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Chapter Seven

Vjun was a dark world.

It wasn't just the constant presence of ominous clouds or the never-ending drizzle of acid rain, although these did provide an atmosphere conducive to dark thoughts. No, it wasn't just the sky that made Vjun a world of nightmares; it was in the soil, in the blood of the surviving population. The mad inhabitants of this planet had corrupted it, twisting it into something wholly different, something crazed and malicious and desperate.

Darth Festus loved it.

He was human, and young. Large blue eyes peered out from a pale, gaunt face. He had the appearance of an aristocrat or one of those tragic heroes the holofilms were once famous for, and he looked perfectly at home in the gloomy mansion that served as their headquarters.

His brother, on the other hand, was not quite so comfortable.

"We shouldn't be here," Darth Ferrus muttered, leaning forward in his chair. He was like a distorted mirror image of his brother: same blue eyes, same dark hair, but taller, more muscular, and not quite so pale.

Festus levitated a datapad in the air before him. He spun it around slowly, watching the dim light reflect off its shiny surface. "I don't mind it," he said.

Ferrus scowled. "Well of course you don't. You'd probably be content to spend the rest of your life in this hellhole."

Festus tilted his head toward his brother and quirked one eyebrow.

Ferrus sighed. "It does suit you."

"Thanks." Festus let the datapad drop into his hand. "You know I'm not any happier than you about constantly being passed over." He looked off into space as his voice grew quiet. "I would love to be out there hunting the Jedi. But you heard the Master."

"I know, I know. Our work here is very important."

"And he did say that we would see the Jedi soon enough. They may end up coming here after all."

Ferrus stood from his chair and began to crack his knuckles. "I just hate having to wait for Dominius! He's always trying to keep us out of the loop."

"Usually I would agree with you, brother, but this time I suspect he is simply following orders. When the Master wants to reveal his plan, he will. Until then, we continue with the experiment."

Ferrus shuddered. "Again, one more reason I'd rather be somewhere else. I'll never understand your interest in Doctor Mezzon's experiments."

"There's a lot you don't understand."

Ferrus frowned. "What are you watching?"

Festus angled the datapad toward his brother. "See for yourself."

Ferrus grabbed the device and sidled up next to his twin. The screen was just big enough that he could make out two figures. Doctor Mezzon was one of them, and he was standing over a table where a young Mon Cal was strapped down, squirming violently. The doctor held a scalpel up for the Mon Cal – and the camera – to see.

"Gross," Ferrus said, thrusting the datapad away from him. "And you, too."

His brother's smile was a wicked thing to behold. "You're always trying to flatter me."

Ferrus made a dismissive noise and returned to the chair opposite his twin. "I still don't approve of this whole thing," he mumbled. "Even if they are technically Jedi."

Festus began to spin the datapad in the air once more. "How fortunate for the rest of us that we don't have to wait for your approval." He sent the datapad flying toward his brother's head. Ferrus snatched it out of the air with his left hand and made an obscene gesture with his right.

The comm unit on the wall crackled. "My lords?"

Festus bowed his head in mock reverence and gestured toward the comm. "After you."

Ferrus rolled his eyes. "What is it, Yaanis?"

"Priority message from Coruscant, Lord Ferrus."

The brothers exchanged a knowing look.

"Patch it through."

.

.

Artoo was waiting for them inside Kenobi's hut, taking his customary place in front of a round, wooden table. The table – along with a few other pieces of furniture – was a recent addition to the old hut. It was Tahiri who had decided they should fix the place up, back when she and the other Masters had chosen Tatooine as one of their enclaves. Ben had even helped her repair the roof and clean up the mess left by scavengers. It wasn't exactly cozy, but it was livable.

Ben ran his fingers across Artoo's dome as he passed by; he received a happy chirp in response. Ben took a seat on what might have once been a bed and watched his grandfather enter the dwelling. Anakin had to duck his head coming through the main archway, and he looked a bit uncertain as his eyes swept the room. Ben wondered if he was picturing Obi-Wan Kenobi eating here, sleeping here, maybe even dying here.

Again, Ben felt the weight of secrets on his shoulders as he waited for Anakin to sit down. There was so much to tell, so much that his family had endured. How could he even begin? What exactly could you say to a person who had tried to destroy the galaxy?

Tell him who he is.

They were his own words. For years, Ben had hoped he might hear a different voice – one of his parents, or his aunt even – whispering guidance in his ear. But it had never come, and the only voice he heard in there was his own.

