Week Five Kessel Run Challenge: Write a set of 3 double drabbles with the following prompts: juggernaut, shepherd, undertaker. Each double drabble must be exactly 200 words, for a total of 600 words. Optional extra prompts: handler, resonance, legion, brother, reaper, voice.

Author's Note: We're shifting tonal gears this week. This response is a continuation of a story I wrote for last year's Kessel Run: Fragments of Jade, chapter 6, The Emperor's Hand. You may want to read that before reading this.

The Hunt (Nico Jade, Darth Vader, Mara Jade, Luke Skywalker, approximately 4 ABY)

—Juggernaut

Darth Vader was notorious among both the Imperial fleet and the Emperor's Court: a forbidding bulk of gleaming black armor; usually silent save for the automated breathing that struck instinctive fear into all who heard it. Preternaturally powerful both through brute strength and the Force, he was entirely capable of crushing anything in his path, and few would stand against him.

Nico Jade was one of those few.

"Your pardon, my lord," he said respectfully, trying to school his impatient thoughts as Vader towered ominously before him, blocking the way to where his ship waited. Vader, after all, wasn't known for his forbearance. "But I am under orders from the Emperor himself, in search of—"

"I am aware," Vader said, his voice even darker than his armor. "Her companion. You told the Emperor that she was accompanied by a TIE pilot. Describe him."

"Blond," Nico said, remembering the man who had so recently stood beside his quarry. "About her age, and a little taller. She called him Luke."

He counted half a dozen harsh breaths from Vader's respirator before he turned sharply away and stalked off, cape swirling. Nico watched him suspiciously for a moment, then continued toward the hangar.

—Shepherd

She had once, he remembered, guided him and watched over him and played with him; his first friend and the one he looked to in nearly all things. She had been strong and smart and always knew what to do, calm and steady even in his earliest memories—had she always been such, even at that young age, or was he blending more recent knowledge of her with those blurry, emotion-dominated remembrances of the before-time?

He hadn't thought of any of this for so long; now he couldn't stop thinking of it.

Nico was the Emperor's Hand, as she had been: chosen for a select, elite purpose. He—they—upheld justice, maintained order—

It's because of me that you're in this hell in the first place—

—desperate voices, Mara's wide eyes, the tall man in red pulling her away, Nico clinging to her with all his small might—

Their time together since that day had been limited, curtailed; always, until their adulthood, supervised by others, their sibling bond all but severed to establish in each of them unfaltering devotion to the Emperor rather than each other.

So why was he now achingly aware that it was his once-beloved sister that he was hunting?

—Undertaker

"So you have found no trace of her," the Emperor said, his voice implacable with displeasure.

Nico bowed his head low before his master, wishing, not for the first time, that he possessed Mara's own Force-sensitivity and rare ability for telepathic communication. She, he reflected bitterly, had never had any need for holo units to receive their master's instructions. But then, Nico had worked hard his whole life to be her equal, with or without her mysterious Force, and succeeded.

Until now.

"Not yet, my lord," he admitted. "But I know her tactics and training well. She can't elude me forever."

"See that she does not." With that, the holo vanished, and the Emperor was gone.

She wouldn't, of course. Mara was strong and smart and always knew what to do, but he was her match, and he would find her and he would bring her back.

Back to her death, and an unpleasant one at that.

He remembered a time when her small hand had taken his own still-smaller one, careful to keep him at her side in the pressing crowd.

Mommy told me to take care of you.

It didn't matter, he told himself, and almost believed it.

—Handler

He wondered sometimes, as he sifted through subtle signs and tried to arrange fragments of evidence into a cohesive whole, whether his sister controlled the pilot or he controlled her. Mara had the authority to commandeer nearly anything and anyone in the Empire, just as Nico himself did, but that authority originated with the Emperor, and she had renounced him, thus relinquishing her authority as well. She was no longer the Emperor's Hand, capable of giving orders to whomever she chose, but merely an ordinary individual.

Well, not ordinary. Never that. Their training had made them formidable in all ways, and Mara had always been a force to be reckoned with even before that (or was that only the hazy memories again, seeing her through the eyes of a devoted younger brother?), and she could never be truly ordinary.

Regardless, she could no longer be genuinely commanding the pilot who had appeared at her side, and her use of his given name seemed to imply that she hadn't been doing so then, either.

Had he somehow gained control over her, then, or was their connection somehow more personal?

Perhaps instead of looking for Mara, he should be looking for Luke.

—Resonance

Mara paused, reaching outward, chasing the faint echo of recognition—

—and dropped the edge of the blanket she'd been lifting. It fell silently, but her spike of alarm was enough to cause Luke, sitting on the edge of the bed's other side and pulling off his boots, to turn swiftly toward her. "What?"

