Chapter Seventy-Eight: Poignant

Vader had considered dozens of scenarios that might have helped him avoid a direct confrontation with the Imperial Center forces on his way to Palpatine. But all those ways, both subtle and overt, gave power to Palpatine. In particular, Vader just considered surrendering to the Imperial Center Forces and allowing them to take him directly to Palpatine. But surrendering to the Imperial Center Forces meant surrendering to the Imperial Royal Guard, who were trained and prepared to deal with powerful Force users like Vader. And though Vader had some evidence that typical Force user restraints didn't restrain him the way they were intended, it was not a hypothesis he wanted to test dealing with Palpatine.

So even though he had no advantage, even though he might end up overwhelmed and out of his depth when Palpatine's reinforcements came, Vader went with a direct confrontation that made his intentions clear. Besides, he only needed to get past all the Forces and get to Palpatine. If he could get to Palpatine, if he could kill him, this would all be over, and it wouldn't matter what reinforcements came. Most of the powers left would bow to him, and the remaining would be easily subdued.

They engaged with the Imperial Center Fleet only minutes after they dropped out of hyperspace. In the midst of that, Vader managed to lead troops past the massive vessels and to the ground to lay siege to the Palace, only to run into a transparent domed shield that covered the perimeter of the Palace grounds with Imperial center troopers lining it.

"Seems like they're trying to win by attrition," Commander Dare observed.

"So it seems," Vader agreed.

Without a lot of planning beforehand, there was no telling how long he would be able to sustain a siege of the Palace, especially when Imperial reinforcements arrived for the Emperor. Vader had sent out a hailing to his own allies, but they would get here long after their opponents did. Thus, they had a short time window for getting into the Palace.

Aware of an expected presence on the edge of his senses, Vader turned to see a group of clones escorting Ahsoka directly to him.

When she was standing before him, Vader said resignedly, "I was made aware that your ship was seen running the blockade a couple of hours ago. What took you so long?"

Ahsoka shrugged. "You know. Haven't been here in over a decade. Got lost. Had to ask for directions."

Vader pretended not to notice the coughs and snickers of a few of the men around them. Instead, he gave Ahsoka a once over, both physically and in the Force. Something was… off wasn't the right word, but something was definitely different.

"What?" Ahsoka asked.

"You're… different," Vader settled on.

Ahsoka rolled her eyes and waved a dismissive hand. "You just haven't seen me in eight months."

It was an obvious deflection. One that Vader had learned over the years of political intrigue in Palpatine's court and military not to fall for. Just because he hadn't seen her in eight months didn't mean that she wasn't different, regardless of whether or not he could put his finger on why.

Before he could point that out, she asked, "So how are we getting our forces past this shield?"

Some instinct that wasn't necessarily the Force told him to press her deflection. That this was related to whatever she'd promised to tell him about the next time they saw each other. But now wasn't the time. She was right. They needed to get through this shield.

"We're not sure yet."

"How many levels does it go down? It has to end somewhere."

"Too far. And it's way too obvious."

"I think I might have an idea," Vader admitted. "I'm not sure it'll work."

"When have we ever been certain that any of your plans are going to work?" Ahsoka asked as she walked past him to the very edge of the perimeter they'd set up in front of Palace and before the shield.

Vader followed her. "It's a new Force power. That's why."

"Oh?" Ahsoka asked, turning to Vader and raising an eye marking.

"I've only used it once. To get out a tractor beam. I'm not sure of its limitations yet."

"So… you're like a walking field disrupter? When you want to be?"

"That's one way to put it," Vader replied mildly. "But it won't shut down the shield, and it certainly won't get everyone in."

"Everyone doesn't need to get in." Ahsoka turned back to the shield, looking to the Palace looming in the near distance. "Just us."

"And confront Palpatine while he has the advantage of all his personal forces on the inside able to give him backup?"

"Not to confront him. Not yet. You find where that shield is generating from, deactivate it so our Forces can lay siege to the Palace. Then we confront Palpatine while his forces are preoccupied with the chaos."

"You can't believe it'll be that simple."

"No," Ahsoka admitted. "But I figure it's best to stay simple and make the rest up as we go along so we can be flexible. Now the question is, how are we going to get through and where?"

Vader already had that part of the plan figured out. He informed his commander to hold the perimeter as he guided Ahsoka back through his men and to another part of the shield that kept Vader's forces from breaking through. Unlike back where his forces were gathered near the main entrance, the side of the dome he took her to had no men around it merely because it wasn't an entrance. Or at least, it didn't appear to be one.

"I know this," Ahsoka said, looking at the enormous column that used to be a large statue of an old temple guard. One of many that used to surround the Imperial Palace back when it was the Jedi Temple. "I used to sneak out the temple using this exit. Does Sidious know about this entrance?"

