is epic enough in scope. So, I borrowed a few elements from the slave culture that my fellow star wars writer Fialleril came up with (this site doesn't let me link so just google their name plus Star Wars). Nothing I could have come up with would have ever topped that, and it would have been influenced by their world anyway.

From the amount of works inspired by theirs and how it's kinda been accepted as fandom canon, I'm assuming they're pretty liberal about allowing people to borrow elements from their worlds and lore. Most people know of it, but I wanted to shout them out here anyway and direct you to read their fics if you've never read them before, particularly the Double Agent Vader Series. Some great Leia and Vader interactions in that story.

Chapter Thirty-Two: Ekkreth

The cloning facilities on Kamino had long since shut down, one of Palpatine's first acts as Emperor, as they no longer served a purpose to the Empire. Nor was the Imperial fleet accepting any of the remaining clones that had been produced and were still being raised there. The Kaminos themselves had been cast aside like everything and everyone else that had helped bring Palpatine to power but was no longer useful to him. Luckily for them, Palpatine also hadn't seen them as a threat to his power. For now, they were left on their planet in relative peace. The cloning facilities, while shutdown, still housed the clones that hadn't matured by the end of the war; paid for but with no direction what to do with them.

Vader had a solution for that. Finally.

"Lord Vader," the Kamino who greeted him said. "Right this way. Your guest is waiting for you."

Vader didn't answer, but the Kamino cloners weren't easily offended. Business-minded as they were, they didn't care much for pleasantries and unnecessary small talk either. The Kamino man led him to a room near the back of the facility, bowed his head, and departed right afterward.

Vader used the Force to activate the lock mechanisms of the door and strode inside, immediately catching the attention of the young togruta woman in the room.

"Kriffing kriff," she exclaimed at the same time as she managed to draw her blaster and point it at him.

"Put that away. If I meant you any harm, I would have harmed you already," Vader said dismissively.

"Obviously, you don't recall the last time we met. You tried to kill me. Twice."

"Your own fault."

Diya narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips at him, but decided to say nothing and put her blaster away. Good. The more time he spent arguing with the girl, the less time he had to deal with things that mattered.

"Have a seat," he directed. "We have many matters to discuss."

"I'm sure you can understand why I prefer to stand."

Vader Force-shoved the girl backward and into her seat before sitting on the other side of the small round table.

She didn't try to get up again but immediately asked, "Why the hell did you call me here? Why even go through the trouble of using your stupid spies to get me here at all? If it's something about the rebellion, isn't it just something you could run by Ahsoka."

"What I've called you here for, child, has nothing to do with the rebellion or Ahsoka, even though I'm sure she would gladly assist if I asked it of her. I think we can both agree on the fact that she has enough to deal with."

"I'm not a child," Diya responded flatly.

Not as much of a child as she'd been when he met her three years ago, certainly. She was just barely a shorter than Ahsoka now and slighter in build, but she used her relation and resemblance to Ahsoka well in service of the rebellion. The Jedi impersonator, she was known as in the Empire, for pretending to be his former apprentice. A genius plot that effectively kept anyone from looking for the real Ahsoka Tano, even Palpatine once his spies and Vader brought the information that she was an imposter. Someone pretending to be a former Jedi was a lot less dangerous than the actual former Jedi, which meant even if Ahsoka were sighted on her missions, the Empire would assume she was just the imposter and underestimate her. Not that Diya should be underestimated as quick of a draw with her blaster as she was.

The Emperor had instructed him to leave the matter alone. He had more important matters to deal with than some silly child who was foolish enough to impersonate a Jedi. Vader made sure he gave Palpatine the impression that he was going to do it anyway. It was what Palpatine expected of him. If he and Ahsoka hadn't already reconciled—probably too strong a word—he'd certainly go in search of the imposter who dared try to take on the name of the woman who had gravely injured him and betrayed him. Besides, it presented the perfect excuse to make contact with the girl.

He didn't answer her denial, and apparently, she didn't expect him to because she continued, "And yes. She does have a lot to deal with."

"Eriadu," Vader guessed dryly.

"Yeah."

