Disclaimer: All non-original characters and ideas mentioned here is SW material, not owned by me. Like countless others, I'm just playing in the Lucas Universe, inspired by Episode 3. Only the five Forgotten characters were created by me, along with the planets Ichosar and Whrede. I found the official Sith code on a fansite.
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Three: Divergent Courses
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Master Kenobi felt the infant's grip upon his left hand, and reflected back to a voice and moment picked from happier times. Truly magnificent, the mind of a child is.
He hadn't thought much of it at the time- he'd had bigger things to think about. But just by looking at the incredibly tiny baby, the bright tone of his flesh in contrast to the décor of Owen Lar's home, he could feel the truth behind Master Yoda's words.
Little Luke was babbling already- a good sign, usually an indication of high intelligence. Deeper in, only he could feel the child's mind as well as its body, and he admired its simplicity along with the simplistic, natural cuteness of a newborn.
Such a refreshing change, he thought happily, from every being I've ever known. Infants are so free in a way. Untainted by arrogance, or greed, or the poisonous deceptions and conspiracies that run rampant in this galaxy, and now grow with the rise of the Empire.
Even well meaning people such as Beru and Owen Lars standing with him, the former cooing softly while bringing a spoonful of mashed, dried sunfruit and a glass of blue milk to feed the baby, could be subject to it. Stepping back and placing one hand on his chin, he knew that he would be a fool to consider a Jedi Knight immune. With the rise of intelligence comes the rise of ego. With the knowledge of life comes the knowledge of death. With that, comes fear, anger, and aggression.
That put his finger squarely on the mistake he had made, and would dwell upon the rest of natural life. He'd been just such a fool. The monster that he'd made- every life extinguished by the Dark Lord now known as Darth Vader hung upon his sagging shoulders.
Still, the sight of an innocent infant babbling and giggling in the simplest pleasures of existence did much to balm his troubled spirit, even as the suspicious press of Owen Lars' gaze tried to pry out the reason he was here.
Momentarily diverted from such careless bliss, he focused on the man as if truly seeing him for the first time. While many other worlds would look upon Owen as low-class refuse, his dusty gray attire conformed perfectly to the standards of the planet's few native denizens. His wife Beru, by contrast, sported a marine blue jacket and thin brown hair, neither of which showed the more extreme signs of what Obi Wan knew to be a challenging existence.
He'd been here before, on Tatoonie with his old master. But he had never truly stopped to think about how so many beings survived living in the trackless deserts, where no water flowed and no soil could be sown. Owen and Beru were just two of about sixty beings that had taken it upon themselves to try to fix that first problem… for a price, of course. The vanes he had seen ringing the perimeter of the tiny farm were able to coax moisture out of the very air and store it for later use.
Life's necessities are always the most valuble items up for sale, he noted. Painless as it sounded, installing and checking over a hundred devices set up around the area was undoubtedly rough, monotonous work. These two would not be here if they couldn't handle it.
So much the better then. Obi Wan could not afford to be selective- only surrogate family could be trusted with a task of this magnitude; to raise, to care for, to bring the galaxy's last hope into maturity. Owen didn't know it yet, but this boy was destined for great things, and strength of mind and body were needed for them.
Dwelling on this thought, he couldn't help but chuckle lightly as the tyke's tiny hands gripped the edge of the food bowl insistently, wanting to take it back for some reason.
"You have a strong one there." He said to Beru, amused. "You'd better watch out."
Beru smiled and went back to cooing encouragement. Obi Wan peered closer and marveled at the strange twinkling in those tiny bead eyes. Those eyes were half closed seconds later, and Luke sucked his thumb contentedly.
"I don't know to thank you for this opportunity", Beru told him quietly once the baby was asleep. "I always wanted to have one, but I was always afraid…"
"Afraid?"
"Afraid to bring a child into a world such as this. Controlled by rich Hutts from far off systems. Endless desert. More lowlifes and thugs than you or I could count."
He couldn't help but feel a little thrown by the bite she added to all the labels. "But you survived here. I can tell you are neither of those things."
She studied the matte floor with a glance to Owen. "We're not immune. Years before I met Shmi, my older brother- Cliegg's son- left us for good. The last we heard of him, he was running slaves for Gargonn the Hutt and his ilk."