"I spent most of the speeder ride wondering how I would start this conversation." In his ears, his words sounded almost too calm, too detached. Ben frowned and continued. "Like Artoo said, it's been forty-seven years since you died, and a lot has changed."

Anakin nodded. He was hunched forward, forearms on his knees, hands clasped tightly together. Ben noticed that his grandfather's left leg had started to shake.

"I figure we're going to have to come to it sooner or later," he said, trying not to stare at Anakin's nervous shaking. "So, I might as well start at the beginning."

Deep breath.

Say it.

"You turned to the dark side. I don't know when, exactly, and I don't know why or how. We believe it happened at the end of the Clone Wars."

Stars, why was his voice so calm? And why was Anakin still staring at him as though he hadn't heard a word? Ben swallowed.

"The reason I don't know more is because the Emperor hunted down all the Jedi and did his best to erase them from public memory. That includes you; only a few people knew that you were once Anakin Skywalker. Everyone else knew you as Darth Vader, the Dark Lord of the Sith."

He couldn't go on, not until he got some kind of reaction from his grandfather. The leg had stopped shaking, but apart from that, Anakin was deathly still, positioned the same way he'd been when he first sat down.

Didn't you hear me? He wanted to scream it, slap Anakin in the face with it. Say something…

Anakin took a long, quiet breath, his eyes narrowing at the floor. What Ben wouldn't give to know what was running through his head. Sadness? Shock? Disbelief? Anakin lifted his eyes to meet his. Then it clicked.

"You're not surprised."

Anakin looked away a little too quickly. "He told me." His voice was soft and strained. "Before I came here, he told me he was a Sith Lord, the one we'd been looking for."

"Palpatine."

Anakin nodded, still looking away. His expression was bitter. "Darth Sidious. My friend."

Ben felt that last word like a punch in the gut. If he hadn't already been sitting, he probably would have needed to. "Friend?"

Anakin looked up at him, and for a second, Ben thought his grandfather might get down on his knees and beg forgiveness. "I met him when I was nine," Anakin explained, his tone touching on pleading. "He's watched out for me since then."

Ben paused before answering. But of course, that made a perversely beautiful kind of sense, didn't it? Who would ever suspect that their mentor might betray them?

Must be a trend.

"It makes sense," he murmured.

"But how could no one have known? I'm the poster boy for the war effort, my face is everywhere!" Anakin was standing now, pacing across the room. He stopped dead and turned to face Ben. "And what about Padmé?"

The first part was probably the easiest to explain. "You fought Obi-Wan Kenobi, and you lost. You were forced to wear full body armor to stay alive. Your face was concealed, and your voice was altered by the mask. You must have had replacement limbs, too, because you were as tall as a Wookiee in your armor."

Anakin flexed his gloved right hand. "But what about Padmé? And the baby?"

Ben took a deep breath. Come on, Dad. Give me something here.

Silence.

Ben exhaled. "It wasn't just the one baby, Anakin. She was carrying twins." He held up a stopping hand as Anakin's eyes went very, very wide. "Again, I don't know the details, but at some point she went into hiding and gave birth. The twins were separated so that you wouldn't be able to find them."

Anakin practically fell against the closest wall. "Twins?" His voice was weak. "There's going to be two?"

"There were two."

Anakin faltered for a moment, but he pressed his lips in a grim line and continued. "What are their names?"

Ben hesitated. This was the part he wasn't so sure about. If his dad and his aunt were compromised, the galaxy was doomed. On the other hand, if his aunt survived, she might still have children… and they'd be right back to square one.

"I wasn't sure if I should tell you all of this. For all I know, you could return to your time and still end up as a Sith. Only this time around you'd have information that could destroy any hope of saving the galaxy."

Anakin slid down along the wall into a seated position, eyes never leaving Ben. "Please," he whispered.

Force, what had he gotten himself into?

"I suppose," he said, "if you're going to truly understand just how screwed up things have gotten, you need to know the truth."

Or the version of it that I see fit.

Stop it.

"My dad was Luke Skywalker. He was brought here, to Tatooine, to be raised by his aunt and uncle. Obi-Wan watched over him from afar, waiting for the right time to train him as a Jedi. That's why he was living here." Ben indicated the sparse interior of the hut.

"The other baby was a girl, my aunt Leia. Her mother took her to Alderaan, where she was raised as Bail Organa's daughter."

"And Padmé?" His grandfather's single-mindedness was a bit disturbing in this instance.

"She died while Aunt Leia was still young. I'm sorry, I don't know more."

