Chapter 6: Calm Before the Storm

Darth Vader had to admit, he preferred this Fire Nation over the rest of this planet's population.

Sure the latest source of information was an admittedly biased one, since this Ambassador Qin was a high ranking official of that nation. Still the philosophy of rule through strength was a familiar one, similar to the way the Empire governed most of the galaxy. Opposition to self-righteous enforcers of peace also resonated with him, as this Avatar served much the same role as the long gone Jedi Order. It was only natural for the strong to dominate the weak, and Qin knew it just as well as Vader, albeit on entirely different scales.

They had been talking in a rather small conference room not far from the shuttle bay, as at the time Vader had only expected the conversation to last five minutes. It had been half an hour when he checked the time, after figuring that Qin could be a useful tool on this world. He was certainly more malleable than Zuko, even without use of the Force on the weak minded. Now Vader wished there were more people like him among those that had been contacted so far, for they would make controlling this world far easier.

"I've kept you here long enough," Darth Vader said. "There are more pressing matters requiring my attention at this time."

"I understand," Qin said. "I appreciate you taking the time to see me."

Darth Vader walked out the door without another word, putting his attention to the next task at hand. There was the matter of the relief shipments being brought to this planet, an operation that had been conceived and implemented without his approval first. This seemed the appropriate time to discuss it with the good Captain Zed, and so Darth Vader went to the bridge to find him. When he arrived he found the captain overlooking the lower operations level, every officer busy coordinating the operation to the best of their abilities.

"Captain," Vader said as he approached him. "Report."

"Everything is on schedule," Zed assured. "The smuggler ships have each received a supervisor and have landed on the planet. Local authorities have been informed of their presence, and the relief supplies are being unloaded as we speak."

"All to win the favor of a backwater planet significant only for its location," Darth Vader said. "Need I remind you that we can only remain here so long before we are detected? Soon this planet will be out of alignment with its star and make it much more difficult to remain concealed here."

"I'm aware of that," Zed assured him. "At any time we can cut our losses and leave the smugglers behind. If they are detected, we will disavow any connection to them."

"So you say," Vader said. "However, if we are detected before then, there may be… problems…"

Zed didn't like the way Vader's voice slowed, as if he were somewhere else right now. "My Lord, is something wrong?"

Although Vader did hear him, the captain's words seemed irrelevant now. How could they possibly be, when there was a large disturbance in the Force at this very moment? It was like a shockwave passing through this sector of space, from the far side of the border and heading into imperial territory. Either an entire planet's worth of people had been annihilated simultaneously, or a single enormously powerful individual had perished. A second such disturbance moments later confirmed it for Vader, some very serious shit was happening on the other side.

Darth Vader turned back to Zed. "Captain, is the stealth probe transmitting?"

Zed walked over to one of the control stations, looking over the shoulder of an officer analyzing incoming transmissions. "We are receiving telemetry from the probe now."

"Monitor it closely," Vader ordered. He could see the looks many bridge officers had, but ignored them all. "I have good feeling about this."

"Holy crap they've got a lot of weapons down there."

Toph and Zuko were currently taking a leisurely stroll through the Stalker, heading down one of the corridors that they were permitted to pass through. To the ship's crew also using the corridor it looked like they were just heading somewhere else, unaware of what they were actually doing here. Toph was reading the vibrations passing through the floor, painting a picture of the levels below for her to see without eyes. She did not like what she was seeing down there, and neither did Zuko when she described it to him.

Right now Toph figured they were two floors above an armory, judging by all the weapons kept down there. Entire racks of those handheld blasters the soldiers carried were lined up along the walls, several hundred of them just waiting to be used. Many sets of armor were stored away, enough for an army of stormtroopers. There were also some very strange vehicles in the next room over, looking like tanks that had legs instead of treads. Just barely in sight on the floor below that, there were larger vehicles that resembled metal mammoth-dinosaurs.

One thing was certain, if these visitors had come for peace, they were ready for war.

