Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction. Star Wars and Star Trek are both owned by their respective companies. The author has no permission to use them, and is receiving no compensation for writing this work.
Chapter 2: Dark Apprentice
Black holes, although the most violent, aren't necessarily the most dangerous of all objects in space. A black hole has no desire to destroy that which it devours. It has no drive to absorb matter, nor any malice toward it. It is a force of nature, no more, no less.
On the other hand, there are things that seek out what they destroy, and often do it with great satisfaction. They have the drive to envelop everything within their grasp, and the constant hunger for more victims.
Those objects, however, do hold one thing in common with black holes. They are the epitome of darkness.
Darth Vader, Dark Lord of the Sith, was one such object. Although once a kind man named Anakin Skywalker, Vader had been seduced to the Dark Side and trained in the ways of the Sith by Emperor Palpatine. Shortly afterward, he and Palpatine led a crusade to destroy the Jedi Order, the guardians of peace and justice in the galaxy. It was then that Vader gained his reputation for swift, merciless action against those that displeased him; murder, to him, was as easy to do, and as easily-acceptable to him, as scratching an itch. He was notorious for summarily executing Imperial officers who failed to meet his expectations.
The Dark Lord had two primary duties in Palpatine's Empire. First, he was to locate and eradicate the Rebellion, a motley collection of "freedom fighters" leading what they called a "civil war" against the New Order. If his viciousness against his own subordinates was any clue, his action against the Rebels would be swift, merciless, and bloody.
Second, he was to train his apprentice as a Dark Jedi. Her potential nearly matched his own, and she would be the perfect candidate to lead the Emperor's army of Dark Jedi, once she had fully succumbed to the Dark Side.
Vader stood on the bridge of the newly launched Super Star Destroyer Executor. He watched the fleet surrounding his ship, stretching out with the Force to monitor them and ensure they were operating at peak efficiency. Command was a duty he took very seriously, and failure was not tolerated.
He always had to remain on guard; Imperial officers did not get into positions of command without any sort of ambition, and he could tell that many of them envied his unique position of command, given his non-military background. There had been plots on his life by a few of his subordinates, and none had gone unpunished. However, the people who, in Vader's view, were vastly inferior to him each continued to believe that they were clever enough to bring down the Dark Lord. Although Vader could execute them at will, he chose to continue using them until the moment their treachery made them worthless.
Vader's concentration was stirred by a familiar sensation growing behind him. "Come, my apprentice," he said without moving.
"Yes, Father."
From behind approached a figure clad all in black, with only her pale face uncovered. Leia Skywalker, former Senator and Princess of Alderaan, was Vader's biological daughter, conceived just before his descent into darkness. She had been adopted by the royal family of Alderaan shortly after her birth, unknowing of her true lineage. Soon after her capture and imprisonment aboard the Death Star, Vader had revealed to her both that he was indeed her father, and that she, like he, had a very strong attunement with the Force.
At first, she fought the truth of her existence, and even attempted to use Vader's newfound attention toward her as either a means of escape or of the Dark Lord's destruction. However, over weeks of Vader's tactics of dark seduction and simple Force training, she began to see who she truly was and what she could do. She came to realize that if the Emperor and Vader could use their power to take control of the galaxy, she could use her own power to break their control over the countless innocents. She could bring an end to the battles across the galaxy that were taking the lives of millions of beings and bring true order to the galaxy. Believing it was her only choice, she joined Vader.
Her hair was cut short in a military style that was both attractive and feminine, but a total rejection of her adopted Alderaanian heritage; women in the society of Alderaan were strongly discouraged to cut their hair at any time in their adult life. Their hair was an indication of their grace and of their planet's symbiotic relationship with nature. However, as Alderaan had been obliterated, she no longer felt the need to keep with the traditions of a dead world. It would only serve to get in her way, and washing it would have been a useless waste of time.
Leia trained in using the Force to increase her physical and mental strength, and to use her anger, fear, and hate to augment her abilities. Although she sometimes faltered, having once been a loving, caring person, she found strength in using her hate toward Vader and Grand Moff Tarkin for the destruction of her home. She knew that in order to eradicate Vader and his Emperor, she must delve into their powers of darkness and use them when the time was right. She reminded herself daily of her ultimate goal, but her purpose had become slightly more clouded and opaque as each day in the service of the Emperor passed by. She could not fathom it yet, but the Dark Side of the Force was irrevocably consuming her from the inside out.
Leia stood at her master's left side. Twenty years of age now, her face carried the expression of one much older. Her brow was permanently furrowed, eyes intelligent yet missing the gleam of life. She wore an outfit very similar to Vader's, with a leather-like bodysuit and gloves, and a long, flowing black cape covering the newly constructed lightsaber at her belt.
Vader, still motionless, said, "You know the information I have to share with you."
"Yes, Father, I have felt it," she said. Her voice, once bursting with haughtiness and passion, was now flat and grim, like that of a mortician who had dealt far more with corpses than with live creatures. "You have found out the name of the young Force-adept whose shot destroyed the Death Star."
"Yes, my daughter, I have," replied Vader. He turned his head slightly so that her face was in his peripheral vision. "But this person is much more than a Force-adept. His name is Luke Skywalker. My son, and your brother."
Leia's eyes widened. She let out a half-gasp before composing herself. "I thought you said you and my mother only conceived a child once."
"That is correct. Skywalker, therefore, is your twin brother."
Leia turned her body to fully face Vader. "If he is my brother, then he must also be highly attuned to the Force. Do we know if he has been trained?"
