Chapter 2: The Meeting
The vessel stabilized, and with it, the ocean did as well. Vader's guard and the pilot thought they were out of danger for now but Vader knew better. He recognized that vessel all too well. The Flying Dutchman. Vader had never seen it up close or at all in fact, only heard tales from his childhood on Tatooine and from the more superstitious individuals in the Empire. A legend of a constantly moving planet made up of almost nothing but water and on it, a ship, a vessel that can never touch ground being it's only single inhabitant. Vader had thought of it as a bunch of nonsense, even when he was a little kid, but he couldn't deny what he was seeing right in front of him.
"Pilot!" He calls out as the Stormtrooper exits out of the Tie Fighter
"Can you land us on that vessel?" He asked him as the pilot looked towards the Flying Dutchman "I um...i can take you above it, but i don't think i can land on it, there's not enough space my Lord" He responds.
"Good enough" Vader says, recalling his guard as the four of them get back in the Tie Fighter
It takes a while to start but eventually the pilot manages to get the Tie Fighter into the air as he flies it towards the cursed looking vessel. He gets close to it, flying in place above it.
"This is as close as i can get you Lord Vader" The pilot says to him as Vader and his two escorts get ready
"Open the back" Vader orders him as the pilot presses a button, opening up the back end of the Tie Fighter. Vader wastes no time, jumping out from the Tie Fighter and landing on the deck of the Flying Dutchman, his two guards following with him, though with more rougher landings than the Sith lord.
Vader looks around at the deck, scanning his surrounding as the two Stormtroopers point their blasters all around, scanning the ship along with him, turning over barrels, kicking over crates and so on. But...there's nothing. The whole deck is empty, lifeless. There's not even the sound of birds chirping and in fact it feels as the waves themselves underneath the ship are scattering away from it, like they're afraid.
"Search every corner, every deck, every single nook and cranny. If somebody, or something is on this ship i want them found and if they put up a fight, kill them" Vader orders his guard as they nod in approval "Yes my Lord" They say as the three of them split up, with the Stormtroopers continuing to search the upper decks while Vader ventured down the stairs, into the very hull of the ship.
Vader was nervous, the first time he felt such an emotion in a very long time. The ship was rusty, unkept, covered in all sorts of sea weed and crustaceans the likes of which Vader had never seen. Hell, the very wooden floor he walked on creaked roughly with every single step he took, and he himself had to hop over multiple holes in the floor as he made his way deeper and deeper down the ship. The entire vessel looked just about ready to sink, it looked like even the smallest type of force would send the whole thing crashing down. And yet, it stood, almost in defiance of its many visible injuries, to the point Vader was wondering if they were injuries at all
Another thing that made him nervous was the complete lack of crew. There was nobody on the ship, not a person, not a creature besides him and his two guards searching it. This lack of crew was made especially worrying by the fact that the deeper down the ship he went, the more he felt like someone was watching him, through every single part of the ship. The walls, the ceilings, even the very sea moss covered floors he walked on felt like they were tracking his every move, waiting for the perfect opportunity to pounce. Well, he wasn't going to give it to them.
As he finally made his way down to the very bottom he saw his two guards waiting for him "Did you find anything?" He asked them calmly "No my lord, the entire ship is empty, not a creature or man has been here for who knows how long" One of them answers " Same on my end, though it looks like all the corridors and floors are intertwined to this particular place of the hull since we ran into each other" The other one says as Vader looks around the place the three of them were in "We...are not alone. I can feel it. Be prepared for anything" Vader said to them as the two escorts nodded. They didn't understand how the force worked or anything in that way, but they knew that once Vader said that somebody was watching them, somebody was definitely watching them.
It was then all three of them heard...music. Soft, delicate music, coming from the big room just in front of them. Vader stepped forward with confidence as the two Stormtroopers got their blasters ready. Vader opened the door, ushering himself into a large, rusty room. Before him lay something spectacular. An organ, sitting in the middle of the room with giant, rusted up organ pipes protruding from it. It almost looked as if the room itself was being swallowed slowly by the organ and its pipes. But that wasn't what was making the sound. No, the music was coming close to the organ but it was way too soft, way quiet and way too sorrowful to come from such a booming looking instrument.
Vader made his way towards the organ, the two guardsmen carefully and hesitantly following behind him. If Vader was nervous, one could only imagine what was going through the mind of these two mere mortals at this moment. Vader looked at the organ, trying to see where the sound was coming from hen finally he saw it. A little small music box, in the shape of a grey morbid heart.
Vader picked the box up, listening to the tune it was making. It was soft, quiet, melancholic, the music itself telling a story of love, duty, betrayal, hatred, all rolled into one simple tune. And Vader could feel it. He could feel all the emotions that were coming off of the box. Whoever owner this, was a broken, pitiful, wrathful man. It almost reminded it of...himself. Anakin Skywalker. His life, his duty, his love and his bitter hatred. He sighed out loud, a more sad and sorrowful sigh, something that nobody in his presence ever got to see.
His trip into his old memories were quickly broken when he heard the ship creak loudly, inhumanly loudly, ear shatteringly loudly. Vader closed the box and put it back in its place, pulling out his red lightsaber "Get ready" He said to his two escorts. His senses were going into overdrive, something was definitely coming.
The creaking of the ship was replaced with the sound of footsteps. All though they were more like un-patterned clunks, as a shadow showed up at the door to the room. This time even his guard knew, they were not alone.
The door violently swings open as the stormtroopers and the Sith are in shock at what they see, not that Vader expressed it in any way. A tall monstrosity, an abomination was standing before them. With a crab's pincer for an arm, a crab's foot for a leg and an octopus for a head, its many tentacles acting almost on their own free will, serving as some form of twisted version of a beard.
"Wha...what the hell are you?" One of the Stormtroopers asked out loud but he got no answer as the creature stared daggers into Vader's helmet, taking a pipe into its hands and lighting it, blowing a puff of smoke in the room as he looks at Vader's lightsaber
"I had heard of yer kind, though i only considered it a mere myth..." He pauses as the ship starts to creak again, other monstrosities starting to appear all around them, all having the same sea life like coating their skins. Some looked like sharks, some looked like coral, some like sea weed. This was the crew of the Flying Dutchman, and the abomination standing before them speaking had to be its captain
"So tell me Sith...do ya feaar death?"