Zuko tipped his head and whispered. "Does it look like they're getting ready to use them?"

Toph stopped and put her back and hands against a wall, pretending to be casually leading back so she could focus on the finer details. "Not really. It seems like all the stuff down there is mothballed."

"That's a good sign," Zuko said, leaning back and pretending to relax. "If they aren't expecting to fight, we might not have to fight."

"Do you really think they might just leave us alone?" Toph whispered.

"No," Zuko admitted. He stood up straight and resumed walking beside her. "Still, better to know what we might be up against."

"We've only covered a tiny bit of it," Toph pointed out.

So they continued their exploration of the ship, and were able to access most of the area on his level. Some locked doors prevented physical access to certain sections, and Toph's feet told her they were private crew quarters, some of which she really wished she couldn't see into right now. Beneath them she found parts that appeared to be plumbing, but for all sorts of things beyond the usual use for pipes. They ran in between the separate floors, and she figured they must serve some vital purpose for the ship to function.

After going everywhere they were allowed to go, and not wanting to look suspicious walking in circles, Toph and Zuko headed back to the section they had started from. Almost everyone they knew visiting the ship was there, from the water tribesmen to the more recent firebenders. Most of them were sleeping in smaller rooms adjacent to the main larger one, as it was apparently the night shift according to the ship's clocks. Only a handful of people were still up at this hour, relaxing in the relative peace and quiet after a long day.

In one corner of the main room they found Sokka sitting on his space shield, with his space sword balanced on his crossed legs. There was a small bowl of water on the floor in front of him, and Sokka was staring into his reflection on its surface. Sokka held his hand above the water, and he jerked it straight up. At best there was a slight ripple, but that was just from the vibration from him moving around. Sokka repeated the motion several times, then sighed and went back to staring at the water. Then he heard footsteps and turned to see Toph and Zuko.

"What 'cha doing?" Toph asked, stopping right next to Sokka.

Sokka leaned back, his face flushed as he rubbed his head. "Nothing really… Well… It's kind of silly."

"Spit it out Snoozles," Toph insisted.

"I was trying to waterbend," Sokka admitted. He saw Zuko's odd look and heard Toph's snicker, and waited for them to finish before continuing. "I know it's silly, go ahead and laugh."

Toph did, though only a little bit. "Okay, I have to ask, what makes you think you could waterbend here?"

"Well it's those waterbenders Zuko brought up here," Sokka answered. He stood up and picked up his space sword and shield. "They say their bending has been better than usual since they got up here. I couldn't really tell from looking, so I just have to go by their word on the matter."

"You can't tell if their bending is above normal?" Toph questioned.

"Well it's not as extreme as we've seen before," Sokka said, remembering the last time bending abilities went through the roof. "The stuff these guys were doing was stuff Master Pakku does all the time, just being done by people that say they usually can't do it."

"Well we are closer to the moon," Zuko said. He looked at the ceiling, imagining a full moon that was slightly larger than normal. "That might be enough for waterbending to be more powerful."

"That's what I was thinking," Sokka said. "And I was hoping it might be enough to let me waterbend too. But I guess slightly more moon power isn't enough to turn nonbenders into waterbenders."

"I think we'd actually have to go to the moon for that," Toph said. She jabbed Zuko in the arm. "Any chance you could convince our hosts to go for that little field trip?"

"I doubt it," Zuko answered. "Besides, we have more pressing matters. Like what are we going to do if this is all a big sham?"

"So it's all a big sham?"

Aang was understandably upset about this, though not at all surprised by the news. He had just finished listening to Katara's story, who had been caught and released by some guy that called himself Solo. Apparently he let her leave that ship in order to tell his side of the story, one of a resistance movement fighting against the very Empire knocking at their door. This Solo person believed that the Empire would not hesitate to oppress this world, if it should become practical for it to do so. From the way he spoke, it seemed that Solo had the experience to make that claim.

