“Ani, we’ll be dropping out of hyperspace in about five minutes, strap in.” Ahsoka said as she switched off the cam monitor, she had been watching. ‘The girl is quick; I’ll give her that.’ She thought, impressed at the basic sequence of Shien unfolding in the cargo bay. She could hear footsteps as they plodded a course through the deck plating from the bay.
“I’d rather be up here for this.” Kowani said between quick breaths, sweat still dripping from her forehead.
“Thanks for that.”
“No problem sister.” Kowani said, patting Ahsoka’s shoulder as she sat back down in the co-pilots seat, immediately feeling the tension within the Togruta. “What is it?”
Ahsoka heard the words but was feeling somewhat morose at the prospect of dumping all her fear, worry and anxiety on Kowani.
“If I said ‘nothing’ you’d see right through it anyway.” Ahsoka paused. “I have not been back here in some time. The last time was with my former master.”
“Anakin.” Kowani said flatly.
Ahsoka winced slightly at the name. The anger it would prompt had yet to resolve itself.
“Ahsoka, let it go.”
She knew Kowani was right but found the task impossible. She had attempted as such with every method at her disposal. “It’s a clash between who he has become and the memory I retain.” She tried to reason.
“No.” Kowani said. “You are at a crossroads of wanting to convince yourself of that and the fear of losing what you love the most.”
Ahsoka turned to face her friend, opened her mouth to speak and found no words to actually say.
“Cherish your memories of course but release the guilt you hold over what he has become, otherwise you are doomed to follow his path.” Kowani said. “I have been down this road myself Ahsoka, Keno was a nightmare. It remains in memory but if I hadn’t let go of the atrocities themselves, I could very well have been under the yoke of the Emperor.”
The words were the Mirialans, yet they held the ring of wisdom, truth, and knowledge of master Yoda. She knew then that Kowani’s time on Dagobah had been elaborately worth every second. When she had feared her friend was left out of conversations, she was, in fact, paying remarkably close attention to all that was being said. When she had distanced herself from the lot of them, Kowani was intently under the guidance of the diminutive Jedi grand master. She had come away with considerably more from the trip then Ahsoka had realized.
“I have spent my life letting go of the past, be it distant or recent, and with that I have forgotten much.” She finally said. “The fear I have, as you mentioned, is forgetting myself. My fondest memories are of Anakin and Obi-wan and all that ‘we’ had done together. I fear losing that Ani, the memory I mean.”
Kowani just smiled at Ahsoka, “Then when we can, tell me everything! I want to know, and you need to record those memories. If that is truly all that you fear, then relieve yourself of that burden and share with me.”
A quick cadence of beeps from the navicomm alerted them both of the inevitable decant to real space. Kowani reached over to take Ahsoka’s hand and squeezed it tightly, waiting for Ahsoka to return her smile. As the ship left the mesmerizing cyclone of hyperspace, the blackened orb of Mustafar lay before them. A crisscrossing miasma of red lines belied the very nature of the planet as they were both transfixed by the view before them.
“Let’s do this sister.” Kowani said without taking her eyes off the planet and squeezing Ahsoka’s hand a final time.
Foreseeing the consequence of choice had always been a strong intuition that Anakin Skywalker brought to any confrontation, perhaps there was another part of the man Darth Vader had not murdered outright. Of the myriad events that had just transpired, the oath of supremacy from Anakin’s former master, the man’s death, and an undeniably emotional recklessness from a young boy in ratty clothing that seemed, at the time, to embody the very vergence he claimed to his own master, a feeling of invasion was least expected. Yet it was present. Distant but present. A feeling of helplessness washed over the Dark Lord, of what, or more appropriately, from what, he had no idea. Helplessness meant exposure or weakness. Exposure meant little to him, however, weakness was a trait that needed to be stamped out to the point of annihilation. As he watched the Millennium Falcon escape his grasp aboard the battle station, the feeling of weakness engulfed him. He understood the purpose of letting the ship ‘escape,’ however, he was equally enraged at the very need to do so. It is an odd feeling to assume the role of both hunter and prey in a confrontation, yet weakness brought the Empire to this point. How were they to instill fear across the galaxy if a minuscule freighter had the ability to escape the grasp of their greatest feat, contrived or not? It was the wrong message to send to this rebellion, or any other. His sense of accomplishment lost to inner rage. How elation from the final resolution in his old master’s demise was erased by a volley of blaster bolts fired by the scrawny child came crashing down with no time to relish the victory, and then to be slammed by a sense of vulnerability he could not place seemed unwarranted, and most of all, unforeseen.