"Perhaps. I didn't tell him, but one of the old temple guards is the grand inquisitor. Even so, it's clear Sidious didn't notify the Imperial Center Guard of it."

"So? How does this new Force power work?"

"I really don't know," Vade said as he set a hand on the field. "I just do it."

He expanded the Force outward to form the disruptive energy that interfered with the mechanisms of Force inhibiting cuffs and helped him escape a tractor beam. The shield in front of them visibly faltered, the electric current that formed it underneath becoming temporarily visible. Vader expanded more. The shield faltered again, and this time, his hand went through it.

He reached a hand back to grab one of Ahsoka's hands and pulled her close to him. Then he expanded the disruptive Force energy around them both and walked unnoticed through the shield, without tripping any alarms that would signal a breach.

"Wow," Ahsoka said. She looked back at the shield. "That's a neat trick. I can think of dozens of times we could have used that during the Clone War."

"Would have certainly come in handy," Vader agreed as they made their way to the secret entrance behind the column. It was a tight fit with the suit's bulk, but Vader managed to squeeze through the small passage that led into one of the public halls of the Imperial Palace. Still, it was with great relief that he stepped out into the public hall, and not for the first time and certainly never the last, he cursed the impracticability of the suit.

Ahsoka squeezed out behind him. Vader thought she would have had an easier time than he had, but she stopped to brace a hand against the wall and hold onto her lower abdomen.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"Nothing," Ahsoka said dismissively as she dropped her arms back to her side. "I'm just not a tiny as I used to be when I used these passages. Wasn't very comfortable."

She was lying. Vader couldn't determine that with the Force as shielded as she was keeping herself from him, but he could still tell. Something wasn't right.

"Did you get hurt while fleeing the Rebellion?"

"No." Ahsoka rolled her eyes. "Stop worrying so much. I'm fine. Now, where's that shield generating from?"

Vader gave her another once over. There was nothing visibly wrong with her even though something was off that he couldn't quite put his finger on. He'd just have to keep an eye on her. Like he always had to make sure she didn't do anything insane. Eventually, she wouldn't be able to keep hiding whatever was going on.

"To cover the perimeter of the entire palace ground? Probably from one of the top spires," Vader finally answered.

"There are five spires. We can't check them all."

"You're right. But I have a hunch I know exactly which spire the shield is generating from. Unfortunately, that's also where the Emperor's throne room is."

"The middle spire? Where the High Council room used to be?"

"Exactly the place," Vader replied.

"Well," Ahsoka said with a shrug as she started her way down the hall. "At least that means I know my way around and won't get lost if we're separated."

Vader followed, making sure to keep her just within his grasp as they made their way through the palace halls with the familiarity of someone that frequented them on a daily basis. It was hard to avoid thinking that they had frequented them on a daily basis at one point. Lived in these very halls. Walked side by side to the very middle spire they were headed to now. Before he'd helped burn it all to the ground…

Vader pushed the thought out his head, wrapping himself in the comforting embrace of the dark side.

"Force, I hate this place," Ahsoka suddenly said. When he didn't answer, she continued, "He didn't even try to disguise what this place used to be."

No. The Emperor hadn't. Despite the renovations to get rid of blaster fire in the walls; despite the gutting of its sacred artifacts; despite the elaborate and costly décor that the Jedi would have balked at. Despite all that, the Emperor hadn't made many changes to the general structure and layout of the old Jedi Temple. That had been the point, though. If killing the Jedi in their own home hadn't been enough, remaking it into the epicenter of his Sith Empire had been the ultimate desecration.

"How can you stand being here? This used to be our—we used to live here."

Home, was what she had been about to say. However, by the time they'd both left it behind, it hadn't been much of a home anymore. Maybe it had been home for her at one point. But she'd detached herself from it so much that by the time it had fallen, she didn't even sense the Force screaming at its desecration. And he'd been the one destroying it, which he supposed just went to show how much he'd ever considered it home.

Still…

"I don't stand it. I stay away from the core as much as possible. When I do come, I try to avoid the Palace."

"I can hear their ghosts screaming. I can smell the blaster fire and feel the fear and death," she admitted. "The Force is restless here. No wonder Sidious remade it into his Palace."

He'd forgotten she might be far more sensitive to the atmosphere. But this was even more sensitive than he knew her powers to be.

"I wasn't aware your powers of empathy had developed so."

"Neither was I. But my powers have been a little more sensitive lately. It's settling back down, but the residual of it is still there."

Vader stopped in the middle of the hall and looked at her.

"The residual of what?"

"Nothing," was her quick reply.

"Ahsoka."

"It's nothing for you to be worried about right now. You'll find out later."

