Chapter 4 – age 23
Four years later...
The Temple Library was almost silent. The cries of hawkbats echoing through the vast space as they wheeled through the broken windows, the sharp ping of blaster fire and the far-off screams of the dying were a musical crescendo to the devastation of the great Hall of the Archives.
Darth Vader, Dark Lord of the Sith, strode through the scarred and battered doors, into the monumental space and looked about him. This had once been a place of exquisite beauty and contemplation, of information and luminance light. Now, all that was gone. The pillars, once so lovely, were cracked, the glowing stacks of datapads dark, the vaulted ceilings with their vivid mosaic figures and stories, broken. His steps crunched sharply. He looked down to see shards of glass scattered across the broken floor tiles, remnants of the once-beautiful transept. There was ash everywhere.
Through the doors, a company of clonetroopers pushed a lone, elderly woman towards him. She was looking down, stumbling, her manacled hands waving, trying to keep her balance in this shattered place as the white-clad soldier gave her another shove. She righted herself, glancing towards her guard, then looked upward, seeing all of that which she had known, destroyed. Her face hardened, body stiffening as she spied the black-cloaked monster waiting for her. She was instantly recognizable as the Jedi Temple Archivist, Jocasta Nu.
"You scum...Come to finish the job, have you?" She spat at him as she stood, trembling with rage and defiance.
"Why, hello, Jocasta." His voice sounded amused.
"I should have killed you when I had the chance, traitor." Her hands twisting, eyes narrowing as she looked about, gauging her chances for escape. There were none.
"Too late now." Calm, dispassionately said.
She lurched forward, trying desperately to seize him, looking as if she wanted to destroy him as a last gift to the Force. He merely sidestepped and she crashed to the ground, growling with futility and despair. The clonetrooper grasped her emaciated arm and wrenched her up, splinters of glass making a pattern of blood in her palm, her face grimacing with the pain.
"Now, now, Jocasta. I need your help."
"Never!" She spat at him, growling into the dark visage and trying futilely to pull away from her captors. "I will never help you. Traitor, betrayer! You were a Jedi, one of our Order. Why have you done this? How could one of our own do this terrible thing?" She wailed, helpless.
He shook his head slowly. "Our own... That is interesting coming from you, Madame, you who tried unceasingly to have me discharged from the Jedi Order." He bent down to the old woman, menacing and huge in his black robes. "Congratulations, you have won your greatest prize. Skywalker is no longer a Jedi."
He rose again, and laughed coldly. "Let me introduce myself. I am Darth Vader, Sith Lord."
"No, no, you can't be." Her voice rising in horror. "The Sith, our deadliest enemy. No!"
"You said it yourself. I am the Chosen One. Balance, remember. What better way to bring balance than the complete annihilation of the Jedi Order?"
"Destruction of all, everyone..." She whispered and began to weep, trying to blot out the last few days. "Wasn't slaughtering the adults enough for your grand scheme? Did you have to kill the children, too?" The overwhelming desolation in her voice cut deeply, her ancient face awash with tears.
Skywalker paused for a moment, reliving that monstrous scene, those loathsome images tormenting him. He had not wanted those little ones, those innocents dead but his Master had insisted, telling him that every Jedi, even the youngest would grow to become their enemy. He could not disagree.
Besides, it was all for Padmé. He had to gain ultimate power for her and her safety so he slaughtered them, calmly striding through the crèches and dormitories, killing everyone, everything that moved, absorbing the anguish that echoed through the Force, growing more powerful with every death. But when they were all gone, all one with the Force, he could still feel himself torn between horror and satisfaction.
He shook himself out of his reverie and turned his masked visage toward her horrified face. "I have killed children before." Flashes of the Tuskens, slaughtered, crushed beneath his rage. He swallowed the desolation, the despair and looked at the Archivist again.
"Where did you learn such cruelty?" her voice, reedy and thin, whispering her horror.
"Why, from you, Jocasta." Vader stated calmly. "You have been training me for many years. Tormenting me, shaming me before Kenobi and the others, thwarting my every attempt at making a life among the Jedi. You have done well."
"Never." Her body was rigid with denial but she lowered her eyes, unable to face the possibility that it might be true.
"And now I need your help again. You are a fine Archivist, the best in Coruscant. You will help me." He brought the full weight of his dark Force abilities to bend her will to his.
"No."
He motioned to the soldiers to bring her forward. He strode past towards a single lit terminal screen and sat down, Jocasta a stubborn prisoner standing close behind him, her arms still held tightly by the white-clad clonetrooper.
Vader typed in a single word - Yoda. As the monitor blinked working, working, Madame Nu gave a short bark of laughter, then subsided to await the databank's reply. Finally, the response - No Information Available. She laughed again, harsh and triumphant, the sharp sound echoing in the vast space, accompanied by the grunts and cries of the hawkbats in the far distance.
"If an item does not appear in our records, it does not exist." The snide remark did not go unnoticed as Vader shifted to meet her fervent eyes.
"I'm sure that your records are incomplete." His threat was not veiled. It was real and immediate.
"I don't know what you're talking about. Who or what is this Yoda? Is it a planet or some binary star system? Perhaps a new starfighter design..." Her bruised look was reflected in his armor, mirroring an infinity of dark despair.
"Where is he? I must know." Insistent, brutal, almost unstoppable.
"If an item does not appear..." she began.
"I will find him, be sure of that."
"Perhaps, if it is the will of the Force." She said, obviously resigned, knowing her life was measured now in seconds. "But I will not help you. And don't be too sure of finding anything in our databases. Just before you arrived, I triggered the destruct program. The microexplosives went off a few minutes ago and should make the databank's hardware systems a mass of melted parts. Yes, I doubt if even Anakin Skywalker is listed." She laughed again.
Vader's prodigious rage was spiraling upward, the fear as well. Lord Sidious would not be pleased. "There is no Anakin Skywalker. He is dead."
"So you say. Goodbye, Anakin. May the Force be with you." A gentle murmur.
"What are you..."
Jocasta Nu twisted suddenly, unexpectedly, freeing herself and pelting towards the door. Before Vader could stop them, the clonetroopers opened fire and she fell into the shards of glass, slicing, tearing, lines of red and brown, the blaster wounds a brilliant bouquet of scarlet spreading across her brown robes. She was dead before she reached the floor.
Darth Vader, Dark Lord of the Sith, moved to the Archivist's corpse, the spreading pool of bright blood staining the broken tiles of the once-beautiful floors. He stood there a moment, his breathing harsh and unsteady. No, he was not defeated today. The Jedi Order would fall. He would make sure of that.
Shaking his head in disgust, he motioned to the clonetroopers and ordered. "As soon as the room is clear, set off the explosives. Tear this place apart until nothing remains."
He looked one final time at the great hall of the decimated Temple Library, now quiet except for the cries of the hawkbats. And as he closed the battered doors behind him, his words echoed in the air.
"I promise you, Jocasta Nu. I will bring balance."
The end.