They were in the palace when Katara told him everything, but in one of the smaller rooms where there weren't any palace staff able to overhear them. Azula and Long Feng had joined them here for this private report, and it had only provided evidence for the suspicions they already had. The peaceful purposes the Empire claimed to possess, the wish for nonviolent coexistence between their peoples, it was all a charade propped up as a prelude to invasion. They had no idea when it was going to happen, but were certain that it was coming.

"Seems to be," Katara agreed. "Solo didn't have to tell me his life's story or let me go. If he wasn't lying about his situation, he seemed to be taking a risk of me tipping off his enemies."

"If he wasn't lying," Azula repeated. "For all we know he could be part of some elaborate test."

"Do you really believe that?" Long Feng asked.

"Not really," Azula admitted. "I'm just putting the possibility out there. We still know very little about who we are dealing with."

"Noted," Long Feng said. Then he turned towards Aang. "Given what we know now Avatar, I recommend that we politely ask the Empire to leave. It may yet be early enough for them to consider pulling out before deciding to invade."

"And if that doesn't work?" Katara asked.

"We fight for as long as we can," Azula suggested. "Sure we'd probably lose, but it's better than surrendering."

"So we should bluff first," Long Feng said. "That Vader fellow seemed to buy everything I told him about what the Avatar is and what Aang can do. If he's as superstitious as I would like to believe, perhaps he'll buy that Aang can call upon ancient Avatar spirit powers to destroy that ship."

"You know I don't have that," Aang said.

"That's what makes it a bluff," Long Feng said. "We know the limits of your bending and the Avatar State, but they don't."

Aang thought about that, and he shrugged. "It's worth a shot."

"So we ask first, then our bluff, and then we fight," Katara reiterated.

"Sounds like a plan," Aang said.

"And if it comes to the last part?" Katara asked.

Long Feng crossed his arms and closed his eyes. "We make peace with our higher power."

Han Solo wasn't one to believe in the Force, but he had to admit, it would have been very useful right now.

Allegedly the Force allowed its users to communicate across the cosmos, simply by broadcasting their thoughts to one another no matter where they happened to be at the time. It would have come in handy for this situation, when having a Star Destroyer over his head required him to observe radio silence. He didn't dare send a transmission from here to the Rebel Alliance, not when such an act would be begging for the Empire to intercept it. So unless someone could suddenly use the Force, Han couldn't send word of what he had found.

Between that Katara girl and the natives Wedge and Wes described in this ruined city, there was more to this world than it appeared. There was a supernatural element at work here, albeit of a different variety than what that Kenobi person had insisted on with the Force. Han had been skeptical of Katara's claim of mastery over water, until he had seen her do it with his own eyes. Wedge and Wes reported seeing natives control dirt and rock, albeit from a distance so they couldn't be certain of how the locals managed to do it.

That was why Han wished he could get a message out to the rebels. If the Empire recruited these kinds of people into the military, well it would be a very bad day when the two sides clash next. Any permanent base on a terrestrial world would be vulnerable, should the enemy have the ability to effortlessly move underground and attack the foundations of any buildings the rebels hid inside. And if the Alliance was dead set on building their new base on Hoth, all that snow and ice made the ability to control water a very serious threat.

"Make sure the hyperdrive won't quit on us again," Han said to Chewbacca, both of them outside the smuggler hold while the imperial officer was busy outside the ship. "We're going to need it."

Chewbacca grumbled something, picked up his tools, and went to the Falcon's engine room to work.

Meanwhile Han went to the cockpit, and there he opened a short range comm channel to Wedge and Wes outside. "Guys, make up whatever excuse you need to ditch that guy and get back in here. We're leaving."

There was no response from the other end, which Han figured was so that no one would notice one of them talking to someone that shouldn't be here. It might take some time for those two to lose the imperial and get back to the ship, so Han got to work prepping the Falcon for takeoff. He had the main engines warming up by the time three quick beeps went off in the comm system, a warning signal coming from Wedge. So Han ran for the smuggler hold and lifted the false deck plating, just as Chewbacca arrived to get inside with him.

