A/N: Ooops. My muse didn't get the memo about returning to the fluff... lol.
Disappointments and Foreshadowing:
The Devastator, en route to Mandalore...
Lord Vader stood like an immovable black statue at the transparisteel window of his flagship, feet planted shoulder width apart and hands tucked behind his back and hidden under his cape. The bridge officers were as silent as they could manage as they did their work, not a word spoken, in petrified awe of their freakishly powered Commanding Officer.
Some of them were old enough to remember the long-running Clone Wars that had ended eighteen years ago, old enough to remember the tales of the Jedi. Some of them were even old enough to have served in the Republic or Separatist armies and had actually seen a glimpse or two of the lightsabre wielding warriors. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, it was an accepted fact in the rumour mill of the ship that Lord Vader must be something similar to one of the near mythical Force using Jedi, and had to be just as evil.
Because the other thing that everyone knew from their history lessons was that the Jedi had started the war and had dragged it on as long as they could in an attempt to bankrupt the Republic with their expensive clone troopers and countless battles that required more and more ships, troopers, and supplies. If Emperor Palpatine hadn't intervened with the help of his right hand man, the All Powerful Darth Vader, the Jedi would have taken over the galaxy and who knows what weird things they'd be doing to it with their creepy Force powers?
Steal even more children from their families and brainwash them into thinking they were gods as well so that every planet was quivering in fear from the Force abusing despot who ruled over them?
It was thinking such as this – along with the multiple deaths amongst their own ranks at the hands of Lord Vader – that kept crazy rumours flying in the mess halls of the Devastator. And then there were the times, such as now, that their awe and fear only increased when they saw things like his cape lifting in a nonexistent breeze.
Under his mask, Vader's eyes were closed and a smile of grim pleasure curved his lips upwards as he greedily drank in the rush of fear from his show of power, more than content to let the crew think whatever rotten things they wanted about the Jedi and himself.
There had once been a time when his cape basically moved on its own as it was affected by the swirling currents of the Force that had surrounded him as he struggled to control the shear hated and loathing he had for everything and everyone. But now, so many years later, the hate and fear and Dark energy was at his command and played off his fingertips the way the Light side used to, and his cape only moved as he directed.
Self-indulgent mission accomplished, Vader turned his attention outwards, eyes still closed, as he searched for Ahsoka in the Force yet again. He'd been searching for even a vague sense of her ever since she had disappeared before his eyes on Malachor, pulled away by a black gloved hand on her shoulder into nothingness.
He knew in his gut that she wasn't dead, just like he'd known after he found her lightsabre on that moon with the crashed and crumpled Venator. Both then and now, he'd had no sense of her in the Force, no matter how hard he searched for her familiar signature, and both times he'd been able to use that as proof enough for his Lord that she was, in fact, deceased.
As it had always been, Vader didn't want to find her to kill her. He wanted to find her so that she could join him so they could defeat his lying, controlling, backstabbing Master together.
Alas, today, like every other day before it, Vader couldn't sense his preferred Apprentice anywhere, no matter how far he stretched his senses out. But he knew that, one day, she would return from whatever strange dimension she had been pulled into – maybe one like the Mortis realm – and he would be at her side as fast as a ship could get him there to try and turn her again.
Mentally sighing in suppressed frustration, Vader turned his senses to other, less worthy, but still important Jedi. Well, Force users, anyway. He wasn't entirely convinced that Caleb Dume and his brave but stupid little Padawan actually qualified as Jedi; at least, not the way he knew them to be.
Caleb Dume, or whatever he was calling himself these days, had grown up since he'd last known him as the Padawan of Master Billaba, but he hadn't followed his Temple training in anything but the most basic sense. The man had a FAMILY for kark's sake, albeit not a blood related one. And he was also very clearly in a loving, Force bound, monogamous relationship with the Twi'lek pilot of his little crew, which was very much not the Jedi way that he'd been preached about a thousand times over. (Not that he'd actually listened; he hadn't been a very good Jedi either.) Vader thought Dume was a very stupid man to make himself vulnerable like that, having found out the hard way that succumbing to the lure of attachments was the easiest way to get hurt.