Anakin was strangely silent; Ben wondered if this was how he always took bad news. Darth Vader had apparently been famous for acting out rather violently when things did not go his way, but Anakin was almost the opposite. If anything, he was internalizing everything, turning inside himself. Ben felt his stomach tighten as he realized that maybe he and his grandfather weren't so dissimilar.

"When you look in the mirror, what do you see?" They are his father's words, spoken to a ten-year-old boy.

"It depends," he answers. "Sometimes I see a Jedi. Mostly I just see me, though."

"What else?" His father always knows when he is withholding. He waits silently for two minutes before Ben answers.

"Sometimes I see the dark side."

"In you?"

"No." He remembers the mirror and what he saw there. "Waiting for me."

As strange as it seemed, Ben would have felt more comforted if Anakin had just thrown a temper tantrum or something.

"My dad couldn't remember her at all," Ben said after a moment, bringing himself back into the here and now. "He and Aunt Leia grew up without knowing the truth about you. They didn't even know they were twins."

Anakin leaned his head back against the wall and stared up at the ceiling. For a moment, Ben felt as though he were intruding on a private conversation; it reminded him of the few times he had caught his mom or his aunt having a one-sided conversation with his dead father.

At least he'd always assumed it was one-sided. They never told him if Dad answered.

It was several seconds before Ben realized Anakin was crying. He had expected this reaction earlier – much earlier, in fact – and somehow the delay had thrown him off.

"You did turn back, eventually," Ben said as gently as he could, given the circumstances. "Took over twenty years, but you finally killed Palpatine and saved my dad in the process."

—arms wrapped around him, pulling him away as he kicks and screams and cries—

—a gentle yet firm mental touch—

—a goodbye, and a shock wave in the Force so powerful that it swallows everything around it, including Ben's heart—

He could still feel Jag's arms and Jaina's hands, alternately pulling and pushing. He could still remember the way his knees hit the floor when they reached the ship. He could still hear blasterfire and sirens and Mom screaming through the comlink.

Maybe that's my family's curse: a line of fathers destined to die for their sons.

Anakin's brow was deeply furrowed. The tears had already been wiped away. "But if I killed Palpatine, then why are there…?" He trailed off as understanding dawned. "You still have more to tell me."

Ben nodded. "A lot more."

.

.

Anakin listened for nearly two hours as Ben described, in excruciating detail, the changes the galaxy had undergone since the time of Darth Vader. Anakin learned that his children had eventually been reunited and become galactic heroes. He learned of Obi-Wan's death, and Yoda's. He learned of the New Republic and the dangers his children had faced as they tried to rebuild what their father had destroyed. He learned of the alien race that had brought the New Republic to its knees. There were some familiar names and places – he discovered at last what had happened to Outbound Flight and Vergere and Zonama Sekot. There were grandchildren and Jedi and so many deaths. There were more Sith.

He realized as he listened that there wasn't anything he could say or do that would ever make things right. He was fairly certain that any attempt at an apology would elicit little more than a cynical remark from Ben. And he would deserve it, too. He deserved to be scorned and hated.

You shouldn't even be feeling sorry for yourself, he told himself. There was so much loathing in that inner voice.

I know. Gods, don't you think I know?

Anakin had done his best to sit still and listen as Ben turned what was left of his world upside down. His grandson would pause every so often just to stare at him. It reminded Anakin a little of being nine again and standing in front of Yoda and the rest of the Council, as though there was something inherently wrong about him that needed discovering. Ben's eyes were a different shade of blue than the ones Anakin saw every day in the mirror, but there was an intensity to them that he recognized from his own reflection. And he would stare and stare, and Anakin tried not to wither under his gaze, twisting his fingers together until his left hand was nearly numb.

He had allowed himself to remain hopeful, which was a mistake. He'd thought there couldn't be anything worse than the Emperor or these Vong creatures, but there was. His name was Darth Caedus, and he was a personal betrayal of everything Anakin's children had fought for. Bad enough that Anakin had become a Dark Lord of the Sith. But then his grandson had followed in his footsteps, and everything that might have been salvaged was instead destroyed.

It all started when Jacen was captured by the Yuuzhan Vong, Ben explained. They had broken a part of him – Vergere had broken a part of him – and he had never really healed. His fall was a slow one, thirteen years in the making.

For Anakin, it was not all that unfamiliar a story.

The worst part of it all – at least in Anakin's mind – was what Jacen had done to his family before he died. Ben skimmed over the details of his parents' deaths, but Anakin heard enough to know that his son had died saving Ben from Jacen. Ben's mother – who had apparently known Vader in her youth – died a couple of years later. Jacen's twin sister had been the one to finally defeat him, but at the cost of her own life.