They were underneath and got the false deck plating back in place just in time, as they heard several sets of footsteps coming inside the ship. Wedge and Wes were back in the Falcon, along with the imperial officer and the two stormtroopers. While staying quiet Han put on the spare headset again, listening in while Wedge left the comm channel open. If something was about to go terribly wrong, as they usually did around him, Han would know when to act. Hopefully it wouldn't come to that, but Han figured that it most likely would.

"That's the last of it," Wedge said.

The imperial officer checked a list on a data-pad. "Yes, everything appears to be in order."

"We've completed our terms of the arrangement," Wedge added.

"And earned your payment," the officer said. He reached into a pocket and took out a dozen chips of varying sizes. "Ten thousand credits, in assorted currencies and bearer bonds, as promised."

Wedge accepted the chips and pocketed them. "You know, if there were more respectable jobs like this, I might have to reconsider going legit."

"That is your concern," the officer said. He turned around and started heading out of the ship. "Have a good day."

"Don't you want a lift back to the Star Destroyer?" Wedge asked.

"That will not be necessary," the officer said, still heading for the exit ramp. "I'll be going on the next shuttle up. Feel free to depart at your convenience."

"Will do," Wedge said. He waited for the officer and the stormtroopers to exit the Falcon, and then he closed the ramp after them. "Finally, thought they'd never leave."

Wes let out a sigh of relief, and then stomped on the false deck plating five times to get Han's attention. "They're gone."

The deck plating was lifted and Han climbed out. "Let me see them."

"Here," Wedge said, handing over the credit chips. "I would make sure they are legit before spending any of them."

"Oh I'm sure one of these has a tracking program in it," Han speculated, examining the chips before pocketing them. "But we can debug it later, right now we are getting out of here."

"I've had enough, let's get out of here."

Toph was not in a good mood the following morning, or at least what felt like the following morning anyway. Was there really such a thing as morning in space, when the motions of the sun and earth became a matter of perspective? Toph was even more blind than usual on the matter, since she couldn't even feel the sun's rays on her skin in this floating metal fortress. Having just had a rough few hours of sleep, Toph was going to call it a morning. No one disagreed with her, or no one was willing to tell her otherwise.

Being deprived of her earthbending was really starting to get to her now. That deep hole in her gut wasn't going away, and trying to sleep with it only made the feeling worse. After a fitful night of bad sleep, complete with nightmares of having lost her earthbending permanently, Toph was downright miserable when she got out of bed. The only solution she could think of was to get off this giant ship and back down to Earth, even if she had to drag Sokka and Zuko to do it. In fact, she was just about ready to do just that.

"We're coming, we're coming," Sokka assured, right behind Toph and heading into a hallway with her. He looked back into the room they were coming out of. "Well I am, Zuko I'm not so sure of."

"Now just wait one minute," Zuko insisted. He was in the middle of a conversation with the water tribesmen in the room, nodded when it was settled, and then hurried over to Sokka. "I just had to take care of one last thing."

"Oh that reminds me," Sokka said, holding up a finger. "I need to grab something before we go. I'll only be a minute."

Without bothering to hear any objections from them Sokka was hurrying down the hallway, although trying not to look like he was in a hurry. He quickly found the laboratory where he had left his space armor, which was the reason for coming back here. Sokka opened the door and calmly walked inside the lab, finding the researchers still at work with their advanced machines. He walked up to the researchers and looked at what they were doing, even though he had no idea how to interpret what was on their video screen.

"Sorry to interrupt," Sokka said, lying through his teeth. "But are you guys done with my armor? I kind of want it back now."

One researcher shut down the machine and looked at Sokka. "Sure, we were just about done with it."

"Already?" Sokka questioned.

"Oh yes," the researcher said, pressing a button to open a compartment in the machine, containing Sokka's space armor. "It is identical to the one scanned before."

