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.

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Six: Anakin

-

"Enemy sighted, sir."

From his seat at the back, Trasshk leaned forward to the front viewport of his personal Blastboat, trying to discern the hostile craft against the vibrant green-white backdrop of Chandrila. The servant seated in front of him was too intent on the new arrival to move out of the way, and Trasshk never saw the other craft until it flashed by theirs.

He hadn't expected to meet with one of the Sith assassins so soon, before he'd even arrived on the planet. That surprise, combined with the sonic boom of the smaller craft's wake, nearly shook the Transdoshan overlord enough to topple him to the deck. Instead, he simply banged the top of his head off the roof- even the raised ceiling wasn't enough.

Beside him in the other seat, Gran Lassau let out a short chuckle, the only real sign of emotion Trasshk or his chief pilot had seen from the mystery guest Lon had sent them. Hooded as he was in Palpatinesque black robes and organic black body armor, a single white eye was all they had managed to see of his face.

Quickly regaining his posture, Trasshk reached out with the Force and an immediate response. "That's the one all right", he gargled in primitive basic. Not Vader- the one that killed Zurxix. A little girl?

Whatever race or sex Vader's partner was, she wasn't a bad pilot, Trasshk observed from his seat. She had already taken note of the fact that military Blastboats were not common sights in Chandrilan airspace, and immediately thrown all discretionary power into her engines, heading down the gravity well in record time.

Now seeing the small craft recede before his eyes, he touched the pilot again and licked his lips. "Give me primary weapons control."

The pilot knew better than to question the dexterity of his species. The firing controls lowered themselves into his lap, casting an infrared glare over the planetary backdrop while contrasting the girl's ship in bright green.

Before aiming, Trasshk looked over at their guest for a moment and snarled. "I don't suppose you'd want to make yourself useful and operate the missile launcher?"

Lassau did not even speak. He just turned away, content to watch the dogfight through his single white eye, now shaped more like a slender line contouring around what Trasshk presumed was the left side of his face, shrouded in darkness.

Adrenalin snapping his claws back to the fire controls, he raked the targeting cross over the fighter's engines, which had already receded enough so as to obscure the figure of the fighter with ion wash. Any pilot could tell you that a straight dive to escape the Blastboat's powerful weaponry would be even more suicidal than simply sitting still- no craft that small could take the G-forces of such a descent.

Instead, Lord Vader's ally was opting to skim the atmosphere of the planet while descending at a steady rate. That meant he still had time to tag those three engines jutting out from her aft, each one offering a bright target for Trasshk's sensitive eyes.

It was his pilot, not Trasshk himself who let out a yelp of surprise once the first salvo was unleashed- the enemy fighter zipped left before the shots crossed half the distance between them. She turned that dodge into a nimble roll, using that spinning motion to lose her own missile weapons at zero thrust.

As Gran Lassau looked on, Tasshk managed to vaporize each lethal missile before it came too close, giving his real target time to gain a handful of meters on them. Again she jinked further left, but this time he was ready; both beams cleaved the air where the small ship was headed, then Trasshk flipped over, taking his eyes off the firing screen for only a second, and painted the center of his reticule for missile fire.

The leftmost engine flickered and died, but the rest did not come off as flawlessly. The rest of Trasshk's initial volley, meant to spook the pilot into fleeing back to the right- back into the path of their single-shot missile launcher- was soaked up by the familiar green hue of shields.

The Transdoshan suppressed a content snarl. Must've gotten lucky on that first shot. Three missiles left. "Get us closer, you useless meatwad. I can barely see her."

What followed that was several more minutes of terrifying dodging back and forth in the stream of the Blastboat's lasers, each time either maneuvers or shields foiling Trasshk's shots. At the same time, the trail of smoke, the way the craft now hung to the left was unmistakable. By now, the outline of Chandrila's largest continent was clear even to the human pilot's weak eyes. He was going to have one more shot at this, or-

"Sir!", the pilot exclaimed. "We have more incoming bogeys! Imperial craft!"

Trasshk did not need to crane his neck- he could feel the eyes of a score of trigger-happy Clone pilots upon them, ready to fire. Damn it. Should've guessed they'd investigate this little party. "Give me ten seconds, then take us down at full speed. Wait… never mind."