Feeling Owen's tentative gaze, Obi Wan took a breath and forced himself not to recoil. "I'm sorry. There is so much I don't know about this planet."
Beru didn't answer. She was looking back at the baby with loving eyes. "But I can't be afraid now. If some malcontent killed me tomorrow, I know Owen would still look after him. He's a hard man sometimes, but he has a good sense of right and wrong. Out here in the Jundlands, you get to look out for each other. Or you head off to Mos Espa and get used to looking after yourself, and no one else."
Knowing full well what she meant, he leaned close again, still inwardly amazed by how tiny the baby's toes and fingers were. "He has a special destiny", he said, voicing his mind at last. "We wouldn't have given him to anyone we didn't trust."
Kenobi didn't have to look at Owen to tell he was troubled by his use of the word 'we'. "What exactly do you mean, a 'special destiny'?"
Should he retract on that? Just say it was something he felt? No. I won't lie to these folks. They have shown me every courtesy. "Just that- I have felt it through the Force. This boy is special; he has Skywalker blood in him. I haven't done a Midi-Chlorian count yet, but I have a kit with my belongings if I-"
"General Kenobi, I think you'd better come with me."
-
It was a short trip, allowing little time for dread regarding the sharp tone that had found its way into the taller man's tone. Once they were outside of the domelike hut, Owen set his long arms on his hips and seemed to lose any moisture in the frame of his body.
"Now then, what kind of 'destiny' are we talking about here?"
Obi Wan could tell this was going to be bad, but once again could not bring himself to lie about his visions. "He's the son of Skywalker, remember, not yours. He is so young, and I can already feel his sensitivity to the living Force, I-"
Very dense, Kenobi. You forget this place is a backwater. With the rare exception, few Jedi had ever visited a dirtball such as this. To the resident moisture farmers, the Force was either a total unknown or a myth. This would account for the cockeyed look that Owen gave him, suggesting his guest was a victim of sun-madness.
"I know that he has the potential to undo the Empire", he finally said, trying to catch the farmer's attention. "Once he is old enough, I will train him myself."
"Stop talking", Owen growled, his eyes stretched wide. "It looks to me like you've already got this boy's entire life planned out for him, is that right?"
"Of course not, I only meant-"
"Not only that, but you want this boy to go risk his life to change the way this entire galaxy spins- something I know is impossible. Where is this boy's father?"
The center focus now. They'd been fencing around it, each man's intentions partially guarded. Obi Wan hung his head. "He's… dead. Along with his wife."
"I'm sorry to hear that. Really, I am." Somehow, Owen managed to retain a part of the anger creeping into his voice, all the while sounding genuinely apologetic about Obi Wan's lie. "But I bet when you came to us, all you saw were two stupid yokel moisture farmers. We could do your dirty work raising this kid for you, and you could steal him away again for whatever harebrained scheme you've got planned."
This had been, in fact, the absolute last thing on Obi Wan's mind at the time. Bigotry was not unknown to him, but that didn't mean he accepted any of its many forms.
Owen jabbed a trembling finger forward, his voice slowly rising with each sentence. "One month. One month we've raised this kid so far. We've fed him, clothed him, washed him, given him a place to sleep. My wife and I both know that caring for a child isn't all fun and games, 'specially out here in the Jundlands. We've done the hard work, and we'll continue to do the work. Far as I'm concerned, that makes him our son… and I'll be damned before I hand him over to you, you crazy old man."
The measures they had both consented to in order to not disturb the baby had failed; Owen's shout had woken Luke up, and now he was crying loudly back inside the shack.
Knowing he would might never again have the man's ear, Obi Wan reached one hand as Owen descended the stairs to help his wife and nephew. "Wait. You must understand. The Force has-"
Owen's baleful stare offered the final and most violent rebuke. "Stay away from my family."
-
A steady rain had begun to hammer the treetops over Asaajj Ventress' head and the breath mask, and she silently cursed Darth Vader wherever he was. Huttspit. No reward is worth this.
At first, locating the Gand Findsman named Zurxix Azur appeared to be the easy job. Gands were humble ammonia breathers, and could be poisoned by most kinds of oxygen. Whenever a Gand became ambitious enough to leave their home world for the great universe beyond, as so many of them did, they had been forced to wear breather masks connected to a healthy supply of ammonia.