"You already had one of these?" Sokka asked.

"Well not us personally," the researcher said, taking the armor out and bringing it to Sokka. "We had colleagues on the Death Star that got their hands on armor just like this one. They lost it, but were able to upload their findings to the imperial network before the whole space station blew up."

Sokka didn't like the sound of this Death Star, or the sound of something blowing up a space station. "So you didn't really need this armor?"

"It never hurts to verify findings," the researcher said. "We now have some idea how it was manufactured, and what materials it is composed from."

"Neat," Sokka said, accepting the armor and putting it on without delay. "Glad it could help."

Now that he had his armor back Sokka left the laboratory, heading back down the hallway to find Toph and Zuko. They weren't where Sokka had left them, and he grumbled about them going on ahead and leaving him behind. So he went straight for the shuttle bay, figuring that he could just meet up with them there. Sure enough when Sokka arrived he spotted them in front of a shuttle, with Zuko speaking to a pilot while Toph stood next to them. Sokka was a little winded when he arrived, but managed to catch his breath when he reached the others.

"You just couldn't wait five minutes, could you?" Sokka complained, stopping when he got to Toph and Zuko.

"You knew where we were going," Toph said.

"Not the point," Sokka said, but then shook his head. "Never mind, hey Zuko, are we good to go?"

Having apparently reached an agreement with the pilot, Zuko turned around while the pilot went inside the shuttle. "You are. I'm not."

"Okay, what did I miss?" Sokka asked.

"I'm staying up here," Zuko said. He put a hand on Sokka's shoulder, noticing that he had the space armor back. "You don't need me to make sure Toph gets home safely."

"Well if you insist," Sokka said, going around Zuko and towards the shuttle. "You're the only one who really wants to be here anyway."

"Exactly," Zuko said. He then jerked his head toward the shuttle. "Now get going before that pilot changes his mind."

Sokka and Toph walked up the shuttle's ramp to get inside the craft, and they had their pick of the empty seats available. Once they had sat down and strapped in the pilot made sure no one else was coming, and then he went into the cockpit and made the ramp close. A few moments later the shuttle lifted off the floor and headed out the shuttle bay doors, passing through the atmospheric force field and out into space, engines flaring as it accelerated. Zuko watched the shuttle leave, wondering if he hadn't just made a big mistake.

Aang was sitting on the roof of the palace, legs crossed and hands together and his eyes closed. The very center of Ba Sing Se was the only place to get real perspective in this city, at least with regards to meditation. There was certainly a lot on his mind to meditate about, so many questions that he figured would never get answered. In times like this Aang would have asked for advice from his past lives, but what could they possibly tell him that he didn't already know? Those lives had no context relevant to current events, and so the present had nothing to gain from looking to the past.

His meditation was interrupted by a loud sound in the distance, and he looked to see one of the larger ships take off from the ruined part of the city. It was the largest of the three that had arrived here, and all its contents had been delivered directly to the people of Ba Sing Se. One delivery had solved the city's food issues for the entire year, and Aang got the feeling that this was only the smallest fraction of the resources at the empire's command. But that ship was leaving at an awfully fast pace, as if the people inside had a good reason to get out of here.

Another interruption of his meditation was footsteps from behind, and Aang turned his head to see Katara approached. "Hey."

"Copper coin for your thoughts?" Katara said.

Aang sighed and looked forward, wrapping his arms around his knees. "I just… feel really small right now."

Katara sat down next to him, but was looking up at the rising ship. "Yeah, the world just got a whole lot bigger, didn't it?"

"Massive," Aang specified. "And I have nothing to go on for how to deal with it. Not even my past lives, because none of them had to deal with this."

"Well they are your past lives," Katara said. "I wouldn't expect them to help when you're being dragged into the future kicking and screaming."

Despite everything, Aang laughed. "You're right. I need to look forward, not backward."

"So what do you want to see ahead of us?" Katara asked.