There. His senses synched perfectly with his claws, peeling off a volley of laser fire just the pilot had the shock of seeing Imperial craft launching from their mothership, which looked like the kind of angular Victory-class Star Destroyer seen at countless battles at the end of the Clone Wars. As a result, her timing was thrown off- he also sensed her white hot frustration when the center engine blew apart.

The craft leaned heavily to the left and began to drop. Trasshk relaxed his missile launcher, sat back and smiled toothily, watching the craft twist and burn. She would never regain control with just one auxiliary engine, and even if the Imperials were so inclined, he doubted they could tractor her craft in time. An almost disappointingly easy kill.

Green laser fire flashing past their canopy reminded him that they were not out of danger yet- the eyes of the Empire were upon them. "Get us out of here", he rasped, "but keep a sensor lock on the other craft as long as you can. I want to see it burn with my own eyes."

Returning his attention to the firing screen, he peered closer, trying to keep the rapidly receding flare in sight. Once or twice an Imperial fighter would flash by, but he could still make out that flare against all the green and brown below. No doubt the craft would end up a black scar on a grassy field. Or maybe…

Even Gran Lassau could not completely ignore how wide Trasshk's eyes suddenly grew out of shock. He would never be able to make out the flare by simply gazing out the view port as he did now, but Trasshk could still see the fighter's engine assembly, and more importantly, which direction it was turned.

"How in the…!", he shouted, and then caught himself, realizing the obvious answer considering who he was dealing with. The Force. The little wretch must have used Force telekinesis to stabilize her craft mid-descent!

All at once, the flare blurred into nothingness amongst the colors below after the pilot made a particularly tight turn to avoid laser fire. Thrown backwards into the bulkhead, Trasshk hissed in a combination of annoyance with the bulkhead and annoyance with himself for not finishing the female pilot off when he'd had the chance. "Pilot, take us down. She's still alive."

Like Trasshk just moments ago, the pilot could not mask the frightened surprise on his face as he turned around. "Take us down, sir? But the Imperials are onto us! They've got a full squadron trained on us already!"

Then he remembered who he was talking to and flinched away, expecting death. Instead, his master gave back his toothy smile. "We won't be down there for long- just drop me off lower-atmosphere. You don't think you can do it, then get off my ship so I can do it myself."

The nervous pilot gulped once, still digesting just exactly what it was his master was preparing to do. "Alright… sir. I'll open the hatch once we're within sight range of the wreck. Please don't kill me if the Imperials vape us before then."

Seeing no reaction from Lassau, Trasshk settled back into the cushions, gathering his power- his anger- from a bottomless well of natural feral instinct. "They won't. Just get us down there fast, meatwad."

Strangely enough, the next few minutes of combat saw a record number of piloting errors committed by Imperial pilots. When put through his debriefing, the clone flight leader could only attribute his squadron's sudden panicked beeline away from their target to the extremely convincing mental impression that they were flying down the gullet of a ravenous space slug.

-

Sedriq Uso snapped his personal holoviewer shut slowly and regarded Lord Vader with a mixture of awe and surprise. Lying down on the dusty workbench, once again pretending to be Sedriq's droid science project, the object of these emotions could only wait for him to give his first impressions words.

"I… don't know what to say", he finally admitted lamely over the repeating puffs from the respirator. "You've done it. You've brought the legend to life for one night. Three smuggling operations disrupted, two murders prevented…" Drawing closer to the cybernetic form on the bench, his eyes darkened. "All the perpetrators dead from microscopic cuts on their bodies."

The Force had not wiped Vader so clean that he failed to understand the gravity of it. "A personal jading, I fear. I have never had any degree of patience for criminals of any sort. I remember being owned by a slaver trader at one point in my youth. The first smuggling operation…"

Sedriq closed his eyes, knowing what he must have felt. "Slaves. The pols like to have us believe Chandrila is a utopia among a galaxy of corruption and thievery. So much for that theory."

Touched by the bitterness in his tone, Vader sat up. "It is not without some merit, Uso. Most of the people here are decent- I can sense it in their hearts and minds. But even if there was such a planet so perfect and pure, economy requires that it tether itself to the rest of the galaxy."