She wasn't going to be persuaded. That much was clear. So Vader put together the pieces he had. She wanted to tell him something days ago but told him she'd wait until they were face-to-face. Now they were face-to-face, and immediately he'd noticed something off about her physically, first… her gait. Her gait was off. She wasn't limping, but her gait was different from what he was familiar with. Then when they'd made their way through the secret crevice entrance into the Palace, she'd been holding herself like she'd been wounded.

Now, for some reason, she was more sensitive to the Force, the residual effects of something she wasn't telling him. Many things could affect a person's Force sensitivity, but nothing that Vader knew of that would explain the other things off about her. He was missing something vital. Something that would make this all make sense.

She suddenly said his name and grabbed his arm to gain his attention.

"I need you to focus. This is exactly why I didn't tell you. You can't be distracted. You can't give Sidious anything to use against you. If you're worried about me, he'll sense it. I promise you'll have plenty of time to worry after all this is said and done. Okay?"

Right. Sidious. Vader wasn't sure just how much Sidious knew about the extent of his relationship with Ahsoka currently. That didn't mean he should inadvertently give anything away. Whether or not whatever Ahsoka was hiding should wait, it was going to have to. Right now, Sidious was the bigger threat.

"As soon as this is over, you tell me," Vader demanded.

"Promise," Ahsoka said cheekily, flashing one of her canines at him.

They pressed forward, and a bad feeling began to creep onto Vader.

"This isn't right. No one's here," Vader said.

"I was going to ask you if it was always this still and quiet."

Vader wasn't present for court often. But he'd been present enough to know that this time of day would have been buzzing with politicians, ambassadors, and delegates going about the business they had at the place. There wasn't even a trace of the servants. He knew they tried to keep themselves invisible and away from notice, but not even they were this still and quiet.

"He's waiting for you," Ahsoka stated.

"He is," Vader replied as they reached the lift that would take them to the top of the middle spire. "I'll go up first. You follow after me."

"I'm not letting you go up there on your own," Ahsoka declared.

"You're not." Ahsoka gave him a wry look. "You're not. But you may be the only element of surprise we have. I'll distract the Emperor. You come up behind me, find the generator, and turn it off. Then you can help me with Sidious."

"Why don't I distract Sidious and you turn off the generator? You're the technopath. It'll be faster for you."

Vader scoffed. "You know exactly why you're not going to face Sidious alone." He paused. "A technopath."

"Yeah. You know—"

"I know what a technopath is. What gave you the idea that I'm one?"

Ahsoka gave him the look she reserved for use only when she wasn't sure if he was messing with her.

"I used to wonder with how good you are with mechanics. How you're almost more comfortable with machines and inorganic beings than you are organic ones. But it's pretty obvious now," she explained. When he didn't reply, she sighed and put a hand on her hip. "You can use the Force over comm, you can fix a machine without being familiar with its parts, you've been flying something almost since you could walk. That little trick with the shield? You're clearly on the spectrum of technopath. And you passed it down to Luke. I mean, you taught Luke and Leia mechanics, but Luke's affinity for technology is uncanny. He corrects his instructors."

"That doesn't—I grew up in a junk shop."

"Oh, come on. You really mean to tell me you hadn't figured that out yet? I figured that out years ago."

"I have many powers in the Force, Ahsoka. But that is beside the point," Vader said, getting them back on track. "You don't need to be a technopath to turn off the generator. It'll be a button or a switch. If not, just slash your lightsaber through it. Whatever you do, I'm going to talk to the Emperor while you do it. That way, we can be sure that we won't be overwhelmed by his forces. The Royal Guard are going to be cumbersome enough to deal with."

"Fine," Ahsoka said petulantly, crossing her arms in apparent displeasure with the plan.

He gave her the code to the lift as they waited for one of the two lifts to come down and take him up. In the meantime, he tried not to worry. But it was Palpatine. To not be worried was to underestimate his master, and to underestimate his master was a fatal mistake to make.

Ahsoka's hand slipped into his as they waited, her own worry seeping across their bond.

Finally, because he'd be remiss if he didn't, Vader warned, "Sidious is a master of mind games. You can know the truth, you can know he's lying, you can know he's trying to trick you, and he can still manipulate you into doing and believing exactly what he wants. He has a way of getting into your head and making you question everything you thought you ever knew."

"It's a good thing we know each other then. Right?" Ahsoka squeezed his hand.

Vader squeezed back.

"And what if he resorts to physical violence?" Ahsoka asked.

"That's a good thing. It means he couldn't manipulate you. But then it means we have to fight him."

The lift finally arrived. Vader released Ahsoka's hand and entered. He turned to face Ahsoka one last time before the doors closed.

It was upon entering the throne room that Vader realized he'd made a grave error. Not about the location of the shield generator. He heard and felt it humming in the Force from around them.