As the techs and assembled troopers worked toward overriding the controls to the blast door, he cast a glance back down at the crumpled brown robes he kicked around mere seconds earlier and focused on the saber hilt from the fallen Kenobi. Pausing, he picked it up and gripped it firmly, enabling the servos in his hand to squeeze with incomprehensible force. It should have been reduced to scrap, sparking wildly, but remained steadfast and intact, defying the action outright. How fitting he thought. Despite the effort and determination within himself, Obi-wan had only fallen when he conceded the duel, and now even the saber hilt was denying Vader the victory he had sought for decades. Nothing about the encounter had been by chance, it had been prescribed and meticulously guided. By what, or whom, he had no idea. His current master had not the foresight to warn him of these events. A test perhaps? This was not the time for games Vader thought, and his master had better know that as well. The Force perhaps? Here he paused. The redundant phrase of many ringing through his head of ‘chosen one’ and ‘prophecy’ which he conceded to fanciful storytelling some time ago for all the import it held in the grand scheme of things. And now this vacancy he felt within, the intrusion to which began his stirrings, was left front and center, with no explanation he could muster or perceive. He stared at the saber one last time before deciding. With a final glance back at the blast doors he slid the hilt into the folds of his cape and turned to walk away from the scene.
Sidious felt the fall of the former Jedi master and knew his apprentice had finally accomplished the task. He should have also felt the finality of the action from his apprentice, who was noticeably silent, absent even, within the Force. Something had happened on the battle station beyond what he had both foreseen and devised. Something that was consuming his apprentice in a shroud of darkness. There was a moment when he sensed a feeling of satisfaction within the man, a fleeting glimpse of consolidated assuredness, a sense the Dark Lord had been lacking for some time. Despite the masters’ best efforts to guide his apprentice toward satisfying endeavors within both the Empire and the Force itself, he was forever distant, as if leading himself down a path from which he was both guide and victim. To Sidious, the man was losing himself to fruitless ambitions that had no place within the order of the Sith, yet he still possessed an innate and undeniable power that needed to be challenged and channeled toward higher goals within the confines of the Force. Sidious knew he could not force that ambition any further than he already had and wondered at times if he played too large in roll in his own machinations to prod the man even to this point. Plagueis had overseen, through either his own hand or through divisive action, every stage of the young Palpatine through his rise in the Dark side, and Sidious was grateful for it, the differences between himself and Vader notwithstanding. He had not slain his master out of spite, the Muun was truly an inspiration of devoted ambition. No. He killed him because his time had come, and it was Sidious’ place to do so. He now feared that time would never come with his own apprentice, yet he did not expect it would in any event. Sidious’ determination had wed his ambition and not even the Dark Lord knew to what extent that implication represented.
Sidious was startled from his reverie by a chime coming from the console set into the arm of the chair he was occupying and glanced down to identify the perpetrator. The incoming comm message from Captain Sylde was as welcome as it was expected.
He slid his slender finger over the flashing key and tapped it once. “Captain?” he issued forth.
“Lord Sidious, we have an inbound as you had anticipated. No markings, running silent with zero signature. It had almost escaped our notice, even with your advance appraisal.” The Captain said, his voice wavering slightly.
“Very good Captain, be mindful when alerting forces planet side and let it land. When she is free of the vessel, recall your fleet, destroy that ship and blockade Mustafar. She will not leave that planet alive.” A sudden thought rocked Sidious to his core. ‘How appropriate it would be to dispatch the battle station to be rid himself of both the upstart Togruta and any further distractions to his apprentice.’ The idea was pleasing to him.
“Understood my Lord.” Captain Evan Sylde returned with a little more authority in his voice, snapping Sidious from his own train of thought.
“Captain, I do not need to reiterate the importance of and necessary silence this endeavor requires. Follow it to completion and Rear Admiral Sylde would be most appropriate.” Sidious intoned with all sincerity. “Silent fleet is yours to command.”
“Understood my Lord.” Sylde repeated, “Does my Lord wish for us to maintain an open channel through the campaign?”
The question was a surprise to Sidious as he considered it, “I do not wish to encumber you with that responsibility Captain, you will have enough to be mindful of.” He replied, deciding the required decision making would be best left to his Captain and senior staff. The complexities involved were already enough without Sylde having to placate an attentive Sith Lord as well.
“Understood my Lord.” Sylde said a third time. “Sith Prevail!” He all but shouted into the comm.