Uso nodded soberly at the upraised helmet in front of him as though facing an ugly truth head on. "Thus it becomes corrupt. That's so wrong, though."

"Correct", answered Vader. "It is. I intend to root out the primary source of this planet's corruption at the source tomorrow, a man named Lars. He was the man behind the slave and Spice trade in these sectors."

Sedriq drew closer, looking as though he was just becoming aware that he shared his house with a murderer. "So you'll kill him, just like that?"

This accusation came back at him in a wash of dark anger from Vader, projected into his towering stance and voice. "Is there a better way to deal with such criminals? The courts of any planetary government are subject to question. The prisons of Kessel rehabilitate no one and spread their vices to the innocent! This is faster, simpler."

Short of breath, Sedriq involuntarily backed away, getting his back against the door before Vader softened his focus. "I am not your living legend, Uso, however much I may try to be. That is a story for children who have no concept of death. That is what I will bring to all the criminals of Chandrila, until I regain who I truly am."

With that, he turned back to the business at hand- fixing his damaged armor. Having already seen the other's apt mechanical skills, Sedriq, walked out of the workshop, once again fearing Vader the way he ought to.

At this rate, he thought dismally to himself as he saw his little sister come in from school, the Jedi will soon be joining the Black Knight of Justice in the realm of fairy tales.

-

She had trashed the fighter, permanently this time. Embedded as it was in a slender bluff of rock, Asaajj knew that she would not be leaving the planet the same way she had arrived in.

The Force telekinesis had actually given out right as her ship had pierced the clouds. Try as she might, she couldn't quite hold on to the focused anger needed to hold her craft level under such powerful gravitic stresses. Then the ship had twisted end over end, she had lost all semblance of concentration on the Dark Side, returning to frantic piloting duties in order to make a controlled crash-landing on this bluff.

From the upraised position of the right engine, twisted out of alignment, she had caught a better view of exactly where she had crashed. The bluff was the start of a series of similar outcroppings that grew more numerous as they extended out to sea, mixing themselves with the sand. To the other side lay endless green flats, occasionally parted by narrow valleys buffered with gray shale, but she had sensed many lifeforms further along that way- almost certainly the pearl-white city she'd glimpsed during the descent.

Skywalker was there too, she decided from the twisted engine framework. He- along with thousands of other people- was only half a day's distance if she ran the whole way. All in all, she could have had it much worse; Chandrila did not bear the slightest semblance to her homeworld, nor the steamy jungle she'd left behind trying to get here.

Tipped off by the impossibly loud drone of Imperial fighters, she huddled down into the cockpit for a moment, letting them pass. No doubt the local authorities had been stirred up by the Skipray Blastboat, along with her fighter, lighting up the sky with lasers and missiles. The flyboys would take a few more passes, then get bored and go back to the Star Destroyer. Until then, she would have to wait and take inventory.

Asaajj closed her eye in the seat, remembering a time when she would do this sort of thing every day, evading mercenary fighter patrols from the local warlords, using whatever cover was necessary. Sometimes she would have to slink along in ditches for weeks, the fighter's engines- quieter and more buzzy than the Imperial's but no less ominous- serving as a constant reminder of the danger waiting just fifty meters higher.

If you stuck your head up then, it would be removed. She's seen this firsthand a few times; folks would panic, desperate to stretch their ankles after crawling for days on end with little food or rest. Ignoring all the warnings of their fellows, they would stand, and two things would happen- the fighters would swoop around and strafe such an inviting target, or more likely the leader would cut the offender down himself to maintain their cover.

Ky Narec had not taken her away from those days, but he had made life worth living again, for a time. After that had come an abyss of grief and rage so deep that even she's known her sanity was slipping, and after the abyss came Master Dooku.

There. Her time was now. A wingpair of fighters had just come by in what looked like a tired survey that did not expect to locate anything- it was just for show. Either they were done, or they had more pressing business elsewhere.

Just to be safe, she stuck to the bottom of the valleys like a conduit worm for the first two hours. Back in the trenches, back to the place where her endless well of anger had been forged in the fires of the warlord's hatred… but this time, Master Narec was not by her side.

It took Asaajj a moment to realize that she was not imagining the buzzing of a non-imperial engine solely from memory. She felt it now: a mind of malice and power, accompanied by another one rapidly approaching absolute terror. She tensed up, closing down her own awareness to make herself that much harder to find.