Anakin wasn't sure he wanted to know what had happened to his daughter.

They had been sitting in silence for several minutes when Anakin finally gathered enough courage to ask Ben a question.

"Do you have any holos of them? Of my children?"

Ben glanced at Artoo, who until now had very quietly been sitting off to the side. "Yeah, we have a few." He jerked his head toward the table, and the little droid rolled forward. "All right, Artoo. I need you to pull up that collection of still-holos I programmed. Start with Aunt Leia."

Artoo warbled a sad reply and began to cycle through a series of images. The tabletop and the air around it glowed blue.

Anakin swallowed hard as four images displayed in a constant loop. The holos of Leia showed a middle-aged woman whose striking beauty was tempered by war, worry, and too many sleepless nights. He could see hints of Padmé in her face and her eyes, but she was different. Her features were sharper, more commanding. Had she known where that came from? Had she known that she shared her penetrating stare with the man she once loathed to call her father?

He stared at Ben, as if gazing long enough would allow him to see backward in time to a place where his Leia was innocent and carefree. His voice cracked as he spoke. "How did my daughter die?"

Ben shifted uncomfortably. "Bravely," he murmured. "And she took four of those Force-damned Sith with her. Not the students but the full-fledged Lords." He pressed his fingertips together and stared down at them. "She glowed. Tahiri said my cousin Anakin glowed like that before he died. She was… frightening to look at." Ben spoke carefully, as if remembering something too terrible to be expressed in words. "I think in those last moments, she was probably one of the greatest Jedi I'd ever seen." He gave Anakin a wry grin. "And I've seen my share, believe me."

Anakin nodded and looked away, lifting his fingers to the edges of the holoimage. Artoo stopped on the first hologram, one in which Leia was staring past the recording unit, a faint smile on her lips. Her hair was pulled back and coiled at the base of her neck, and she wore a pale tunic and dark pants with a belt slung low on her hips. A lightsaber hung from one of the belt clips.

He had done this. He had killed her. It was his fault the Sith had survived, his fault that there were not enough Jedi to stop the Yuuzhan Vong and the dark side from ripping his family apart. Everything that had happened to the galaxy, to his children, to Ben… it was all because of him.

"Can I see my son?" he asked quietly.

Ben nodded and placed a hand on the droid's dome. "Artoo?"

The little droid hesitated, turning his sensors toward Ben.

"I know you miss him, Artoo. Please."

The droid swiveled its dome back toward the table, and a blue-edged image of an older man appeared before them. As he had done with Leia, Artoo cycled through a few holos of Luke, repeating them over and over. Anakin watched in awe as he looked at his son, older here than Obi-Wan, almost as old as Qui-Gon had been when Anakin had first met him. This was the son Padmé had been so sure about, the one she'd been dreaming of as he grew in her womb. His hair was mostly gray, and there were lines etched deep in his skin, but his face was kind. There was even a faint hint of mischief in his eyes.

Anakin felt a swell of pride. If everything Ben said was true – and he had no reason to doubt him – Luke had been everything his father should have been. He had been brave and true. He had been compassionate and selfless. Yes, he had touched the darkness over the years, but he hadn't been consumed by it. And yet… and yet Luke was forced to watch his friends and family perish, was forced to sacrifice his own life to save Ben and the others. It wasn't right. It wasn't fair.

How much suffering could he have prevented, simply by refusing the dark side?

"Thanks, Artoo." Ben sat there silently as Artoo shut off his projector. The light from the moons spilled through the slits that served as windows, illuminating the room enough for Anakin to make out Ben's features. Anakin twisted his hands together, staring at the place where the holos had been.

"Do you have any others?" he whispered.

"I have a few more, mostly of my parents and me," Ben replied, "but I lost most of them when we went on the run. That's why I started putting them in Artoo – to have a backup." He glanced away for a moment. "I destroyed some of them when I was younger, too. Anything with Jacen in it." Ben shook his head. "It was a stupid impulse. I lost a lot of holos of my cousins and my aunt and uncle that way."

"I can understand why you'd want to be rid of him."

"Yeah, well, I regret it now. I could have shown you what Aunt Leia was like before all this happened."

Artoo chirped at Ben and activated his holoprojector.

"Artoo, no—"

But the droid interrupted Ben, reassuring him that it was okay. Anakin wondered what kind of holo would worry Ben. Maybe he thought Anakin was too emotionally drained to handle any more ghosts from the past?