At times, these bulky suits lent Gands the biomechanical appearance of cyborgs, and Asaajj hadn't expected any trouble in tearing Zurxix's clumsy breather mask off, then watching him squirm as his lungs destroyed themselves on the chilled oxygen of Helska.
That was before she had reached the ice planet, stationed as far away from the core as you could possibly get. Before she had found out that the tough old Gand had already moved on to a different planet, forcing her to grill what seemed to amount to half the people at the tiny research station for the Gand's whereabouts.
This had been exasperating enough, but then she had learned Zurxix's location. He had left for a planet neighboring Helska, a planet called Whrede.
Whrede, as she had soon learned in dismay, was not a fun planet. Bad enough that the entire world was smothered in a stifling, humid jungle that seemed more mazelike than the urban canyons of the throne world Coruscant. Oh no, that wasn't nearly annoying enough; the planet just had to be an ammonia planet, the constant mists forcing her to wear a breather instead of him, forcing her to buy and wear protective eye filters that itched like crazy over her wide eye sockets.
Indeed, Zurxix would be right at home on this planet, similar as it was to Gand. He had the talent for near-silent movement amidst this steamy jungle that she had never needed before.
Before her first day of searching had ended, she had found out another very important thing- the planet was also home to Flitnats, Kafits, Mist Inters, Acklays, Saribahs, and about a dozen other predatory species her small Helskan data pad didn't have a name for. Of course, they all breathed ammonia just fine. And they were all hungry for the flesh of one delectable female Rattatak.
She no longer doubted that Skywalker had sent her after the Gand out of pure spite. Maybe he already knew what kind of misery awaited the oxygen-breather who tried to catch Zurxix on the Outer Rim, and preferred to avoid it. Well, I'll show him. I was trained by Ky Narec and Count Dooku; I will kill Zurxix before this day is over.
Surging forward with a new determination to accomplish her task before Vader, she pried two more screens of vines aside, still trying to maintain some modicum of stealth. Instead, her adjustment of a couple of branches made a dozen others crack loudly and made her ring out with another boiling curse directed at trees, Zurxix, ammonia mist, and especially Vader.
The Gand was running from her, that much was obvious. Temped as she was to break out both of her flashing red sabers and cut her way straight to Zurxix, Asaajj knew that the other Jedi would just hear her coming even further away, and move appropriately far enough away. For now, he had the home field advantage.
Only for now, she swore darkly. This is a savage planet, but my home was far worse. I am Sith. I got used to Rattatak, and I will get used to this.
Then she would take great pleasure in exacting the long, long hours of humid misery out of Zurxix's leathery hide.-
The main band of Chandrila's control frequencies broke into Lord Vader's meditation slowly, at first only providing buzzy clouds of noise. Connected as he was to his breathing apparatus, Vader took a sigh of relief in his own mind, inwardly pleased that he was not too late.
Beneath his ever-present dark robes, Master Sidious would have been ashamed- in part, it had been his own reluctance to accept the truth that had taken him so long to leave the planet Ichosar and head for its neighbor, the last known destination of the last ship to leave that ruined colony behind.
"This is Lord Vader, envoy of the Galactic Empire requesting to land. Do you read me?"
"Loud and clear." a surprisingly sturdy and authoritative voice answered him from Chandrila's spaceport. "Sorry about the mess, my, uh, Lord- we just had an accident at the other end of the bay. We're investigating right now, so you'll have to land at the north platform, if you don't mind."
Crossing into the atmosphere, he could already see the stark white outline of the port, along with the tenets of a small city around it. Every building and road on Chandrila seemed to be milky white, contrasting with the calm green plains and blue lakes of the planet's undeveloped areas. For a moment, it hurt his eyes to see so much white.
All the same, better never than late. Now he knew part of what the Camassi Reyne A'Kla had done to the attention-seeking people of Ichosar. He accepted it, however disturbing it might be. I should not be so revolted by this, he reminded himself angrily. With the power of the Force, so many things can be done to those without that potential that they cannot resist. This is simply another instance of that fact.
And really, he wasn't one to talk either. Several of the infantile citizens of Ichosar had kicked the oxygen habit, courteously of his black-gloved handiwork. If I had known that it was not their fault…
Excuses, excuses. The Shadow Hunter had now settled down to rest on one of the highest platforms of the Comati spaceport- he needed only to look down in order to see several other ships of varying size and classes beneath him, almost as though Comati had been structured class-consciously to keep the most valued clients on the top, while putting shabby ships near the bottom.
