Vader's Folly
Author's notes: Thank you for all the feedback! I appreciate it all :) Glad everyone enjoyed the Dooku/Vader fight. Hope u enjoy this one as well. Took a lot longer to finish this than planned, but that's RL. Unfortunately, RL is hectic as hell now, looking for a new job, asshole bosses decided not to renew my contract.
Anyway, as always, read, enjoy and Review!
Canon: I will be a using a mix of both the Disney and Legends canon. Mainly Legends.
Summary: An ancient site filled with ancient technologies, of course Dr Aphra can't resist playing around. The result, one Sith Lord with a lot of options.
Chapter 10
The man smiled at him without a worry in the world. He bowed regally, "I am Darth Caedus, at your service, Lord Vader," he repeated smugly as if it was supposed to mean something.
Vader's wariness increased, "You know me?" Where had this Sith come from? And more importantly how did he know him? Power came off this creature in waves.
"All my life you haunted my family," this Caedus admitted offhanded, with a thoughtful look on his face.
Vader frowned under his mask, "Who are you?" he demanded again menacingly. The other Sith's unassuming manner and musings were already beyond tiresome.
Caedus waved him off dismissively, "Oh relax, whatever you are up to, I can't actually stop you...you've already killed me."
Vader froze in surprise, the Sith interloper was dead? He stopped and reached out with the Force, he could feel the darkness in front of him- but that was all he felt, this was a dark side spirit. This Sith had no physical form...but Sith shades were far from powerless or...helpful- at least not without wanting something in return.
Caedus paused and pursed his lips, "Though I'm not sure if killed is the right word...wiped me from existence? Erased me? You've changed things so much, I'm not going to be born- or at least not this version of me isn't...I think." A confused look dominated his face now.
Vader felt his confusion mounting, "Who are you?" he repeated again, "What do you want?" Sith shades were always treacherous and always wanted something.
"I no longer have a body to return to- I was Flow Walking, traveling though time when you altered the timeline...and it's likely I will soon vanish, I am now only a remnant of a now erased timeline you've destroyed forever," Caedus admitted plainly with an ironic laugh, "I don't know what you were trying to do, but you have succeeded in doing something." he snorted in derision.
Vader froze, what Caedus was saying stunned him. The implications were fascinating, did this mean he'd already succeeded in snuffing out Palpatine's future plans? "How can I trust you? Or anything you say?" he sneered at Caedus.
Caedus smiled widely, "And that is the crux of the matter...how to believe a single word from the Sith- lets call me a ghost for simplicity's sake, that suddenly appears in your midst, uninvited and unsought?" he paused and smirked knowingly, total assurance coming off of him now, as it had from the moment he appeared on the ship, "I do have a simple clarification, it will at least buy me the benefit of the doubt. A second introduction is needed," he bowed lowly, smiling toothily. He rose to his full height as the yellow faded from his eyes and became a very familiar brown.
"Hello...grandfather."
No. No.
Vader stepped back as if stuck.
No, this was wrong. No, this was impossible. Luke would never have joined the Sith! This couldn't have happened.
His fists clenched in denial even as Padmé's eyes stared back him. An aberration in the face of the smug interloper Sith Lord.
Really looking at Caedus now, the eyes were not the only familiar features he saw. His...grandson favored Padmé in many ways. The eyes most of all, but the shape of the face and the focused unyielding look of his face he had inherited from her. All the times she'd glared at him, unwilling to back down from an argument and here it was reflected back at him after all this years in the face of this man.
Everything he'd seen of his son...Luke was born into the light. He'd never have turned to the Dark Side no matter how Vader would have liked it, he'd felt it in his bones since their encounter on Bespin...and yet here stood a Sith with Padmé's eyes, he said as much, "Luke would never have turned to the Dark Side. And he'd never him let his son turn to the Dark Side."
"I'll give you that, you are right, but I'm not Luke's son. I'm your daughter's son." The smugness increased and he gave Vader a sneering smile, "I'm Leia's son."
He was caught flat footed at the revelation, a daughter?! He had a daughter? "Leia?" he repeated dumbly. He had a daughter?!
Caedus ran his tongue over his perfect white teeth, "You know in the end she actually forgave you."
He frowned, "Forgave me? Why would she have to ..."
The name truly registered with him, it was a common one, but there was only one Leia he'd ever had real significant dealings with.
A galaxy of guilt came crashing down upon his shoulders as he realised just what he'd done to his own daughter.
The Alderaanian Princess. The Rebel Princess was his and Padmé's daughter. The one he'd tortured on the Death Star. If he had still had organic legs they'd failed him now, as the sheer rage towards himself rose to unimaginable levels.
How could he have been so blind?!
The defiant look, the brown eyes screamed Padmé to him in hindsight. Had the Dark Side so blinded him, that he couldn't see his own wife's eyes staring angrily back at him?!
"We always wondered just how you could be so blind as to miss the eyes. The family resemblance is startling at times," Caedus added idly, digging the metaphorical edge of his words more into Vader's tumultuous beating heart.
Vader just stood there, only his mechanical legs keeping himself upright as Caedus started walking around the room looking at he various things scattered around the makeshift cell.
"...Dad never forgave you though, but he always had his anger issues," his...grandson continued on, "he wasn't a Jedi or Force Sensitive so that was never an issue," he admitted.
Vader blinked behind his mask, "Who was he?" he almost dreaded the answer. He was still coming to terms with having a daughter, what sort of man had she chosen to father her son?