It had to be the wretches who'd ambushed her earlier in the Skipray- the Force-sensitive one she felt now had used his talents before while firing on her. This presence was almost like her own in its anger- a carefully tendered crucible that seemed bottomless, that could murder everyone in sight when it was vented. This was definitely not a Jedi.

Not a Jedi, not a Sith. A Forgotten, then?

Whatever kind of Force-user was trying to kill her, she would have to make certain that he ended up disappointed and dismembered. Asaajj reached back for her twin red Lightsabers, and-

-sprawled to one side to avoid a hulking mass that seemed the size of a bipedal Acklay. Its claws gouged the dirt where she'd stood, tilting two glowing reptilian eyes to track her. In a valley this narrow, someone that big could effectively block the pass.

Desperate to get out of the dark space, to see what it was she was truly up against, Asaajj leaped skyward, boosted by her power. Her attacker followed, clawing his way up and out of the valley in a less dramatic fashion.

Standing amidst hundreds of fronds of blowing grass long enough to tickle her cheeks, she could now see him in full detail. He was easily the biggest Trandoshan Asaajj had ever seen, towering over her short stature. While his dark green skin looked proof enough against any conventional weapon, he was also covered in tight-fitting combat armor of a type she couldn't recognize, a type that seemed almost organic in it's creases and joints.

The bone-gray battle armor covered everything but the Forgotten's head, feet, and sharp claws, which he flexed delicately as if warming them up. Asaajj searched him for several more seconds, then barked out a throaty laugh. "I imagine your claws would intimidate most. But you you were a fool to come here without a Lightsaber."

"You were a fool to come here, period", the Trandoshan gnashed back at her in a messy Basic. "And I have all the weapons I need here with me."

That, it seemed, was the extent of whatever conversation the massive Forgotten felt like having. Just as well, Ventress thought in cruel pleasure, gathering her strength along with both sabers, boring conversation anyway.

She lunged. The tall grass was an annoyance, but her soaring leap cleared it easily, heading straight for the Trandoshan's head with both sabers.

Still grinning crookedly, he leaned backward almost far enough to let her pass right over him. Instead of allow that to happen, though, he leaned to one side, moving his left arm up to reach and close over her face at it's full extension- which turned out to be about a foot longer than Asaajj had guessed. Before she could react to this, he tossed her backwards like a rag doll, knowing that she didn't need to see in order to lop his arms off.

Something warm fell from her head to her breast. Blood. Even in that brief moment of contact, he'd gouged her face with his nightmarish talons before releasing. She now sported four near-identical wounds there. Swearing to not let it happen again, she charged back lopsided, this time with one saber for protection, the other to strike.

Trasshk- once again leading with his left arm- dropped to all fours before slashing out for the handle of the first saber. This time, she was ready. Asaajj guarded the hilt of that saber with the other, then switched stances when he curved his swipe to the other hilt. Now her two sabers were held in a cross-guard, which she advanced forward towards the larger fighter's neck.

Then, to her amazement, the armor crisped and boiled instead of melting away entirely. While the blunted velocity of the strike sent both sabers upward towards Trasshk's head, this was all the time he needed to grab both hilts, stopping them a few inches away from his hide.

"Doshkok Armor", he snarled gleefully through the steam wisp, his voice not betraying any of the signs of exhaustion Asaajj was feeling cramp her arms. "Made from Trandoshan hide marinated in cold brine for generations, so it's harder and stiffer than duracrete. Reserved only for those who have earned the highest favor of the Scorekeeper."

Not wanting to be outdone, she bit down to restore feeling to her trembling mouth. "You… are… a fool! Do you really think you can stop… two Sith lightsabers with just your claws?"

She didn't hear Trasshk's answer. Instead, a jumble of images buried her senses. It only took her a moment to lock down what their common denominator was- death was milliseconds away.

So she leaned back, losing even more ground in the struggle over her two saber handles. And even as she registered that he had angled his right arm over top of her own hilt and pointed it at her neck…

That right arm exploded, projecting a familiar red glow out to where her head had been just before. Judging by the look on his face, he was a bit surprised to see her dodge backwards, out of the reach of his lightsaber. She took the opportunity to grasp both of her own sabers and roll away from him with the kind of speed only Force-users could know.