Dealing with the inevitable diplomatic reception from a handful of Comati's officials was something he'd almost gotten used to, after so many missions to other worlds as Anakin Skywalker. He had expected a particular reaction from these simple men when they saw his black helmet and armor, and with the exception of one he was not disappointed.
It was the youngest one there who surprised him, standing there on the walkway as Vader brushed past him. A teen with bright blond hair arrayed in a dome over his green eyes, he wore the least extravagant of all the outfits surrounding the two of them.
Ever since the incident, Vader had become noticeably better at reading other people's emotions, even as his ability to feel his own dimmed. This boy was as surprised as the rest of them at the sight of the Empire's envoy, his gruesome helmet and grille, the black lenses that served for eyes… but it was a different kind of shock. A familiar kind.
He had drowned out all the unimportant words the others had to say to him about Chandrila's place in the Empire. Vader did not care for petty bureaucratic nonsense, especially when it distracted him from his true mission.
His true objective, which had just then given itself away in a flicker of Force energy.
"I am not here on any business pertaining to your world, officers", he said icily. "For that, you may speak with your Chandrila-Ichosar Senator. I have come here to find a certain… individual. An older Camaasi woman. I felt her power just now, she is not far."
He was able to get the message across to them without using anything more in the way of words; that this was a private mission, and anyone who got in his way for too long would be sorry they asked. Hoping to avoid any further interference from the well-dressed civilians on the streets, Vader bunched his muscles up beneath the suit to project an even larger, more forbidding figure stalking the streets of the city.
A 'normal' city, not at all like Coruscant. Chandrila's architects seemed to favor tall white spires jutting up from all across a large tarmac of roads. He could touch the ground- the real ground- on this planet, something that no one could claim about Coruscant's kilometer-deep abysses. People could go their entire lives there and never see soil or grass.
Needless to explain, he attracted more than a few stares. Comati was a city of white, and his black stood out on it like nothing else could. So, it was easy for the young spaceport mechanic who had not feared him before to catch up on the main roads- Vader saw him coming.
"I would have thought you more intelligent than your masters", he said, his words freezing the youth in mid-run. "I specifically ordered to be left alone to deal with the Camaasi."
The youth gave a weak nod. "Of course you did. But when I saw you, I just had to know; who are you?"
Vader continued to walk, making it difficult for him to keep up with the mechanical pacing. After two blocks of this, he realized the younger man wasn't going to just go away. There was something driving him, giving him the impulse to run full out just to keep pace with the Dark Lord.
Vader still did not halt, but permitted him to catch up before going back to an inhumanly quick stride. "My name is unimportant for now. I imagine the entire galaxy will know it soon enough."
Nearly hitting an obese Twi'Lek, the boy dodged around and spoke in deep breaths. "I just wanted to know. I thought maybe you were an actor or something."
"If you have something to tell me, then say it now- I have no more time to waste on you."
The boy seemed to be training his eyes on the ground as he walked, but then he looked right into Vader's most menacing stance without any fear at all. "But now I see you're from Coruscant, not here. You wouldn't know about the story the Black Knight of Justice."
This time, his knowledge of the Jedi would betray him to curiosity. Momentarily forgetting about the flares of Force ahead, he stopped. "What Knight are you babbling about? Is there another Jedi here?"
The teen pressed his index fingers together nervously now that he'd caught some attention. "Oh, not a Jedi Knight. It's just an old myth from Chandrila: The Black Knight of Justice. In your armor, you looked just like him, that's all. Sorry for bothering you."
He was getting too soft. On another day, he would have choked the young man to death for daring to waste his time this way, even if it was just a case of mistaken identity. Instead, he simply used his left arm- his sole flesh limb- to bat him aside and continue towards the warehouse district.
-
It hadn't taken a long time to find the warehouse Reyne A'Kla was hiding in- constant flickers of another great power through the Force acted almost like a homing signal to Vader's heightened senses. Almost as though Reyne was calling to him, as if she didn't care about hiding…
Chandrila's law enforcement would find nothing amiss in the L2 Food Storage warehouse- any power that could change an Ichosan citizen into an infant could make someone walk away and forget anything suspicious just as easily. But Vader ignored the strange compulsion to leave the area and forget that the place's lights were on in the middle of the day.
