Vader felt the Togruta’s resolve as assuredly as he felt the hard merciless ground beneath his booted feet, the servos in his ankles compensating for the slight pitch his body was taking toward her extended sabers. The white beams projecting an impassable blockade to his stumbling form, yet he would never yield to any scenario where he, himself, was not the unstoppable force. Eliciting the double vision connection, he had always employed in his relationship with the Force, it was easy to ascertain her tactics in the coming seconds and through his own determined will he was able to extend his right leg forward to control his slide toward her. He waited, patiently, for the last possible fraction of a second before igniting his saber before him and plunging it into the ground perpendicular to her waiting attempt, his balance shifting toward his rear with each centimeter of travel. The stone between his legs began slagging immediately as the sand caught in his sabers path solidified into miniscule glass particulates that pinged feverishly off the leggings of his armor, his cape billowing behind him to catch up to its master.
The crackle of intersection burst from all three saber blades in a clash of light rivaling the myriad lightning strikes surrounding them. The second the sound registered, Ahsoka lowered herself even farther to the ground and spun on the heels of both feet as she arced her primary blade in a blinding semi-circle, intent on dismembering Vader’s right ankle, only to find it just out of reach, her saber igniting a fragmented section of the cape billowing behind him. Her mind was already focusing on the next few seconds as she felt him come to an abrupt stop, hearing his saber humming through the air overhead. Ahsoka quickly converged both of her blades, crossing them overhead a second before his red beam slammed in between them, forcing her lower to the ground through his focused power. The discharging energy between the blades cracked and sizzled as the reverberating sound echoed through her montral threatening to betray her focus. She held the position only long enough to allow Vader’s strength to force the convergence of blades down and to her left as she arced her back and slid from the deadly beams. She used the forced momentum then to complete a turn and kick her left foot out toward his stationary right with an authoritive crunch, then quickly tucked her body and rolled in the opposing direction, only far enough to keep him in front of her and align her blades before her again with a perpendicular cross.
Vader converged on his former apprentice with free-flowing hatred, a loathing he had convinced himself of since Malachor. Every fiber of his being saturated in a consuming deluge of his own anger as he pivoted to see her waiting for him yet again, a stasis that he found almost laughable as his cape twisted around his frame, plastered over his shoulders by the merciless winds that tore between them. He didn’t waste any movements on ostentatious displays of martial prowess, as he swung his saber and halted it parallel to his form. He didn’t waste any time either as he sprung from his stance with unperceivable speed, rotating his blade upward and over his shoulder and quickly down again into the notch she had left for him, determined to siphon his building rage into a stroke of unrelenting fury.
Ahsoka had no intention of trying to withstand the overhead strike as she collapsed her defensive stance the moment all three blades made contact, again allowing his own momentum to take his strike through the converging blades and into the ground at his feet. She dropped again to her heels and whirled her sabers at ankle height, knocking the red beam just enough to glance his right ankle again with her secondary blade. Ahsoka completed the three hundred and sixty degree arc and quickly assumed an identical position in the same direction Vader’s blade had carried as he bellowed his growing frustration. For an instant Ahsoka felt a connection to his rage, his seething anger and was baffled by the vision it created. ‘He truly is only interested in his son,’ she thought to herself between breaths, remaining cognizant of his ability to read her thoughts. The brief interlude brought with it an unexpected urge to take advantage of his weakness, to continue her harassment and use his own anger against him. She could feel the call of the Dark side haunting her peripheral conscience, working out a path to fuel its own hidden agenda, one that promised her unbelievable access to powers never seen. She quickly dodged Vader’s incoming strike with a glancing parry and immediately followed with a graceful pirouette, charging both hands with the strength to rival his as she arced her blades deliberately through his in an effort to knock it farther out of the way. Seeing his blade rise to ground parallel she quickly dove to her heels again and whirled another kick into his exposed right ankle, recovering with a lunge to his left as his saber came crashing down where her head had been with a charged hum. She watched as he stumbled backward slightly, trying to hide the short limp the damaged servos were trying to compensate for. Then it happened. The regulator on Vader’s oxygen modulator quickened, only slightly, but enough for her to realize he was losing patience.
His stumble, although well concealed, was enough to ignite his well-stocked reserves of fury as Vader fought his suit for more oxygen. He sensed a palpable change in directive as he stared into the eyes of his former apprentice. He understood fully what her objective had become the second time she had struck his right foot as the smell of burned wiring and circuitry invaded his olfactory senses. She didn’t understand what she was squandering, the opportunity few in the galaxy could ever hope to have. ‘She stands between me and my son,’ he thought to himself, taking some care to disallow the probing he sensed from her, ‘together, we would overthrow the Emperor.’ He felt the inrush of nourishing air fill what remained of his lungs as he brought both hands together around the hilt of his saber in a defiant move to stifle the rage he knew would blind him if unchecked. A sudden thought gripped him, one that he hadn’t considered through his own unyielding agendas. A thought that he was certain Darth Sidious had contemplated but would never share, one that his master would be powerless to defend if he could only make her see.