His error was thinking that Palpatine would be here waiting for him. That Palpatine wouldn't rely on the tried and true tactic of wearing his enemies down with needless distractions and conflicts. Then, by the time they made it to his master, they were tired, weary, more likely to make a mistake, more open to manipulations by his mind games.

He lit his lightsaber before the Force even notified him that he was being surrounded. Not by the Red Guard. But by Palpatine's inquisitors and other dark side adepts. Vader wasn't sure whether he was supposed to be insulted or flattered, given that the Royal Guard was more specially equipped and trained to deal with Force-sensitives than most trained Force-sensitives were.

Still, fighting other Force users was always tricky business given how creative they could sometimes be and the unexpected talents they could have. Then there was the fact that if Palpatine wasn't here, he was elsewhere. That elsewhere being where Ahsoka was.

How could he have been so stupid?

"Lord Vader. Master Sidious told us to expect your arrival," the Grand Inquisitor said.

Vader had no time for the petty mind games and back and forth that was common between him and his "rivals."

"Inquisitors," Vader greeted, doing an experimental swipe with his red blade before attacking.

The group of them, about a dozen of the highest ranking inquisitors and dark side Force users in Sidious' employ, were prepared for his attack given his reputation. But their preparation meant nothing compared to his might. Even so, as he blocked, deflected, decapitated, incapacitated, and pierced his opponents, he lamented that he hadn't let Ahsoka and her task force kill more dark side users over the years. In many ways, hindering her had been necessary to keeping Sidious' attention away from her. In other ways, hindering her had been nothing more than his own petty pride, a refusal to relinquish any control, and to remind Ahsoka that he was superior to her despite their "equal partnership."

But regretting his youthful arrogance would be of no help. A lesson learned and better to not dwell on. Especially when Vader noticed, once he was down to his last four opponents, that it seemed the remaining dark side users had been trained more extensively than Vader had trained them to be. Dueling with Ahsoka was that way. Him teaching her one thing and then somehow her learning a dozen things from that one lesson instead. But the inquisitors and adepts weren't nearly that competent or gifted. It only meant that Sidious had done more preparation in anticipation of replacing him than Vader had been aware of over the years.

That just made the fight all the more tedious, and it was with annoyed relief that Vader finally got down the grand inquisitor. Once a temple guard of this very building. Who had been one of those to help expel Ahsoka from these very halls, unaware that the teen they'd been persecuting would grow up to be greater than everyone who had judged her.

In a last desperate attempt, the inquisitor attempted to strike him in the face. But it was too late that Vader realized that it hadn't been meant to be a killing blow, but a debilitating one. The right lens of the mask went dark, and then all the upper right side of the mask fell away along with part of the bottom. Circuitry in the mask that helped to support the pacemaker now compromised, it instantly became more uncomfortable to breathe in the suit than it would have been to breathe without it.

However, it was clear the inquisitor hadn't expected Vader to shake off his suit's compromising because he hesitated. Vader used the hesitation to disarm him of his blade and slice him in half through the torso.

It hadn't escaped him that in the time it took him to dispatch his opponents, Ahsoka hadn't made her way up. He was tempted to immediately make his way back down, but they would need the help of his troops to keep Sidious from overwhelming them. Instead, when he left the throne room, he went to one of the holding areas where the hum of the shield generator was strongest. Sure enough, he found the machine, or at the very least the large computers that controlled it. He tapped a few buttons, considering the merits of turning it off and leaving the machine mostly intact. But that would give Sidious the chance to reactivate it yet again. Thus, Vader reached out into the Force, feeling the generator's circuitry and inner workings as though he were holding it in his hands. Then, he destroyed the delicate circuitry and used the Force to crush the physical computers for good measure.

The hum of the generator stopped.

Vader, at best, could only hope that solved the problem of his forces not being able to get through to lay complete siege to the Palace. But he had no time to check further. Sidious was elsewhere in the Palace. And though he trusted Ahsoka with just about everything, he didn't at all trust that she had enough self-preservation to run in the opposite direction if she came across his master.


AN: One of the new things that I love that was introduced to canon was that the Sidious made the Jedi Temple into his palace. It's fitting and left so much for me to work with in writing. I could have honestly written this entire chapter from Ahsoka's point of view, but it needed to be a Vader chapter.

ETA: Also, the technopath thing with Vader was something I came up with on a whim because I've never seen it used before. Mind you, not like a magic technopath. He still has to practice stuff to develop the skill. And he could surely practice his mechanics without the Force and still be incredibly skilled. But like... somewhere on the sliding scale. Like on a 1 to 10, he's probably 2 or 3. Just thought it was something interesting.

Hope you enjoyed. Review, follow, and favorite please. I appreciate it!