He would use those connections if he had to, to corner Dume so that he could kill him, but his only real goal was to eliminate the now blind Force user and to capture the teenage Padawan.
When he'd last encountered Ezra Bridger, the boy had been brimming with barely suppressed Dark energy, and had felt ripe for the plucking towards his side of the Force. Until Ahsoka decided to return to the present reality, Vader had plans to turn the boy into his next secret Apprentice (and hopefully a less disappointing one than the various Starkillers had been). Bridger was stronger with the Force than his current, blind in more ways than one, Master, his potential almost as a great as Ahsoka's had proved to be, and Vader would enjoy the challenge of whipping the little whelp into shape.
Vader's macabre smile returned as he found two bright spots in the Force on the pathetically Force weak planet of Mandalore, exactly where he expected them to be. So much easier to locate Force users when I already know where they are and there's no one or thing around them to mask their presence.
Now be good little Jedi Wannabees and just stay there for a little bit longer and this three year hunt will finally be over.
Going to Mandalore will be Dume's final mistake.
Vader remained motionless, his cape still whipping about his ankles like an angry tooka tail, as he felt one of his bridge officers tentatively shuffling up behind him, radiating trepidation. He opened his eyes only to roll them. "What is it, Collins?" he snapped before the man made a fool of himself trying to get his attention.
He felt Collins startle behind him, almost stumbling over his own feet, and that brought him a fiendish sort of pleasure that he basked in; Vader so loved to frighten the men.
Collins audibly gulped and came to a stop a 'safe' (haha) distance away of two metres. "I... I'm sorry to... to disturb you, My Lord, but you have a holo call from Coruscant."
Since Coruscant was code for 'The Emperor', Vader whirled, cape flaring dramatically, narrowing his glowing Sith eyes in displeasure at the Lieutenant. (Not that anyone could see it behind the stupid mask, unfortunately.) "Why didn't you say so sooner?"
"But... but I came to tell you right..."
Vader cut him off with an angry slash of his hand, sending the man flying down into the pit on the left and crashing into another officer who didn't dodge fast enough. "You did not," he refuted, growling loud enough for all to hear as he started striding with all haste towards the communications room, setting by example how fast one must walk when his Master was on the comm line.
Darth Sidious did NOT like to be kept waiting.
Neither do I, for that matter, he thought with a twisted sneer. Cowards have no place on my Bridge. I might enjoy playing with the mens' fears, but they still have to have the guts to stand up to me and look me in the eye and know not to anger me in any way, especially with the important things. Without even looking behind himself, Vader latched onto Collins' weak Force signature with a mental fist and squeezed. Hard.
There was a choked off cry, a loud CRACK! in the near silence as the coward's neck snapped, and then nothing but the resigned shock radiating from the rest of the officers in the pit with the now dead man.
Pleased that the matter had been taken care of, Vader swept through the door and into the comm room. He knelt in front of the holo table immediately, head bowed in apologetic supplication to the hologram of the person he hated the most in the entire galaxy.
One day, Vader WOULD get his revenge on his Master. One day.
"What is your bidding, my Master?" Vader said to the floor.
"I sense that you are on your way to Mandalore," the rusty, grating voice of Sidious said.
Now safe to look up, Vader did so, but stayed kneeling on one metal knee. "Yes, Master. I have received word that Dume and his Padawan are on the planet, and that another Governor Saxon has been eliminated. I go to deal with the situation."
The black hooded figure frowned at him. "You did not consult me first."
Vader quashed the urge to tremble at his Master's displeased tone. "I thought to present you with a pleasant surprise with word of the deaths of the two Jedi."
Sidious frowned even deeper, doing terrible things to the lines of his already wrinkled and disfigured face. "While that may have been a solid plan a few hours ago, things have changed."