The weariness in her tone was evident. From what he'd gathered when Ahsoka told him about the situation, the planet's rebel cell wanted to take more aggressive actions against the Empire on their planet. Shortsighted actions that would not only attract a response they weren't prepared for and give Palpatine more ammunition to label them terrorists but, more importantly to Ahsoka, actions that might also kill civilians in the process. She was planning a personal visit to get to the bottom of the matter and talk them out of whatever foolish notions of revenge they'd concocted. Vader doubted talking would be an effective measure to which Ahsoka pointed out that going in with lightsabers blazing wasn't the solution to every problem.

"My experiences say otherwise."

"You do know that's not always going to work when you're emperor. Not unless you want someone to raise a real rebellion against you."

Admittedly a good point. But he wasn't emperor yet.

"Wait," Diya suddenly asked. "How do you know about that?"

"We're co-conspirators. She frequently seeks my advice on matters she thinks are troubling."

"Since when?" Diya asked with a laugh. "Co-conspirators you may be, and you've both got some weird sentimentality for each other. But she's never sought your advice on rebellion matters before, even when you feed her information."

It was none of her business, but Vader had decided with Ahsoka that it was essential to cultivate the rumors and perceptions of their history together to the people in their innermost circles. Thus, he decided to humor the girl's curiosity.

"It came up in passing conversation."

"What kind of passing conversation? I wasn't aware that you all had any conversations beyond what's required to ask you not to commit an atrocity until she gets her people out or you telling her you're about to commit one and warn her just in case she has people there. That or you two threatening each other," Diya said bluntly.

Despite very clearly remembering that he'd almost killed her twice the last time they crossed paths, she was still undeterred from asking questions about matters that did not concern her. She was either fearless or stupid. Exactly why he could use her either way.

"Our relationship is not nearly as hostile as you have made it up in your mind to be."

"She came back from Bacrana with her ribs and leg still healing from where you fractured them!"

"It was in the course of our respective duties. Nothing personal."

"Looked pretty personal to me." Then she added as an afterthought, "I hope you don't fight like that in front of Luke and Leia. You and Ahsoka's domestic issues can be damaging to kits their age."

Vader chose not to ask what the girl thought she knew about his relation to Luke and Leia. It wasn't necessary to know for him to mislead her. But as far as Ahsoka had told him, most people who hadn't known her at the end of the Clone Wars were under the assumption that she was their biological mother. Diya didn't even question it. Apparently, human and togruta hybrids weren't as rare on Shili as they were in the broader galaxy with it being common enough for the resulting children to take after either the human or the togruta parent. He assumed that Diya pieced together that he was the twin's father and thus assumed at some point during the Clone Wars, he was Ahsoka's lover. Ahsoka never corrected the assumption. Vader wouldn't either. The air of mystery that he kept around his past and that Ahsoka kept around the twins by letting people assume she was their birth mother protected them all the more from Palpatine.

"Indulging your curiosity and conjecture about the nature of my relationship with Ahsoka is not what I called you here for," Vader said dismissively, likely solidifying Diya's false belief in whatever she thought she'd figured out.

"Then what am I here for, my lord?" the young woman asked, no doubt purposely taking the rasp out her natural voice to mimic Ahsoka's.

"Tell me about your dealings with the Liberty Lane."

Diya's facial expression didn't change, but one of her lekku twitched in discomfort about something, and panic came off her in waves in the Force. He made a mental note to mention to Ahsoka to help the girl in solidifying her mental shields. Most people didn't know the different social cues and tells of a togruta's lekku, though gaining refinement in her control of that wouldn't hurt Diya either.

To her credit, though, she realized she'd given herself away because she didn't try to lie to him about their existence.

"How do you know about that?"

"I have my ways."

Before his former self followed the Jedi off the dustball that was Tatooine, there were whispers in the slave quarters of allying with the smugglers, many of whom had debts to the Hutts and had more to gain breaking the institution of slavery than upholding it. The smugglers would help them find secret and sometimes undiscovered hyperspace route to smuggles slaves out of Hutt space. Liberty Lane, the potential collection of routes were coined by the time his former self left the planet.

Diya didn't need to know all that.

"Whatever operations you are part of have not been compromised."

