Disclaimer: I do not own any of these characters or anything Star Wars related.
PART FIVE
Unknown Soldier
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After returning to the surface and searching the rest of the temple for anything of significance, Padme returned to her landspeeder. Unfortunately, there was nothing to be found up above. Everything of value was down below in the catacombs and her hands were tied until the rest of her crew arrived. To pass the time, she rummaged through her datapads, looking for one in particular. She smiled once she came across it. Accessing its contents, she began looking through the files that contained the ancient archives. She first entered the name Vader, but it turned up no results. She then tried Tyranus and Maul, but there was no information on them either. Discouraged, she tossed the datapad aside and released a heavy sigh.
"Something wrong?" she heard Sabe's voice ask from behind.
"No, not really," she answered as she turned around to face her friend. "When are the others supposed to get here; we've been waiting forever."
"It's only been an hour, Padme," Sabe retorted. "They won't be much longer."
Padme huffed at this. "Did you tell them to bring the droids?"
"They always do," Sabe said in amusement. "Just try to relax. You're too wound up."
"Can you blame me?" Padme questioned. "Here we are, sitting right on top of an archeological find of a lifetime, and we're stuck up here."
"Be patient," Sabe sighed. "Those tombs aren't going anywhere."
Padme opened her mouth to reply, but a loud rumbling sound coming from the distance suddenly caught her attention. She knew what the noise was before she even saw it…engines. Spinning around, she couldn't contain a grin when she spotted her crews large transport approaching from over the horizon.
"Finally," she remarked.
It didn't take long for the transport to reach them, though it still took too long for Padme's liking. As soon as it had powered down and her crew had assembled, she had them preparing the worker droids. It was only a short wait before they were ready to re-enter the temple. Once again, the hired security had insisted that they accompany them inside. Padme found the request rather ludicrous, but she had decided to allow it nonetheless. Flanked on either side by the guards, she and Sabe led the way to the Sith's underground gravesite.
The group had to quicken their pace to keep up with the overzealous Padme as she made her way into the temple and towards the stairs. Following in tow, they switched on their flashlights and started down the steps as she began her descent. Even with her striding down the staircase much faster than before, it still took quite some time to make it to the bottom. Once they were there, she immediately started in the direction that led to the round door that supposedly held this Darth Vader. They were there within seconds.
"I want in here first," she said as she turned to the worker droids. "Get this door open so we can see what's inside. And be careful."
Moving out of the way to give the droids the space they needed, she joined Sabe and anxiously watched on. After several minutes of delicate digging and drilling, the droids began to pull at the edge of the door. The sound of rock scraping against rock was almost deafening; dust and debris filling the tunnel as it was pulled open. It had clearly been closed for some time.
Padme slowly crept through the threshold before the cloud of dust could even settle. Reluctantly, Sabe followed her friend into the room. Even more reluctantly, the guards followed her. This was not like their usual line of work.
"What do you see?" Sabe asked, shining her light ahead of her.
"Dust," Padme quipped. "Wait, hold on…what's this?"
Sabe grew increasingly nervous by the second. "What is it?"
"I think it's a coffin," Padme replied. "Look."
Following her friends' light, Sabe spotted the object that she had been indicating. Now that the dust had somewhat cleared she could see much better. It did indeed appear to be a large coffin of some sort.
"It's big," was all she could manage to say.
"Look, there's more writing," Padme pointed out. "Can you translate it?"
"Let me see what I can do," Sabe replied, moving closer to study its stone surface. "Forever will we know his name, forever will we honor it…" Sabe trailed off, holding her hand to her mouth in shock. "Padme, you're not going to believe this!"
Padme felt her breath catch in her throat. "What? What does it say?"
"Lord Vader, the Black Knight of the Sith!" Sabe finished. "Padme, it's him!"
"It can't be," Padme gasped. "How is this possible?"
"I don't know, but it is," Sabe declared. "You found him! Padme, you found him!"
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