Chapter 2 : Return of the Sith
If he closed his eyes, Darth Vader almost felt whole again. Sucked down in the cockpit of a high performance speeder, piloting by a blend of physical perception and Force sensitivity so harmonious that it felt as if the speeder controls were hardwired to his brain, it could have been any other day on Coruscant. But then, because it was Coruscant, he had to open his eyes, the Force alone being insufficient guidance to negotiate its flyways, which could be like traversing an asteroid field, the actions of some pilots being as random as flying chunks of ice and stone. With his eyes open it was impossible to deny that he was encased in a life support suit, the continual reminder of the devastation in his life.
Still, for a moment, he could ignore the past, and immerse himself in the sensation of flying. Long ago he had decided that flying planetside was better than flying in space. Space, with its remarkable beauty and deafening silence, allowed speeds far greater than what could be achieved within an atmosphere. Appreciation of speed, though, required gravity and context. Planetside, g-forces gave literal impression of the acceleration rate and the hardness of a turn. The eyes judged speed by the closeness and passing of objects, whereas such reference was absent in space. He missed the feeling of the wind on his face, but flying the speeder soothed his soul all the same.
As he merged the M31 speeder into an express lane, he reflected on the ease of his escape from the rehab center.With his recent life consisting only of medical treatments and physical therapy, the days had run together, but he thought it had been several weeks since his catastrophic injuries on Mustafar. The medical droids offered him little information about the outside world, and Palpatine had been conspicuously absent. Never able to sit still for long, and lacking orders from Palpatine, he took matters into his own hands. He had anticipated resistance from the medical droids, or the appearance of the Imperial security force, but neither materialized. The counteroffensive he had rehearsed went untested when, in an anticlimactic moment, he simply walked out. An unmarked door led to a plain corridor, to an elevator that descended only two floors, and exited to a windowed hallway. As he made his way down, it occured to him that he didn't even know what planet he was on, having only vague memories of leaving Mustafar. The window near the elevator showed him the unmistakable total urban landscape that was Coruscant.
The elevator hallway had no obvious exit. If only he had his lightsaber, he could create a passage, be it through the wall or the top of the elevator. He noticed an indented panel at the end of the hallway opposite the window. It lacked a wall control to indicate it was a door, but it was the only non uniform surface in the hall. The panel did not move when he tested it with his hands, but he felt a tingle of the Force, and so he motioned two fingers. The panel slid up, revealing a hangar bay. This certainly was the way Palpatine had been entering; this door only yielded to the Force.
He walked out into the hangar bay, which was remarkably empty for its capacity . Only three vehicles resided in the hangar : A theta class shuttle, a ship that looked like aJedi shuttle, except the emblems were gone, and in the far corner, an M31 speeder. The M31 was not a standard model, not that one would ever call such a high performance luxospeeder "standard".This one wasnot the factory "fire-red", but rather a deeper scarlet that matched the armor of the Emperor's own guards. He doubted if M31s came off the assembly line with side mounted blasters, either. The empty seat in the cockpit called to him, and as he slid behind the yoke, he felt more like himself than he had in a long time. He pushed the ignition, reveling in the glorious sound of its engines echoing through the hangar. He closed the hatch, strapped himself in, and eased the M31 airborne. A touch of the throttle, and he cleared the open hangar doors, and rejoined the world of the living.
At expressway speeds, it did not take long to come up on the governmental hub of buildings. He could navigate this stretch of Coruscant without thinking, so often had he traversed these flyways. He opened up the throttle, just to see what the M31 would do, banking right and left to avoid slower craft. Not the most polite flying, but he didn't endanger anyone. For the first time in his life, no master, be it Watto or the Jedi, or now Palpatine, directed his next move. He could go anywhere, but he had nowhere to go. His new life had no structure, and it disquieted him. A lightsaber on his belt would boost his confidence in greeting the unknown, because Jedi or Sith, what was a warrior without his weapon ? A destination finally in mind, he flipped a vertical "U" and turned back to the government core.
Rising broad and square above the city floor, the architecture of the Jedi Temple was unlike anything else on Coruscant. The five spires that rose from the body of the building did nothing to make it blend in to the cityscape. As Vader made his approach, even at a distance he could see that the Temple appeared deserted. No traffic pattern of vehicles swirled above its landing pads ; in fact the traffic lanes avoided it altogther. The fire damage had gone unrepaired, its signature spires still blackened. As he flew closer the lack of pedestrian traffic on the walkways became apparent. Squatters had not even taken up residence on its empty terraces.
For a thousand generations the Jedi had been a constant presence in the Galaxy, but now they were no more than a memory. In himself, they had built a foundation as massive as the building before him, filling his mind with precepts and viewpoints that he had accepted without question. Yet all had crumbled within the span of a day, due in no small part to his own actions. Had he really killed all those younglings ? He swallowed hard and pushed back the memory. It was a necessary thing, he repeated to himself. It had to be done, and at least he had done it quickly, so that they did not suffer.