The hologram was somewhat grainy. It began with a flicker of static, then settled into the shape of a girl standing upright in a long, white gown.

With a jolt, Anakin realized who he was looking at.

"General Kenobi. Years ago you served my father in the Clone Wars. Now he begs you to help him in his struggle against the Empire."

She was young, perhaps younger than Anakin himself. Her regal bearing, her measured voice; it was so painfully reminiscent of Padmé. He wondered if Leia had picked that up from her before she died.

"I regret that I am unable to present my father's request to you in person, but my ship has fallen under attack, and I'm afraid my mission to bring you to Alderaan has failed…"

While Leia continued her message, Anakin noticed that Ben was leaning forward, mouth open and eyebrows raised. Anakin turned his eyes back to the image, consumed by it.

"…This is our most desperate hour. Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You're my only hope."

Artoo shut off the projector. Anakin felt a shiver along his spine at the sound of Obi-Wan's name on this girl's lips. And then there was the mention of her father – it hurt to know she was referring to Bail Organa and not to him, that he was the one she was running from.

"I've never seen that before," Ben murmured. "I mean, I knew about it, but I guess it never occurred to me that Artoo would save it."

"That was the message that brought them together?"

"Yes."

"How old was she there?"

Ben looked down at his fingers, counting under his breath. "Nineteen."

Nineteen? That was even younger than Anakin, and several years younger than Padmé. Nineteen! And Ben said she'd already been a senator for a year before sending this message.

He knew he didn't have any right to be, but Anakin was proud of his daughter. She had accomplished so much, doing things for the galaxy that he could hardly imagine. And she had done it while facing almost constant war and the loss of her family, one by one. She was truly her mother's daughter.

Anakin had always known that the combination of his Force potential with Padmé's brains and good looks would make for some impressive babies.

"What are you smiling about?"

Anakin looked up, horrified. "Am I smiling?"

"Yep."

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean—"

"Don't worry about it." Ben dismissed his concern with a wave. "You've got to find something to be happy about if you're going to avoid falling to the dark side."

"If you're trying to cheer me up, I've gotta tell you, you're doing a terrible job."

For the first time since leaving the camp, Ben smiled. Really smiled. "We should get some rest. I think it's past your bedtime, Gramps." There was a mischievous glint in his eyes as he said with mock concern: "It has to be taking a lot out of you, trying to keep pace with a young kid like me."

"Okay, you claim that you get your sense of humor from your mom, but I'm telling you, that is a Skywalker trait right there."

"Maybe you should take the bed. Wouldn't want you to hurt yourself sleeping on this hard floor—"

"You're just asking for it, aren't you?"

.

.

The Sith Temple had been built atop a natural spring of pure Force energy, and when the rays of the setting sun hit it, it gleamed particularly fierce. The obsidian center spire of the temple stood taller than all others near it, and light seemed to bend and refract around it so that as bright as the rest of the building shone, that single tower remained bathed in shadow.

It was from this point that Darth Krayt looked down on the capital of his empire.

He had known it by a few names, though Coruscant was still the one he liked best. The people of this world had struggled to reproduce that which had been destroyed or disfigured by the Yuuzhan Vong, but they couldn't remove all evidence of the invaders. Darth Krayt had a sense for all things Yuuzhan Vong. He had, after all, been their prisoner, subject to their experiments and their Embrace of Pain. The experience had left a lasting impression. The vonduun crab armor he wore now seemed to enhance that impression. Whatever it was, he could feel the flora and fauna of Yuuzhan'tar that lay in the city's underbelly.

The Sith Master turned away from the viewport as the doors to his chamber opened. Light spilled into the room, illuminating the empty throne. Krayt stepped away from his perch and descended the steps, stopping one step above the officer and the child who had entered the room.

"Leave us," Krayt ordered.

The officer saluted before turning crisply on his heel and exiting. Krayt watched him go.

"You look strong today," he said once the door had closed.

The little boy was six years old, with dark blonde hair and a cherubic face that contrasted sharply with the military cut of his black uniform. He bowed his head. "I feel strong, Papa."

Krayt smiled. "I am glad to hear it. The medics said you were very ill." He placed a hand on the boy's shoulder. "I told them my son would not be weakened by a mere virus."

The boy nodded his head. "I did the healing thing, like you showed me."

"Excellent. I am pleased with your recent progress." Krayt drew the boy closer. "But now I have a new task for you, the most important you have ever been given."

"I won't fail you, Papa," the child replied, brown eyes bright with anticipation.

"I know you won't. Now come with me, son. We have much to discuss."

.