Chapter Two: The Dark Apprentice
Starkiller woke with a start on the deck of the training chamber. He had gotten caught up in his own success and not been prepared for external variables. This then had allowed the enemy to slither away in hasty retreat. A Jedi, the stinking evil that had tried to overthrow Palpatine before he had ascended to the position of Emperor as the Clone Wars drew to a swift end.
Starkiller had dealt with Jedi and other force users before, but this female Togruta was different. Something about the way she held her lightsabers in the same manner as he did; something about her moves and even her stance was...familiar. The combat meditation with which she so easily had defended herself and even nearly taken the upper hand of the battle was almost like looking into a mirror.
"Master!" PROXY's panicked voice came through the comlink on Starkiller's wrist.
"Report." Starkiller commanded, allowing himself to enter a calmer state than during the droid's call earlier.
"The Corvette has left the area," The droid began, "And I am reading that a ship left our hanger before rentering the Corvette. I assume whoever was here has now fled."
"What's our status?" Starkiller asked as he stood, eager to keep the droid's circuits off of his failure.
"We took minimal damage from the Corvette's blasts." The voice of Juno Eclipse came in on the comlink, "We are still in flying order, though I would recommend a full ship scan to make sure we are not leaking fuel or missing anything important."
"I'm on my way to the bridge," Starkiller replied as he clipped the saber to his belt, "Pull us around and get us out of here. We need to figure out where that Corvette went."
"I can place the Rogue Shadow on the Corvette's last known trajectory," Juno started, "I know it's a longshot, but they may be on a one-way course since I'm assuming we interrupted a clandestine rendezvous."
Starkiller shut off the comlink as he made his way around a few corners and onto the bridge.
"Follow them." He ordered curtly as he sat down behind PROXY and crossed his arms.
Juno punched in the trajectory and within seconds, the Rogue Shadow's cockpit lit up with the swirling lights of hyperspace.
As the ship pushed through parsecs of open space, Starkiller let himself slip into the dark side of the Force as he replied the battle in his mind. Her aggression, but also her calm demeanor. Even when she suddenly lost the upper-hand, her mind did not lose focus on the moment in front of her. Something about her focus...and then it clicked. His master, the dark lord Vader himself possessed such focus in battle. When pushing himself in the Force, he exhibited some of the same moves she had. The allowance, and even sometimes the push, to hold his lightsaber in a reverse grip. Darth Vader had once been the Togruta's master. But how? When?
Who was Vader before the Empire? Who was this Togruata to be trained by one so powerful? Was she also trained in the dark side, or had Vader been a Jedi before Order 66? If so, how had he come to be the Emperor's right hand?
Starkiller continued to try probing the Force for answers, but each question brought up others with it. Soon, the only thoughts that he could hear pressed him to go directly to Vader and tell him about the Togruta. But something held him back. Was it Kota's voice still ringing in his ears making him doubt Vader's authority? Was it the fact that this Togruta exhibited what could be Starkiller's own future self in battle?
"Enough!" Starkiller said out-loud as he practically jumped in his chair coming out of his meditation.
"'Enough' what, sir?" PROXY asked as he swiveled around to look at him.
"Nothing," Starkiller replied, "I'm in my own head."
Before PROXY could respond, Starkiller stood as he moved to leave the bridge.
"Alert me when we've reached the Corvette, or found where they could have stopped." He ordered as he began to walk through the Shadow's corridors to his quarters.
As he locked the door behind him and placed his lightsaber on the floor, Starkiller sat down with his legs crossed and eyes closed as his lightsaber began to float upwards and disassemble in time with the meditation deepening. Like always, the Force opened to him, though prodding was needed as he brought the dark side with him into these deep meditations. The search for answers continued into this meditation as Starkiller reached out to any and every conduit and spark within the Force that could possibly give him the information he desperately needed.
There were certain places in this stream of the Force, as he envisioned it, that he had to be careful not to go near - let alone, enter. That of the Emperor, or the Inquisitors under Vader's command, were such places. Vader's own stream was also prohibited, and those of the ever lightly Force-sensitive within the ranks of the Empire. However, anywhere else was free reign, if he was careful. This led him to a glaringly bright point ahead of the Rogue Shadow as it passed through the physical space the Force inhabited. This bright spot was his goal, the Togruta Jedi.
As Starkiller willed himself to focus on the bright spot, he suddenly felt a presence within the very room he sat in as his lightsaber danced in pieces around him.
"You are extremely powerful for one so young." The Togruta's voice echoed around him as her face began to take shape in the form of a constellation of stars before his eyes.
"Who are you?" Starkiller practically growled as he willed his darkness to seep into this space of the Force and overwhelm her.
"You say you were lying in wait for me, yet you do not know who I am." The Togruta replied as her eyes remained closed and the stars in her constellation face began to grow brighter, "The real question is, who are you? And I do not mean your codename so the Empire will not know your place as an assassin to the Sith, but who are you - the man behind the lightsaber."
"I…" Starkiller began, emotion in his voice as he suddenly found himself very vulnerable with memories beginning to unlock from his childhood, "I… I am… Galen Marek, son of Jedi Master Kento Marek. I am apprentice to Darth Vader, hunter of Jedi."
"Do you know of Anakin Skywalker?" The Togruta asked suddenly.
"I… I know that Skywalker was killed during the Purge." Starkiller replied, anger coming back into his voice as he tried to resist the Jedi's probing, "How...how have you...turned this against me?"
"Was Vader trained by Skywalker?" The Togruta pushed her questions, her constellation taking on a reddish hue.
"I...I don't… STOP!" Starkiller shouted as he tried to pull himself from the meditation, "This is not the Jedi way!"
"I am no Jedi." The Togruta said calmly before her constellation lit up white and the eyes opened shining a dazzling white.
Starkiller shouted in pain as he pulled on all he could and enveloped himself in the dark side before the meditation ceased and his physical eyes opened. His lightsaber pieces fell to the floor around him, pinging with each bounce on the metal floor. He looked down at his shaking hands, inwardly cursing himself as he had underestimated the Togruta yet again. Then, he realized, she had given him far more information than she may have meant to.
"PROXY!" Starkiller barked into the wrist comlink, "Find anything you can about Anakin Skywalker, and his Togruta apprentice. I'm making my way to the bridge, be ready as soon as I'm there."
"Of course, Master." PROXY replied as Starkiller used the Force to pull his lightsaber back together and onto his belt.
The walk to the bridge felt long, much like before a mission, but Starkiller knew that he had made a connection to this Jedi that had gotten away and it was about to be her end.