Standing right out in front of the wide swing door, Vader clutched his saber. This is it, then. A quick kill is safest- aggressive negotiations. Now we find out how well constructed Chandrila's warehouse doors are.
The door could not stop a blaster, so of course it crumpled under a lightsaber. Stalking through the hole only slightly larger than him, Vader stepped out of Chandrila's pleasant morning air… and into a nursery.
That was the only way he could think to describe it, knowing what his target could do to people. The walls were still corrugated metal instead of the easy-going cream color he'd seen in a couple of places back on Coruscant, but everything else fit. On the floor, about a dozen men and women of varying ages, nestled on simple cushions in blissful slumber.
Some of them were not asleep. Instead they moved their arms and legs about, their eyes wide in wonder that they could make the things move. A few others were up on crates, speaking the same nonsense language he'd seen on Ichosar.
And there, sitting in the midst of all of them as the teacher and parent, was Reyne A'Kla, the long golden fur sprouting from her thin frame making her look both benevolent and benign, almost grandmotherly.
He knew he would be taken as a hypocrite, but could not help himself after seeing the ugly truth firsthand: "You are a very sick woman, Reyne A'Kla."
Only then did she give the slightest sign of having noticed he was there, even though Vader knew that the Jedi must have sensed his presence before he even entered the warehouse. Still managing to look completely harmless, her eyes opened and her stance slanted from a tender caress to addressing a stranger. "Ra He Wu Sha Ma."
Not without reluctance, A'Kla's victims obeyed the command and distanced themselves from both Jedi and Sith, leaving a vacant gap of several meters. Vader's saber was out before he remembered that, in accordance with her race's deeply ingrained pacifism, she would never use a Lightsaber, Blaster, or any other kind of weapon.
Any other physical weapon, anyway…
"I know why you have come", she said to him, still radiating absolute calm and peace. "But I wish that you would put your weapon away. It upsets the children."
Frowning at her audacity to suggest such a thing, he remembered what he had seen on Ichosar. "I would prefer to destroy you here- the sight would go a long way towards snapping these men and women out of your spell."
Unfolding her legs, Reyne stood up. "You lie. You know perfectly well that your weapon will frighten them. Put it away. There is no need for violence."
Wishing only to display the utmost contempt for her deeds, Vader only raised his saber angrily, ready to slice into Reyne's tan flesh. "There is every need for me to kill you if you plan to continue what I have seen this day. The population of Ichosar has been reduced to infants that speak a language you invented, and I sense you have the same fate in store for Chandrila."
Reyne looked disappointed instead of frightened or angered by his words, drawing several steps closer to him without any sign of fear. "A fine bit of detective work, Lord of the Sith. Can you carry that algorithm to its end?"
Of course he could. Anyone who knew of this power, knew what she could accomplish, would take a Coruscant second to see what could happen if such a talent was put to creative use.
She was planning on doing this to the galaxy.
Any of the younglings he'd slaughtered three weeks back could recite the limits of Jedi Power; there was none. The power of the Force- and it's ability to control the actions of others- was to be only limited by how much special individuals could open themselves to it.
It was the reason why his master had not simply used the Dark Side to enwrap the minds of his subjects. He could control a few crucial Senators, seize power over a battalion or two… but the entire galaxy consisted of thousands of trillions of sentient beings. No one was powerful enough to control them all directly. No one ever would be.
But Reyne A'kla had devised an elegant solution to that problem; the Force-imposed destruction of a person's long-term memory, sending it back to the maturity of a mere infant.
She'd even gone one step further, forcing knowledge of her own made-up language into each mind. Now, every single man and woman on Ichosar had imprinted her as their own mother. She could never bring herself to use a weapon, but she didn't need one to wipe the memory of a galaxy, person-by-person and planet-by-planet.
Vader digested all of this in silence, and regarded this harmless-looking Camaasi woman with renewed contempt. Not since his awakening from Mustafar had he felt such intense rage.
"You have made one mistake", he grated out grimly. "Your powers are useless against another Force-user. I will defend myself, and you… cannot."
He moved quickly enough so that his saber was brought to the base of her neck before her own power made its presence known. The red glare of death halted millimeters before her flesh.