Ahsoka began to laugh a mirthless chuckle delivering a sobering dose of reality to the concepts of his thoughtful designs, “you cannot be serious, Vader.” She said, her voice laced with contempt as she shook her head from side to side in scolding disappointment. “What son of yours would ever take a place at your side?” Ahsoka continued, avoiding the pinnacle she had read from his careless thoughts, “if he knew what you’ve done...who you’ve become, and how many you’ve self-righteously betrayed and sacrificed to achieve your grand designs….” She continued shaking her head as the words were more tangible than she had intended, wrought with an ironclad truth she knew she wasn’t alone in comprehending. “And all for what, Vader….truly.” Ahsoka stated as she raised herself from her crouched form and lowered the sabers to her sides. ‘For what,’ she thought to herself, allowing him access to the discretion as she partially opened the door to the Dark side that had been banging relentlessly upon it for her permission to intercede. She understood the cost involved as she slowly let the light abate, knowing it would render her almost unreadable to his probing. An unknown consequence formed a new path she had not intended as Vader’s thoughts mingled with his own memories in a free flowing menagerie of invasive imagery and sub conscience renderings that had never been followed through to completion. Ashoka read it all in a constant wave of grief and agony, joy and content, fury, and ecstasy. She stepped back and tilted her head slightly as she extinguished her sabers, reducing her form to a mirage of swirling colors and loose wrappings ripping through the chaotic winds. Ahsoka Tano viewed his memory as one would a holo-drama, her vantage, his perspective, as Padme Amidala made her own plea for his soul with tears flooding the heartbreak in her eyes. She looked on through Anakin’s eyes as his wife’s facial expressions contorted wildly through the range of readable countenance, horror, anger, grief, and sorrow...all leading to an unexpected acceptance as Padme realized the man before her had transformed himself into something she could never possibly love. Ahsoka continued wading through the images to see Padme grasping at her throat, terror gripping her features as the last shred of trust and hope she held for him evaporated into the hot Mustafarian air surrounding them all. Obi-wan intercedes and the memory ceases to be about Padme at all… “You will never resolve the conflict within until you take responsibility for your own actions Anakin….the little golden-haired boy from Tatooine continues to cast blame upon anyone or anything he can. You will never possess the power to absolve yourself. Never.”
Vader felt the direct flow of anger force its way into his consciousness, casting a net around the words she was saying before they had any chance to register their truth. He would respond the only way he knew how, “there is no conflict...Ahsoka.” He said as he raised his saber before him again, assuring her of his intentions with its snapping static discharges. “What is done had to be.” He concluded amid the ringing voices filtering unfettered through his conscience. The forced surfacing of his confrontation with Obi-wan on Mustafar as the old man continued relaying similar sentiments, yet they always ended the same way with the form of his lifeless wife lying prone to the duel around her body. A body he knew he was responsible for but would never admit. The body that had forced him to become who he was.
“There was a time when you embodied the very essence of the Republic itself Anakin.” Ahsoka intervened in one last ploy, although her own sense of hope begged for the wisdom of the effort. “Your childish betrayal of what you stood so boldly for is the center of your blindness. Look about you Vader as you hunt for the legend of your son, and you will see that ambition stem far greater from your own master than some trivial ability to resurrect a wife you murdered.”
The intense reaction that initially gripped his mind caused him enough pause to rehash her words. He knew he was in no amount of danger from the Togruta by her own admission and chanced a momentary glance over either shoulder to see the duo of lightsabers he had noted earlier standing not twenty meters distant, forming a triangle of threat with he at its center. And then, unexpectedly, they too extinguished their sabers. He noted the tandem effort that unified all three points that required not even a word between them. ‘What is this…?’ He began to question his current situation inwardly. The anger which provided him the gateway to his abilities was threatening to act with or without his consent, yet he knew it was a fool’s errand to respond as such, that the Togruta was pushing him toward that end, ‘but why?’
“Because you need to understand what it is your master proposes to unleash on the galaxy from right under your nose Vader.” Ahsoka responded to his thought. “Your anger makes you powerful, of that there is no doubt. But, as always, it blinds you to truth.” She finalized, taking two steps forward as the wind caught her wrappings again, tugging them furiously in their wake. “Vader….Anakin….you are surrounded by your master’s creation. However you perceive them, know that they are just the beginning.” She retreated her form into the folds of the chaotic swirls yet again, removing herself from his view. Ahsoka utilized the seconds she had earned herself to become the wind itself, racing around him unseen as the heavy curtain of debris obscured her form. She took up a position between the stoic pairings of Kowani and Mushi and that of Nara and Rex just as the winds parted the scene with viable windows of relative clarity. She could see Vader looking over his shoulder, the winds tearing at the cape at his back. The reflective red of his saber losing it’s luster as the windborne debris pocked the black armor he wore rendering it’s glow almost null as he slowly lowered it. Ahsoka couldn’t hide her sense of pity, buried deeply within the confines of sorrow and grief as she watched him grapple with the consequences of fact. She would not allow her emotions to guide the transaction however, no matter how strongly she felt them….not again.