Vader turned to face her. He stood a full half-meter higher than her; she had inherited her mother's petite stature. "When I was close to him in the Death Star trench, just before my ship was disabled, I felt him consciously use the Force to focus his attack. I also felt another presence touching his mind from a distance. The presence was that of my old master, Obi-Wan Kenobi."
That name struck a chord inside Leia. Two years ago, she had sent a distress signal to Obi-Wan Kenobi through an astromech droid, begging him to help the Rebel Alliance destroy the Death Star. With that message she had included detailed blueprints for the space station itself. Not long afterward, the Rebels had indeed used those plans to find the battle station's single weakness and exploit it, obliterating the gigantic weapon.
It had been the one event that gave her soul the energy to stay alive through such a desperate time. During her Force training, as she began to touch the darkness in her heart, she had let slip the location of the Rebel base on a moon of Yavin 4. Not wasting any time, Vader ordered the moon destroyed. Once the Death Star arrived in that system, however, it encountered the small squadron of Rebel fighters, that had ultimately destroyed it.
Thoughts of that past stirred the remains of her humanity, which had once filled her soul before Vader drove it into hiding with his teachings of hate and power lust. She felt some awareness of her true mission return, along with a renewed sense of confidence that the path she was taking was the correct one.
If Vader noticed her surge of feelings, he made no indication of it. Instead, he turned and headed toward the turbo elevator outside the rear of the bridge. Leia dutifully followed, managing to keep pace with her master without looking hurried. She could feel the tinges of fury on his soul at the mention of the Death Star.
Leia had already been punished, severely, for sending the distress call and technical plans to Kenobi, so she felt no great anxiety within her from this new revelation. Nor did she sense any animosity from Vader, despite the fact that he was also severely punished by the Emperor for losing the battle station. Wisely, she chose to let that particular subject die.
Once they were inside the elevator and the hatch had closed, she said, "Both Skywalker and Kenobi could pose great danger to us, if Skywalker becomes a Jedi."
"Indeed," said Vader, again motionless. "I have recently begun to feel a great disturbance in the Force."
"As have I, Father," Leia concurred. However, she wasn't sure if it was her brother and the old Jedi that she felt, or if it was something else. She dismissed her uncertainty, figuring she wasn't yet attuned enough to the Force.
"But remember," Vader growled, "only two Sith were able to almost entirely destroy the Jedi order. By the time we confront Kenobi and his pupil, you will be a formidable Sith indeed."
Leia's eyes lowered to the floor. Although Vader's statement of her becoming a Sith was no surprise to her, she felt it was time to press him for an answer to a long-unasked question. "I thought the Emperor forbade you to teach me the ways of the Sith."
Vader turned quickly to his student, not out of anger, but in an attempt to intimidate her. He felt slight satisfaction as she noticeably leaned away from him. He raised his index finger to her and shook it at each emphasis point of his next statement. "The Emperor is locked in the old ways. He fails to see that more than two Sith can exist at one time, so long as all have a common purpose." Vader turned back away from her and continued in a smoother tone, "He will come to appreciate the need of a new order of Dark warriors, trained in the ways of the Sith, to help him maintain control against the ambitious military minds of those such as Tarkin."
Leia understood perfectly, perhaps even more so than Vader had expected. Emperor Palpatine rarely used his powers any more; the Dark Side flowing through him was rapidly dissolving his body, making him age far more rapidly than he would naturally. Yet despite this, he was still the Sith Master. Leia had stolen occasional glances through Vader's books of Sith lore without his knowledge, and by the most ancient of precepts, only a Master and an Apprentice could exist at any one time. If more than two Sith existed, they would all be driven by ambition and greed to battle each other until all but two were dead. The more powerful of the survivors would be the Master, and the other the Apprentice.
With what little Leia had read of Sith lore, she knew that it was not simply an old set of rules to be tossed aside at convenience. She also knew that, despite Vader's claims, he was not stupid. He knew and followed those rules. If she were to become a Sith, either Vader or the Emperor would have to die, whether by her hand or theirs. And she knew that, despite Vader's statement about a "Sith order" to help the Emperor maintain control, Vader's true intention was to destroy him, take over as Sith Master, and keep Leia as his Apprentice.
That scenario, where Vader ruled over the Empire and she was his second-in-command, gave her nightmares, but it was one she knew must come to pass. It was at that time, once Vader assumed the Emperor's place, that Leia would take advantage of Vader's power lust and destroy him, leaving the Empire leaderless and hopefully allowing the galaxy to eventually return to the peace and freedom it once had during the golden age of the Old Republic.
Taking her father's life would not be difficult for her. It would not be the first time she tried to kill him, nor even the fifth. However, it would be the last. Even if doing so cost her life, she was prepared to make that small sacrifice for the good of all.
For now, though, Leia decided to aim the conversation in a new direction. "What will be my lesson today, my Lord?" she asked.
Inside his mask, Vader pursed his lips. He didn't need the Force to sense Leia's fear of an army of Dark Force warriors. He knew she had sensed his plan for the Empire, but paid it little care. Every day she delved more into the Dark Side, and every day she placed herself more and more under his control. By the time he was ready to put his plan into action, she would be so immersed in the Dark Force that her only desire would be for them to rule all of existence as father and daughter.
But for now, she was still vulnerable to the weakness brought on by compassion. "We will put your new lightsaber to the true test," said Vader. "You will begin learning advanced defense against multiple fully-powered blaster emplacements. A test that would quickly prove fatal for an…unworthy student."
Leia smirked quietly, but confidently. She'd expected a more difficult test, having come so far with the Force. She chose not to argue for now. "I shall perform exceptionally, Father."