He'd been mostly wrong. The Dark Side powers he'd focused so much anger to master were of little defense inside his own mind. He could resist her, but barely, and only through the strongest mental resistance he could put up.
Mental defense was another game Anakin Skywalker had detested, mostly because it involved a lot of sitting around, eyes closed. Vader almost regretted that now, because while his defense could guard one area of his memory, it couldn't protect everywhere.
She had started by attacking all memory of the Lightsaber, the weapon he held at her neck.
By the time he'd put up a near-impenetrable wall around those memories, she'd eaten into the basic memories of how to put up such a block. He sensed that other memories were in danger, being chipped away at through his strongest Force-barrier, but would lose all recollection of each piece before he knew it was missing.
He'd already put up an iron wall around all his memories of Padme and Senator Palpatine, but Reyne's mastery of mental attacks exceeded his own. Just as Reyne was an utter novice in the use of the Lightsaber and telekinesis, it was he who was the amateur in this deadly art.
Padme. Padme Amidala. We first met back on Tatoo-
Now that name and everything connected to it was gone as well. A voracious parsite was eating his memories one by one. A parasite who's name and species he couldn't remember, couldn't remember why it was that he was-
Why are we fighting?
He realized that wasn't his own thoughts, but the sentiment of the golden-furred woman standing in front of him, her face locked into concentration even as she spoke through his thoughts.
Yours is a tortured, maimed soul. Be at peace, along with the rest of us. There will be peace…
Another memory about to be erased, this one jarred loose by what she'd said. '…The Sith will rule the Galaxy.'
'And there will be peace.'
The engraved memory of his Master. A man of proclamations, with the power and will to make those claims stick. But what the Emperor had said that day, after blasting Master Windu out the window and into death, was a lie.
"Peace is a lie", Vader spoke up for the first time in many minutes. His focus, along with his ability to save his memories, became hard as the ingrained truths of the Code of the Sith. "There is only Passion."
"Through passion I gain strength."
Instead of simply holding off her assault, Vader drove the next verse into Reyne A'kla's brain so hard her eyes bulged.
"Through strength I gain power."
Pounding like a war song through his remaining blood vessels, each quotation was met with a renewed effort to erase it from Vader's memory. A futile effort- the code was a solid, permanent thing. It was set in stone in a mind that believed in it beyond all doubt.
There was his saber, still hanging at Reyne's neck, all men and women she'd violated watching with acute fascination; they didn't know what the red glow was for.
"Through power, I achieve victory. Through victory my chains are broken!"
They found out by example, but Reyne A'kla's voice had not faded.
Instead, it was rising. Beyond words, beyond flesh, the intrusive presence was building to a thunderous peal that rocked Vader away from the new corpse, and backwards onto the floor.
For a moment, he had seen past the boundaries of matter. Vader had watched helplessly as the luminous being named Reyne A'kla cascaded into a screaming supernova that engulfed his universe within its blaze.
The Force shall set me free…
-
Half a galaxy away, Obi Wan Kenobi woke up.
He was staring at the blank, rounded ceiling of his new dwellings with a cold sweat shining on both sides of is head in the Tatoonie night. Ignoring it, he sat straight up on the cot, going over what he had felt.
No. It was he had not felt that was important. First, a quasar of Force energy erupting around the man who had once been his Padawan, most of it suffused with hatred. Vader had been in some sort of major struggle, that much had been clear through the connections he still had to what was left of the elder Skywalker.
He put a hand to his fevered forehead, expecting a painful result after a jolt of the kind that had awakened him.
Of Vader, of Anakin, he now felt nothing at all. Not even the smallest whispers of him were left in the Force.
Absently throwing on his robe, he walked out to meet the stars that beckoned to him from the door. A thousand stars… and no trace of him. Emptiness.
Here, then gone, he mused silently with the stars. Should I laugh at Vader, or should I cry for Anakin?
Only one thing was for certain: whatever explosive event had brought about his apprentice's end had been subtle as a Rancor… and he was not the only one who could feel it, and react.
---
M: Perfecting this chapter took forever. I will hopefully have the next one up much sooner- now that all my other active fics are taken care of, I can give this my full attention. I'd love to see commentary on any of this one's events or ideas.
For morons- NO, Vader's not dead.