Aang's sights moved to the middle ring. "I think I want to see this Solo person for myself, see what his opinion of that Vader guy is."

"Lord Vader, please come to the bridge."

That was something not heard very often inside a Star Destroyer, a summons for someone that usually made the summons. Whatever it was had to be very important to be worth inconveniencing Darth Vader, for if it wasn't worth his time the captain risked certain death. But Darth Vader was sure it wouldn't come to that, not if the matter was what he suspected it might be. Without delay Darth Vader walked through the Stalker, taking the main turbolift up to the bridge to find out if his suspicions would be confirmed.

When the doors opened Darth Vader saw Captain Zed at the communication station, looking over the shoulder of the officer that worked there. "Report."

Very pleased with what he saw on the station's screen, Zed was smiling as he saw Vader approaching. "My Lord, I believe this is what you wanted to find."

The screen was displaying information collected by the stealth probe launched from the Stalker, having found its way deep into enemy space. The probe had found and patched into an extranet relay orbiting a brown dwarf, and superior hacking technology had obtained full access to every file passing through that part of the network. While there was an overwhelming volume of data to examine, much of it garbage like explicit images and poorly written fanfiction, one specific subject dominated the vast majority of the information.

Their tyrant was dead.

Killed on some worthless backwater of a planet, the alien that ruled with an iron fist had truly met his end. The details of the killing were sparse to nonexistent, because none of the minions brought to the planet with the tyrant had survived. Only the telemetry from the tyrant's spaceship remained, and only up to the point when the spaceship had been destroyed. Apparently the tyrant had some cybernetic augmentations surgically installed, and the spaceship had been monitoring him for medical complications until the end.

But not only was the tyrant dead, his father had perished as well. This had been confirmed by the spaceship telemetry as well, just before the signal was lost. That death put an end to the family reign of an empire, and there was much rejoicing across the stars. But there was no clear successor to take over, for the tyrant had assumed that he would never die. Therefore most of the chatter on the extranet was about who might seize control, from the more cunning warlords to the powerful generals to even the mysterious slayer of the tyrant himself.

"This changes everything," Darth Vader said. He could certainly imagine the possibilities this development presented. "It is going to be chaos over there until a new ruler emerges."

"Well that's a load off our backs," Zed said. "Even if we're detected, they'll be too busy fighting amongst themselves to do anything about us now."

Although in agreement about that assessment, Darth Vader was thinking bigger. But first he took over the station and did some more research, scanning the data for any detailed information on who slew the tyrant. Rumors and speculation were all over the extranet, but there were no concrete details on who did the deed. Whoever it was hadn't seen the need to reveal himself to the galaxy at large, as if that one little backwater planet was all he truly cared about protecting. If that did not change, the rest of enemy space was up for the taking.

"Continue monitoring their transmissions," Darth Vader ordered. With that task managed by the officer at this station, Vader turned to Captain Zed. "Send word to the Executor. I want Admiral Ozzel to assemble Death Squadron for immediate deployment to this system."

"That's a lot of overkill," Zed said. "Any one of those ships could conquer this world with ease, why do you want all of them here?"

"This world is only the beginning," Darth Vader said. He walked over to the large windows at the front of the bridge, looking out at the planet and the star eclipsed behind it. "Here we will build up our forces, while the other side crumbles into factions fighting each other for power, and when they are at their weakest we will attack."

"Ambitious," Zed said, having followed Vader to the windows. "But that's opening a second front. Can we really spare the forces for an invasion while also fighting the rebels?"

"The rebels are a minor threat," Darth Vader said. "This is an opportunity that will not last. The chaos will only remain until a strong leader replaces it with order, and when that happens the moment of weakness will be lost."

"So it's now or never," Zed figured.

"Precisely," Darth Vader said. He kept on looking at the planet, holding his hands behind his back. "We will give the locals one chance to willingly cooperate. If they resist, well, this world will still become our harbinger."