Now she could grasp the danger before her in it's entirety, not completely believing what it was. Trasshk's right claw had simply exploded- turned into a faint cloud of blood molecules after being fried by his hidden lightsaber. The saber itself was massive, nearly the width of his real arm, easily twice the thickness and length of either of hers. As for it's handle, she could see a ring of metal at the end of the stump, which would continue on into the usual apparatus, which could be activated by remote.

A dangerous gamble, but one that had nearly decapitated her before she could react. Judging from the way those images from a possible future had been frantically pressed into her mind, it could only have been Zurxix who had warned her.

"That's ten", Trasshk chortled over the wind and the hum of his saber. "That's the tenth time I've unleashed this weapon- only for exceptionally worthy prey."

"Painful, of course", Asaajj acknowledged, fully catching on. "But now I remember-Trandoshans regenerate body parts a lot faster than humans or my people do. So you'll have your right arm back, grown over the blade, in about a year."

Trasshk waved his huge saber back casually, making ready to strike. "Five months, actually- fine control over the Force speeds that up quite a bit. Now die."

He took the first slash across the grass, calling to attention once more how much longer the reach of his weapon was. Parrying the weapon only helped so much- Trasshk's lightsaber was so large and powerful that it took both of her smaller sabers to ward it off, and even then just barely. Never before had her weapons felt so heavy in her arms, while her reptilian opponent seemed more invigorated than ever by the loss of his right arm. The fact that he was actually smiling as he fought only deepened her fury.

That was fine. Fury was her friend. It was the primary source of all Dark Side Power, and what little of her concentration Asaajj could spare noticed that she was on the verge of giving in to it, of surrendering all sentience to raw animal anger. Already, her vision was pulsing with blood red lines drawn across it. Trasshk's massive red saber seemed to fill her vision, draining her conscious mind of the will to fight just as it wore down her stamina with blow after blow.

By the time their fight came to the edge of an outcropping near the beach Asaajj had spotted earlier, her conscious mind was too tired to resist or intervene. Screeching a renewed call of rage, she slashed back into the dance, spinning around the larger target like an insane mynock. Another slash mark steamed into Trasshk's back, only stopped by his armor, and then she leaped skyward for the final blow.

All Trasshk had to do was take two steps forward. This left her to land on the very edge of the outcropping, and take one second to prevent herself from tumbling off the edge of the sea cliff. One second was all he needed to pivot on his footclaw and slash directly into Ventress' left arm.

Her scream modulated between absolute rage and blinding agony. Because Trasshk's saber was so wide, it dissipated the molecules of flesh it touched instead of severing a hand from the arm. Instead, the hand and the weapon it held exploded in much the same way Trasshk's right had moments before, instantly cauterizing in the heat.

Clutching a smoldering stump, her footing was the last thing on Ventress' mind. Dropping the other saber, she fell with a final scream. Not wanting to be denied the chance to finish his prey off personally, Trasshk peered over the side and saw nothing but seawater.

He cursed in his native tongue, switching the saber off. The tide must have come in while they were fighting. Nature had deprived him and the Scorekeeper of a rightful kill, and not for the first time.

But really, no matter who did the deed, he could be certain that Asaajj Ventress never had, and now never would, pose a threat to him.

-

The dream came to him again as it always had since the incident, uniform only in it's utterly haphazard sprinkling of images, feelings, and sounds. Even dreams, ever a product of the memory, were fragmented.

Padme. The woman he had loved was the sole anchor in a sea of unknowns. All throughout, he had hung onto those memories tightly, leaving them faded but not removed, like so much of his life had been. He also remembered why it was she was not here with him now.

More than came with her, though. There was another face, another life irrevocably connected to hers, that appeared whenever Vader tried to think about her. The brash young Padawan, Anakin Skywalker. Was he still alive, waiting out there in the galaxy, longing for his mate?

He'd sensed an angry presence in the Force closing on him in his waking moments. Perhaps that was Anakin, come to avenge her by killing Vader. But there was something wrong with that picture as well, something missing in the larger puzzle.