"He's near," she said, taking one extra second to savor that familiar presence, then resolutely turning toward the cabin door. "We have to go, now."

She didn't wait for Luke. Still, he was close behind, joining her in the cockpit only a moment later. "You're sure?" he asked, dropping into the copilot's seat and keying the engine from standby to full power. "How could he possibly have found us here?"

"He must have looked at your files," Mara answered, cursing herself as she flipped switches in rapid succession. She should have expected as much.

Luke made a disbelieving noise. "This is Uncle Owen's mother's homeworld, not mine. She died long before I was born. It's hardly an obvious connection."

"It's enough," Mara said grimly. "Let's try not to underestimate him again."

A few minutes later the stars streaked around them, and they were safe again.

For now.

—Legion

The stormtrooper's armor shone brightly under the thin light of Ator's moons as he stood at the edge of the capitol city's main spaceport, and with an effort, Nico Jade suppressed the snarl that wanted to escape. The 501st here could only mean one thing.

"Take me to Lord Vader," he snapped. "Now."

A heavy footstep behind him preempted any reply the stormtrooper might make. "No need," came the familiar voice from behind him. Nico squared his shoulders and turned.

"Emperor's Hand." Vader's own armor appeared almost silver plated in the moonlight. The effect was disconcertingly peaceful. "Your authority does not extend to myself, nor to my troops."

"Yes, Lord Vader." Nico inclined his head as respectfully as he could manage. "My apologies. I'm searching for—"

"Your traitorous sister. I am still aware. I am also aware that she is not here, and you are in my way."

Nico gritted his teeth, but it was the truth. Mara had indeed escaped. What was more important now was that, for whatever reason, he appeared to be in competition with Vader on this hunt. He would discover why, and he would emerge the victor regardless.

"My Lord," he said again, and departed.

—Brother

"Your traitorous sister."

The words echoed through his mind as he made orbit, as he tapped coordinates into the navicomputer, as hyperspace swirled around him and he left the cockpit to resume his research.

Their relationship had always been downplayed, ever since they began their training. No one ever said the words brother or sister to him, and likely not to Mara, either. They worked in parallel, never in tandem, and it had been that way for so long that he'd nearly forgotten there had ever been another existence.

Mara, it seemed, had never forgotten. Mara had somehow believed—or at least hoped—that he would remember too, and that she would matter enough for him to also turn traitor for her sake.

He hadn't even been tempted. He'd stayed loyal to their master as she had not; he'd refused her offer, would have pulled his weapon on her, had informed on her as soon as he'd awoken from the stun blast her companion had leveled at him. He had undertaken this mission to hunt her down without even a shred of inner conflict.

So why, as the hunt went on, did he find himself almost hoping that he wouldn't catch her?

—Reaper

Mara knew well how to cover her tracks, but Nico knew all the same tricks that she did, and he was every bit as determined. He would find her, and he would bring her back to face her well-earned fate. He would triumph over Vader, and he would serve the Emperor fully, and he would forget all his immaterial early memories, and he would overcome the foolish doubts that had harried him since he'd left Coruscant.

He would.

The trail led to a Mid Rim planet rich in both industry and agriculture, with cities both numerous and populous enough for a pair of fugitives to hole up in for any length of time. Nico carefully followed the signs to a nondescript house in a residential area—an odd choice, he thought. It was dark enough and late enough by the time he found the place that he quietly slipped in, unnoticed by any neighbors.

There was no one there. What's more, it showed signs of established habitation and an abrupt departure. Puzzled, he continued his search—

—and came upon a recording unit in the living room, labeled with his name; almost certainly a taunt. All of his work only for this?

—Voice

Nico examined the holo recorder carefully, half expecting a trap of some sort. There was none; it was an ordinary recorder. He almost hesitated to turn it on, but he'd searched the house thoroughly. Mara was long gone, as was anyone else who might have been here. Why would she have come here at all? Had she cultivated allies over the years who would be willing to hide her? How long had she been planning this defection, anyway?

Frowning, Nico turned the unit on. A slightly fuzzy holo appeared, and his breath caught, and he couldn't even have said why. The middle-aged couple were strangers to him, and yet…

Then the woman spoke, and he recognized the voice when he hadn't been able to identify the face.

"Nico," she said, her voice thick with unshed tears. "Nico, my baby, Mara said you'd come. We've missed you so much, my darling, please, can you come home too—"

She choked. The man put his arm around her and continued despite his own evident emotion. "Nico, son, we'll always love you. Mara says she can find you, if you want to be found. Please, choose us."

The recorder fell from suddenly nerveless fingers.