"What things? I can still feel the Jedi on the planet."
"Ah, but did you happen to bother sensing anything else about Mandalore?"
"I... No," Vader was forced to admit.
"How remiss of you, Vader." His already aching chest tightened with fear at the punishment he knew he would receive at some point in the future for his mistake. Sidious smiled evilly, knowing exactly what Vader was feeling. He deigned to explain. "The Force around the planet is practically singing with Light side joy and triumph. The Mandalorians have taken their planet back and that red-haired Kryze has declared herself Mand'alor. While holding that blasted Darksabre like some kind of symbol of hope, she has transmitted a call out to all of her people to fight back against us across their entire sector of space. Our ships are being shot down or hijacked and our facilities blown up on every planet and moon even as we speak."
Vader was shocked and appalled. How could this happen so quickly? "My Lord, I..."
"Enough. We must show the Mandalorian scum who actually rules this galaxy once and for all. I am tired of dealing with them over and over again. My Death Star unfortunately isn't ready yet, but the first prototype of something else that you've been asking me to have built almost is."
"What? My dreadnaught?" Vader said, almost jumping up to his feet in excitement before remembering his place. "You actually built one? From my specifications and everything?"
Sidious smiled almost indulgently. "Yes. It was going to be a surprise for you, but since I'm currently displeased with you, I think I'll give the command of the first one to someone else."
Kark. I'd rather be electrocuted again and he bloody well knows it.
How I hate him.
Vader very carefully kept that last thought buried in the deepest corner of his mind and behind the thickest shield he could come up with.
"As you wish, my Master," he ground out through his back teeth.
"I do," Sidious said, all but openly gloating. "I will be flying to Kuat tomorrow to inspect the new Super Star Destroyer..."
Oh, did that ever hurt. Sidious was taking yet another thing away from Vader in punishment. HE wanted to be the first one to see his dream ship come to real life; a design that he had drawn up from years and years of experience with space battles.
He hid that pain behind his shield as well, refusing to give his Master the satisfaction of seeing him all but crying on the inside.
"... and if I am satisfied with it, I will meet you above Mandalore in three days with it..."
I doubted that I could hate him more than I already did, but I do. He's not even going to let me step foot on that dreadnaught, is he?
"...and we will DESTROY that Forceforsaken ball of dust and all of the people on it once and for all."
"Yes, My Lord."
"In the meantime, I want to you organize every non-essential fleet across the galaxy and start mobilizing them towards the most important Mandalorian sector planets. We will hit all of them at once and then move on to the next and the next and so and so forth until there are no Mandalorian annoyances left to question my rule."
Vader couldn't fault his Master's plan. And he would enjoy taking down the armoured nuisances who fancied themselves as good as a Force user. "As you say, Master. It will be done." He paused for a moment. "What about Dume and the Bridger boy?"
Sidious barely shrugged. "If they become caught in our web of destruction, excellent. If not, then you may hunt them down at a later time, so long as nothing more pressing comes up. They really aren't a priority right now. Both are quite insignificant to the course of the coming war that I foresee."
Vader ground his teeth once again in frustration. He'd been pulled off the hunt for Dume and Bridger dozens of time already over the last three years; it was getting beyond annoying. "Yes, Master."
"Besides," Sidious continued. "I sense that someone else very strong with the Force will be vastly more important to you and the coming war sometime in the future."
Ahsoka?!
"Who?" he asked carefully, trying not to show too much interest, since his Master believed that Ahsoka had been killed in the explosion on Malachor.
Sidious studied him through glowing eyes that shone even through the holo image. "I believe it is someone that you do not know yet."
His interest was now beyond piqued. "I see."
Sidious smiled in that spine-chilling way again, showing off his repulsive, rotting teeth. "No, I don't think you do. But you will one day."
And with that cryptic line, the holo image blinked out. Vader rose to his mechanical feet, staring blankly at the holotable, feeling like his world had just been turned upside down again.
Who could possibly end up being more important to me than Ahsoka?