Caedus turned his head to look at him, as another nasty smile came to his lips, "Dad? You met him on Bespin, when you had him frozen in carbonite, after you were finished torturing him."
Vader clenched his fists, as the blows kept coming, the smuggler, Captain Solo. His daughter had chosen him?
Caedus wasn't finished, "...They were very happy together, the quintessential happily married couple. And for the most part, my siblings and I were just as happy."
"Married...siblings?" he echoed dumbly, feeling adrift in emotions he hadn't felt in an eternity. Vader didn't know what to react to first. A small part of him realised what his grandson was doing, keeping him off balance with the repeated revelations, baiting him- but to what purpose, that eluded him.
The rest of his mind was screaming at how Solo was completely unworthy of his only daughter! That damned smuggler was far beneath her! Even as an even smaller part of his mind recognized that of all things, he didn't have a right to judge her choices. His had been less than stellar in the end.
"Are you trying to shock me to death?" Vader snarled at his grandson.
Caedus laughed heartily, "You wiped me from existence! I have to amuse myself somehow now...at least until the universe makes up it's mind over whether or not I will vanish or remain as some ghostly specter of what could have been," he admitted. Smugness still oozed from him.
Vader's mask hid his disgruntled and disturbed look from Caedus.
"But, let us talk, there is much I have to tell you," Caedus stated invitingly...like a spider inviting it's prey into its home.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox
Hours passed.
They'd left the cell and were in Vader's private chambers now. He sat facing Caedus as the ghost relaxed in a chair opposite him.
It took a great deal of self control for Vader to remain seated as Caedus- Jacen Solo, went step by step through history for him. It was a sobering thing for Vader to realise how close he was- had been, before traveling in time to the moment of his death.
His control nearly slipped when Caedus started talking about Luke marrying Mara Jade. It took ever ounce of his self control to not react at that impossibility, though Caedus's relaying of her visions of her Dark Side wedding. No matter which way things could have turned out, she was apparently always destined to be Luke's bride.
Caedus through so much at him. A lifetime's supply of revelations.
The Fall of the Empire and the rise of the New Republic.
His sister Jaina, the Sword of the Jedi and her prophecy.
He didn't know how to react to having Leia name a son after him. Anakin Solo and his fate at the hands of the Vong.
Zonama Sekot and Jabitha. The Far Outsiders, the Yuuzhan Vong, to give them their true name. Vergere, and so much else. He'd nearly forgotten that old encounter and warning, that had turned out to be so significant in the grand scheme of things.
There was so much more, and there was much he sensed that Caedus was still holding back to taunt him with later, but to him, all of it paled in the face of Wald and his refusal to believe that Anakin could have become Vader, his defiant belief in his old friend, that Anakin Skywalker would never turn to evil, could never become Darth Vader...even while everyone else in the galaxy knew and accepted the truth.
He remembered his old Rodian playmate. How had he managed to make that much of an impression on him? How? It was perplexing. Wald's thinking was completely undecipherable for Vader. And the truth of it was there was no way for him to understand, the Wald that Caedus was speaking of no longer existed. Not with all the changes that Vader had already done and still intended to do.
Caedus wasn't finished. He mentally projected a ghostly image. An innocent young girl with pale grey eyes and brilliant red gold hair, "I did everything for her, for my little girl, Allana Djo Solo, Chume'da of the Hapes Consortium."
And the surprises kept coming, "Chume'da?!" Hapans were notoriously insular even after being conquered by the Empire. And They were even more anti-Jedi than they were insular.
He stared at the innocent little girl that was his granddaughter.
He took a deep breath, this here was a family he never imagined seeing or ever having. Not after Padmé had died.
The image shifted, changing as the girl grew into a beautiful young woman. Now a crown sat regally on her head now. There was lightsaber at her belt. The image changed again. She was suddenly sitting on a throne surrounded by her court, by friends and family. An older Luke and Leia appeared by her sides, that damned Han Solo by Leia's side. Ben Skywalker stood by his father, his red hair the same shade as his mother's had been.
"I changed the future for her," Caedus began, hesitating for the first time since Vader had known him, "she would have been a Jedi Queen, ruling over a peaceful galaxy. That would have been my gift to her."
Vader frowned behind his mask. That didn't sound very Sith-like at all...that aside, what all these revelations amounted to was a brand new list of people to kill. And numerous targets that Palpatine had hid from his over the years.
Starting with Byss. And the hidden cloning facility that Palpatine had hidden there. If it had built now.
He cast a look at the ghostly specter of his grandson.
"It's been hours and you're still here," he stated evenly. At once both please and unhappy that the specter was still here. He was an invaluable source of information. Though of a dubious quality. Caedus was his grandson, but he was also still a Sith. Duplicity was a Sith's stock in change.
Caedus gave him an unreadable look, before looking around him for a moment, "Apparently so."
"So what now?" asked Vader pointedly.
Caedus gave him a long evaluating look, "I'm going to continue haunting you...it aught to be amusing if nothing else," he stated haughtily, "for however long I remain..." he finished thoughtfully. Caedus paused for a moment, "So what are you actually doing...and how can I help?" he finished in a conspiratorial tone, mischief dancing in his brown eyes.
Vader sat back in his chair, eyeing his grandson, potentially an ally- at least up to a point. Caedus was a still a Sith. Vader would have to be careful with him going forward.
Author's Notes: Some explanations and revelations for Vader to chew on ;D :D And more ripples for the future! :D As Always, don't forget to review! :D:D:D