He halted the speeder near the main entrance, seeing no need to use the official landing pads. No guards of any sort appeared to stop his entrance into the building. He entered his old pass code at the door to the interior core ; it admitted him as if nothing had ever happened. Inside, the great hallways were silent and dark, the life drawn out of them. The bodies of the fallen Jedi had been removed, but no other action had been taken to erase the evidence of combat from the interior.
As he walked down the broad corridors, the familarity of the building comforted him, despite the carnage that he had wrought within its walls. The elevators still powered up, and he found himself riding to the top of the spire containing the Jedi Council chambers. He entered the room where he had been judged so many times, from boyhood to manhood.
The windows were darkened by sooty residues, the chairs of the High Council covered in a similar layer of ash and dust. Clone trooper footprints disturbed the ash layer on the floor, evidence of the search that had taken place after the Temple had fallen. Standing in the center of the room, as he had first done nearly 15 years ago, his mind filled with snippets of the discussions that had shaped his life. So often the Jedi had seemed bent on pushing him down, when all he had ever wanted from the Council was recognition of his talents and accomplishments. The flood of memories gave him the uneasy feeling that he was not alone; he calmed himself by reaching out with the Force to confirm that the building was empty. Empty or not, it was time to address the task that had brought him here.
Midlevel in the center core building of the temple complex was the hall dedicated to lightsaber studies. Laboratories for use in construction of lightsabers were here, as well as gymnasiums for lightsaber drills and the practice of combat skills. He ticked off a list in his head of everything he would need to build a new lightsaber. Handles, grips, power cells, superconductors, lens assemblies, even Ilum crystals would be found here. Tradition told that a Jedi, especially a Padawan, was to go on a quest to find a crystal in the wild when constructing a lightsaber, but he knew a reserve of crystals was maintained in the lab.
He remembered the first lightsaber he had constructed. Other Padawans struggled to assemble theirs and focus the crystals, but not him. His mechanical aptitude shown through, and he welcomed its construction as a break from history and philosophy classes. The most recent lightsaber he had built was especially well balanced and rugged, and should have lasted him 20 years, had not Obi-wan perversely taken it at Mustafar.
He quickly gathered the parts he needed, as well as a few tools. It would have been easier to build the saber in the lab, but the feeling of unease had followed him from the Council chambers. His discomfort was augmented by a creeping claustrophobia stemming from the armored suit. He had never worn the suit this long continuously, and certainly not at this exertion level. Not thinking ahead, he had neglected to load any packets of the liquid meals designed to work within the suit. It gave him a glimpse of how truly vulnerable he was physically, despite the strength the Force gave him. Unable to unmask outside of the oxygen enriched and pressurized hyperbaric chamber, he was tied to the chamber until he developed a better long term tolerance of the suit. He exited the Temple at a faster clip than he had entered.
The M31 sat outside, waiting for his return. As he fired it up, he couldn't help but think this whole excursion had gone rather smoothly. Palpatine never did anything without good reason, but Vader still found it odd that the Temple was simply abandoned. He took off from the plaza and joined the traffic lane heading back towards the rehab center. He decided against taking an extended route back, the thrill of flying having been overridden by a growing desire to get out of the armored suit. It began to dawn on him that the ease of his escape was only because Palpatine knew he would be forced to return to the rehab center within a short period. With chagrin, he realized the M31 was probably purchased specifically for his use.
He flew away from the governmental core towards the rehab center. As he neared the center, he adjusted his altitude to meet the height of the rehab center landing pads, far taller than most any other building on Coruscant. His proximity to the center tripped a security field, and a warning came crisply over the speeder comlink. "You have entered restricted airspace of the Emperor Palpatine Surgical Reconstruction Center. Reduce speed and identify yourself."
He flipped a switch to broadcast back, "This is Darth Vader, returning to.." Before he finished his statement a light flickered in the corner of the instrument panel, and he could see a set of hangar doors opening. Apparently , at least here, his name carried some weight.
"Vehicle identity confirmed. Please proceed, Lord Vader," came the voice over the comlink.
Inside the hangar he parked the M31 near its original spot. The lack of guards no longer surprised him, as the idea was growing that the Emperor had arranged for everything to fall into place for him. The Force responsive door opened to him, and he retraced his path back to the rehab center. His droid nurse had apparently not been privy to the expectation that he would escape, and she flew after him, chattering admonitions all the way. He stopped her midflight with a telekinetic stab that rocked her backwards. The droid took the hint and returned to the nurses' station.
The last steps to his room seemed to take forever. Once inside, he went straight to the hyperbaric chamber. He wanted to rip the helmet off of his head, but its construction prevented him from doing so, and he had to carefully unlock the seal instead. He envied the ease with which the clone troopers were able to slip their helmets on and off. When the cooled air of the chamber finally touched his face, he closed his eyes in relief. The suit's temperature control system had performed well, but it was no substitute for the feeling of air directly on his skin.
He had come a long way in the last few weeks, but one afternoon's expedition had left him exhausted. His weakness made him uneasy; he wanted to be self-sufficient again.The only answer was to push himself harder, and as he spread the lightsaber components in front of him, he vowed that when his new lightsaber was finished, he would be combat ready.