"When the number one enforcer of an empire that all but signed slavery into its constitution asks you about operations that are supposed to be secret, that's call a kriffing compromise," Diya stated defensively. "Whatever the hell you're planning, you can plan it without me and without the Liberty Resistance."

"Is that what you're calling your underground slave rebellion now?" Vader asked. The girl gave nothing away this time. He stood from his chair. "Come with me."

He started out the room without waiting for her, but with no other choice, she eventually followed. As they made their way through the halls and towards the old cloning and clone housing facilities, Vader said, "You are lucky the Jedi never found you."

"Trust me. I know. Otherwise, I'd be dead right now."

"Or worse."

"Worse?"

"The Order would have killed your passion to eradicate slavery from the galaxy in the name of the will of the Force and being peacekeepers."

Diya huffed. "Can't say I disagree with you. Ahsoka says the Jedi were well-meaning, and maybe that's true. At least, it's true from the ones I've met. And I certainly don't agree that they should have all been killed without being given a chance to defend themselves, especially when most of them had no clue why they were being persecuted," Diya added with a pointed glare.

It was an argument he'd had with Ahsoka a dozen times. Just what the Jedi Order had been guilty of. He'd been sure after embracing the dark side that there was a plot to overthrow the Republic and that all the Jedi were complicit in doing so. Now he wondered if perhaps, in those first hours of dark side euphoria and the liberation he'd felt with it, he hadn't conflated the Order's actual crimes against the Republic with his personal issues with the Order and the people in it. Because one thing Ahsoka wasn't was gullible. If she said that the Jedi she gave sanctuary to had no idea about a plot to overthrow the Republic, then perhaps it had only been a plot that the High Council and other higher-ranking authorities in the Order had known about. Perhaps in his shortsightedness and zeal to prove himself to Palpatine for a promise he had no intention keeping, he'd destroyed talent that could have been groomed for his future Empire.

Perhaps.

It still didn't change that the remaining Jedi eventually had to die. Now that he started it, he had to see their destruction through. There was no other option.

Diya continued, "But impact is greater than intention, and from everywhere else except the Core, it just looked like they conflated maintaining the status quo with peacekeeping. And Ahsoka has to know that. Otherwise, she wouldn't be so adamant about not letting any Jedi near Luke and Leia. Sounds like to me the Jedi had their destruction coming at some point anyway. And I can't exactly say they wouldn't have deserved it."

"Precisely."

Once again, with her comment about the Jedi's inevitable destruction, Diya proved her likeness to Ahsoka ended with her looks. Diya was ruthless, unforgiving, and showed no mercy. Not inclined to give people any benefit of the doubt. It's why Ahsoka found her so useful and frequently sent the girl to hunt and track the more dangerous inquisitors and dark side adepts of the Emperor. Even with little training, she'd bested the ones she did manage to come across, leaving little evidence that would track them to her. If he didn't already know she was responsible, even Vader would have had a hard time pinning the girl for the deeds.

She'd make a good apprentice if Vader didn't find her so irritating and he had any interest in actually taking an apprentice besides Ahsoka.

"Personally, I am of the opinion that to establish peace and order, you have to disrupt the peace of those hindering it."

She wouldn't admit it, but he sensed Diya approved his sentiment as they made their way down a hall and to a viewing window of what the Kaminos told him were a "freshly matured batch" of clone troopers.

"What's this?" she asked, eyes narrowing in distrust yet again.

"Resources."

"Resources?"

"The only thing stopping the Liberty Resistance from breaking ground are resources."

"I'm guessing this is you offering."

"As you may or may not know, the emperor decommissioned the clone program after the war, but the Kamino had many left over to raise. One of my duties is overseeing their progress and eventual placement into the navy. Most of them will join my personal fleet."

"And you're giving me the rest to help fight slavery?" Diya asked blandly. "What's the catch?"

"There is none."

"The Empire's military-industrial machine is run by slavery. What interests do you have in stopping it?"

"You mistake my tenuous fealty to Palpatine as agreement with his policies. Make no mistake; I have no intention of using slavery in my empire."

"Your intention is nice, but you're presenting me with what's essentially a glorified slave army. You're using these same troops in your fleet."