“And so it will.” Sidious replied, a tap of his finger ended the communique. ‘And so it will indeed.’ He thought to himself, a crooked smile erupted, defying his downturned lips.
“Ani, shut down power NOW!” Ahsoka blared as her fingers were themselves cutting power to all systems she could identify and reach.
The sudden reaction caught Kowani off guard, but she did as instructed without hesitation.
“What is it?” She said between powering down the hyperdrive, which she thought was ill advised, and cutting power to the aft of the ship completely after securing the cockpit doorway.
“A curious lack of...well...anything.” Came the response. “We should have been hailed, threatened, or fired upon as soon as we entered the system Ani. I had the shuttle signature ready for transmission if that were the case, but ‘nothing’ is unexpected.”
“You considering a trap?” Kowani asked looking at Ahsoka.
“Always.” She responded.
An auditory decant in the secondary sounds coming from the starship normalizing into nothingness left an eerie silence between them. Kowani noted the odd angle the planet before them was presenting as the ship canted port side after the final orientation jet had fired. She watched, slightly amused as the ship spiraled slowly toward the ominous planet, well outside of gravity’s pull.
“This is Vader’s center of operations Ani; it should be reading off the scale with activity.” Ahsoka said staring blankly through the canopy’s transparisteel.
“I don’t mean to point out the obvious but without power we’re just as blind as anyone else that could ‘possibly’ be here. Kowani said.
“I know, we need to come up with a plan, shutting down only bought us time.” Ahsoka said, adopting a thoughtful expression.
“Is Vader here? Start with that.” T’zar chimed into Kowani’s mind.
“Can you sense Vader at all Ahsoka?” She asked.
Ahsoka cleared her mind as well as she could and closed her eyes. Like searching for Ezra’s path, she reached out to find her former master knowing full well he would never cut himself off. The reply came all too quickly but she was surprised it did not originate from this system. “He is not here Ani. What do you see?”
The question surprised the Mirialan as well as blanketed her with a sense of belonging. She sought out all the flows the Force offered within her purview, both physical and spiritual, and was greeted with more than she had expected. Shimmering like cloudy golden spirals, they were everywhere. Some slow and steady, others rushing and gigantic. She viewed the planet before them and saw as well as felt the many currents flowing through each other, crisscrossing one another and melding as one toward a singular point. There were others inbound to the planet extending in every direction. She followed them as she could looking for individuation, finding one that eddied slowly and faded into nonexistence between the planet and its moon. The moon itself on the receiving end of another current from a different direction. “The planet is a focal point, a refractor perhaps. There are multiple sources incoming but only one going beyond its moon. There is also an anomaly starboard. The flows planet side are well outside my training to decipher. As for Vader, I don’t know.” The response was as truthful as Kowani had ever been. ‘Any thoughts T’zar’ She added for his benefit.
“I do not see things as you do but I do feel them nonetheless, your description is accurate. Perhaps I can scout the anomaly?”
‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ she admitted, ‘sure?’ It was just as much a question as it was permission. She felt a brief sensation of weightlessness she attributed to the gravity generator being offline but realized she was still strapped into her seat securely. Just as quickly as the realization revealed itself, she screamed out in excruciating pain. From head to toe it felt as if her core, her very bones were being pulled from her body. “STOP!!!” Kowani screamed, the look of abject terror imposing itself on her face. Ahsoka looked over between the heartbeats the outburst forced from her to see the look of horror on the Mirialan’s face. The usually bright cheerful expression and twinkling eyes had adopted a look of terror, the eyes sunken and removed from reality, tears streaming from them and cascading over quivering, taught cheeks.
“Ani, what...?” The look on her friend’s face was indescribable beyond her initial exam and as such stole the words from her mouth.
Just as quickly as the pain had begun, it had ceased. Kowani slumped back into the seat she had almost ripped herself free of, lolled her head to the right involuntarily and blacked out.
Ahsoka was still yet, lost for words. She could see rapid movements within her chest at least signifying that her friend was breathing, which was good. The outburst had no warning, had been loud enough to temporarily render her deaf and pitched as it was, drive a fierce headache into the reaches of her upper montral. She unbuckled herself from her seat, cursing silently as her body began to levitate as she pulled herself closer to Kowani to rest a hand on her shoulder. She could feel the warmth of her body under her palm. She raised the Mirialan’s arm to grab at her wrist affirming the heart was still beating. Although comatose, the woman seemed to be relaxed and back to normal. She would have to wait until Kowani came around to prove that correct, however with systems offline, there was limited oxygen so she could not wait indefinitely.