In fact, it was a large piece missing. He'd tried going there several times, to try and retrieve it, only to be met by a buffeting wall of emotional and physical pain that drove him back every time. The wall divided whatever life he'd lived until the incident from the rest of it. Now he had come through a torrent of broken memories to march right through that wall.

This time, I am going to do it, he told himself. Focus your hatred to block out the pain, and I will regain who it is I once was.

One step, and the aches were already eating him alive. A sensation like burning lava all along his back was always the wall's first line of defense, and he cooked in it. Concentrate!

The lava didn't want to let him go, even when he arrived at the second layer- the place where he'd been stopped the last time he'd slept. The second layer was a dark wind. It chilled the lava, somehow failing to dissipate the lava's heat even as it froze and cracked over him. Yes, the power of hatred was carrying him far indeed… but he was still miles away from being complete.

The third layer struck now, as fast as its source. It was shock- the shock of electricity, and shock at one' own deeds. Somehow, the two were connected by an event he'd forgotten. It was the worst one yet, combining with the other two to complete the symphony of pain. Too much pain… can't see…

He might yet have succeeded, had it not been for the scream that suddenly intruded into his consciousness- a shrill female scream, nothing like Padme's. That was all it took to break the intense barrier of dark power Vader had woven around himself to protect from the pain, and the wall chose that moment to bounce him back out of it's radius, back out into daylight.

He woke. Once again, the red glare of the lenses awaited him and the afternoon. He sensed another life form in the room and, expecting it to be Sedriq Uso, turned his head to find him.

What he found instead was someone much smaller and younger, standing just short of the workbench even at full height. Curly black hair framed an innocently curious face, and he recognized her as Uso's younger sister.

His turn had to have been the only reaction she had observed from what Uso had wanted his family to believe was a droid. He could certainly play the part and just lie there, motionless, until Sedriq returned from work and shooed her away. But that, somehow, didn't seem entirely satisfying.

Before he could make a decision either way, she made a giddy leap for the bench, managing to grab on and climb halfway up onto it and him. Looking closer at the electronics on his frame, she asked "what kind of droid are you?".

He thought about it a moment, going over what possibilities he remembered- how much the incident had crippled him, even in something as simple as this! "A swordmaster model. Sedriq Uso built me to train him."

It felt strangely easy for him to lie to a child, and he felt devoid of any compassion for her, almost as though what remained of his heart was playing along with the subterfuge. While not a droid, he certainly would count as a cyborg in all accounts.

Sedriq's sister wrinkled her little nose, noticing the respirator's noise. "You sound sick. Is my brother doing a good job building you?"

"…An interesting question. He has tried to build me to his own specifications, but those failed. Perhaps he has left me to complete the final stages myself."

She laughed lightly. "That's dumb. A droid can't make itself." Straightening up, she pushed herself back off of the bench and looked up at him. "I'll talk to him about it. He's never made a droid before now."

"Wait."

She stopped expectantly halfway to the door, and Vader cursed himself for halting her. What was he supposed to say? 'Don't tell him you were talking to me?' No matter what he said, Uso would find out that his sister had been innocently talking to a murderer as though nothing was wrong.

When that happened, heads would roll.

He sighed. "Never mind. Please go." Perhaps it was time that he set out to kill Boss Lars- he doubted he would be welcome again in this home.

-

M: Biggest chapter yet, yeah! I didn't even mean for it to be, it just kind of grew on it's own. Somehow, fight scenes always take more space than you'd think.

Private Note to Vong Hater's Review (How Telling!):

I really don't mean to sound fanboyish, but you are being very narrow-minded. If you were to claim the Yuuzhan Vong, who in fact will be playing a minor villainous role in this story, are not canon and therefore not real, then the entire Expanded Universe and all it's wonderful characters would have to be considered fake as well. At their inception in Vector Prime, the YV were a breath of fresh air to a genre that was growing increasingly stale. I would rather see an innovative new nemesis than the 400th faceless Imperial bureaucrat ineffectivelytrying to take the high ground against the NR.

I'm guessing you hate the New Jedi Order series as a whole as well. I know that there is a core of fans that despise it for various reasons, but I personally found it to be a nice change of pace, if a little drawn-out. Finally, the reason the Vong do not exist in the Force was explained and resolved in the final two books.

So there. Flames against the NJO/Vong will be disregarded in the future. Sorry.