"The status of the clone army in the Empire is a complicated matter. At present, it would be dangerous for me to go before the Emperor to advocate for them. Doing so might tempt him to call for their destruction. At least as part of my fleet and under my oversight, they're under my protection until I can do something about it. Surely Ahsoka has taught that sometimes to win the war—"

"You have to concede the battle," Diya grumbled. "I know."

Useful. But the girl still had a lot of growing to do.

"You will be focusing the bulk of your efforts, for now, in Hutt Space."

Diya scowled at that. Vader could imagine why. In his former life, while his hands had been tied concerning what he could do, he'd still followed much less mainstream coverage of what was going on regarding the brewing slave revolts of the Outer Rim. While the Republic had chosen to respect the Hutt's sovereignty and protect their interest in the hyperspace lanes Jabba controlled, they at least turned as much of a blind eye to the slave revolution's efforts as they did to the slave plight in the Outer Rim in the first place.

Under the Empire, things had only gotten harder with slavery seeing an increase and any progress of the slavery resistance reversed. A reversal that Vader grudgingly admitted he was guilty of exacerbating while blinded by his own pain and grief and wanting nothing more than for the rest of the galaxy to suffer the same.

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why ask me of all people to spearhead this for you? You hate me. And I hate you. You could have gotten anyone. Hell, before even that, why the sudden interest in stopping the slave trade at all? You didn't have it before. You could just wait. You could do something about it when you're conveniently on a throne, no one can oppose you, and you've got nothing to lose. And don't bullshit me about it being the right thing to do. A man like you doesn't do acts of kindness because it's right. You do things because it's personal. That or Ahsoka talked you into it," Diya added with a longsuffering sigh.

He didn't have to justify himself to anyone. Least of all to Ahsoka's exasperating agent. But right now, she was a useful tool. May as well make her easier to use.

"Long ago, I made a promise, child. I don't like to break my promises."

"Really?"

"Not without good reason. I never said I wouldn't or that I don't."

He'd broken many over the years. To Padmé. To his children. To Ahsoka. To the galaxy. To his home, regardless of how much he hated it. The damage was done. Some he could rectify. If he used the excuse that he was waiting to become Emperor, then he'd find another reason to push it off, and he'd be no better than the Jedi, the Republic, Palpatine, and Palpatine's empire—all of which he passionately hated with a burning fury that he still only barely controlled. One day he would unleash it yet again to destroy Palpatine and take his empire.

One day.

For now, a step in the right direction toward true peace and order.

"As to your first question, the value of your skillset and ambition outweigh my disdain for you. I advise you not to tip the scales of that balance in a way that would make you more trouble than you are worth," Vader warned.

"I knew you had a death threat in there for me somewhere," Diya said, exasperated. Then she asked, "I don't have to worry about any clones going psycho on me because of some stupid order on those control chips in their heads, do I?"

"It's been handled sufficiently enough for the time being," Vader replied.

As long as the money had been flowing, the Kaminos did their jobs without question. But they hadn't been stupid. They'd been very aware that someone as devious as Palpatine could turn on them and with a little persuasion had shown him how to activate the failsafe to shut down the chips. And Ahsoka said he couldn't use a lightsaber to solve all his problems.

"And what do I tell them when I come offering aid?"

A person who didn't know slave culture would have wondered why such a thing mattered. But slaves were slow to trust, even slower letting people into their communities, and even quicker to judge one untrustworthy. Vader had thought of that too. A way that this personal vendetta of his would also help Ahsoka's rebellion and eventually be part of a foundation that he built his future empire on.

"Tell them you come in the name of the Fulcrum and that Ekkreth directed her to send you," Vader instructed as he walked past the girl to leave her to contact whoever she needed to get to planning. "And Diya, if ever the occasion arises, be sure to show no mercy."

AN: This is the only chapter in this part with no Ahsoka and Vader interaction. And even though there's not, she still comes up in discussion. That said, I'll probably post the next chapter early. And when I mean early, I mean on Friday. And it'll be an extra chapter, meaning you would still get your regularly scheduled chapter for Sunday. I think I said everything that needed to be said in the first author's note. But no doubt you'll ask me your questions in your reviews if there's anything you want clarified or just for curiosity's sake.

Hope you enjoyed!