Confused, yet unsurprised, Vader stood motionless as the Togruta vanished from his sight. The anger had pushed him to an almost blinding rage that he knew would be disastrous in this element. It had blinded him to the subterfuge of his own thoughts and memories as they became honed tools of war in the hands of an expert, one who wielded them both with cunning and practice. However, through every deliberation, every attempt she made to push his anger toward a point of no return, she also offered him nothing in return. No inkling, notion or feeling toward the son he was determined to find. If she knew anything, she hid the information as expertly as she weaponized his own emotion. If she knew nothing, then she was no more a liability than she had always been. Either way, he was wasting time. He cast a glance over his left shoulder as he felt the pelting of small stones and packed sand against his helmet. He could sense her presence again, behind him. Confused yet unsurprised, he lowered his saber before him, toying briefly with the idea of extinguishing it altogether. Something within him caused him to pause, subdued his anger enough for rationality to make a rare appearance as he spun slowly to face them all. Something she had said. ‘Surrounded?’ Vader extinguished his blade, returning the hilt to his side as he raised his head slightly to prompt her to explain, only to find the view before him consumed in a bright flash that skewed the optic device within his helmet, his eyes behind them burning with irritation as he closed them outright uttering an audible groan through the pain it had caused. He felt himself stumble to a knee as his mind began working out what had just happened.
A wordless exchange flashed through Ahsoka’s mind as she watched Vader’s movements, a palpable tension crackling through the air that had nothing to do with the conflict before her. She glanced toward either side seeing that both Kowani and Nara where looking upward as the sensation crested toward its zenith, “shield your eyes!” She shouted as she raised an arm before her own, squinting hers shut tight in the process. Ahsoka could feel the intensity of the flash through the darkness as it pried against the forcefulness of her peripheral, creating an eclipse through her own efforts. She heard Rex’s shout of discomfort as he was a split second slower than the others, his boot scratching against the stone and sand beneath it to adjust to his slight stumbles.
“Get down on the ground!” Nara shouted as she braced Rex and swung an arm around his back, pulling him down with her.
Ahsoka felt the urge to do as such before Nara had even finished her command, dropping fully to the hard ground at her feet with an unceremonious grunt. She could hear Kowani doing the same amongst the mutterings of the giant cat, knowing without seeing Mushi covering the Mirialan’s head gently with its paw. Seconds later they all felt the air being pulled from their lungs suddenly and without any form of preternatural warning as if it were being sucked from the very planet itself and jettisoned out into space beyond. The sensation was brief however as the air reversed course and slammed back into the planet vigorously, rocketing stones and loose particulates into exposed skin, all of them grunting as they conveyed their pain audibly. Through the forced gale, Ahsoka was able to extend her Force projection around Rex, finding that Nara already had, and to her other side to assist Kowani and Mushi, providing them all with some semblance of protection just as the air thundered in objection to a siesmic quake that cracked through the planet’s atmosphere at supersonic speed and frequency. Ahsoka’s montral registered the event with a skull splitting echo that begged for mercy before she lost her sense of hearing altogether. She could feel her body being pressed into the ground under a brief but intense weight that threatened to rip the flesh from her skeletal frame and crush the bones into a fine Ambrian dust.
As quickly as the atmospheric event began it ended with a final intense rush of hot air that forced Ahsoka’s face back into the ground, her nose making hard contact with the rock beneath her with an unnerving crunch of bone and several sharp pops of torn cartilage. She lay there for several long moments waiting for some form of finality in the silence of incapacitated hearing and darkness of closed eyes. She raised her head slightly and dared open her eyes slightly, tiny flecks of the planet’s smallest particles clinging to her eyelashes as she cracked them open hesitantly. Ahsoka ran through several checks of self-diagnosis, flexing fingertips, assuring herself of minimal internal damage with several deep breaths and bracing for expected pain as she pushed herself up to her knees. The light from the unhindered sun was intense as she opened her eyes a few more millimeters, raising a hand to brush away dust and sand from her face. She felt something wet under her nose and pulled her hand back to see a smear of blood splayed across the knuckles, feeling jabs of pain rocket through her bones from the simple pressures of checking the area with her other hand.
Ahsoka focused on her surroundings as she finished her self-examination, noting only a few minor cuts and lacerations accompanying her damaged nose. Nothing moved throughout the entirety of the valley before her. The storms, the ripping winds and cyclonic debris clouds all gone to the bright beaming light of an azure blue cloudless sky. She could feel no trace of air movement whatsoever on what skin was bare to the elements, only the heat from the unhindered sun as it bathed the valley in its radiance. She glanced to either side as Mushi raised a paw, uncovering Kowani’s head, the Mirialan shaking it slightly as she, too, pushed herself up to her knees. Ahsoka stole a glance to her right to see Nara assisting Rex into the same position, his face contorted and grimacing as he placed a hand over his right ribs. The absence of sound causing her mind to adlib the grunts she knew he was making. Rubbing the remainder of dust from her eyes she slowly got to her feet, the sure footedness from minutes earlier lost to a wavering sense of vertigo and instability.
The scene was the same from Southern valley wall to their collective position along the Northern valley wall, debris scattered at odd angles amid rocky outcropping and sand dune alike. Solar wing panels, smoldering central cockpits, speeder bike parts, repulsor tank armor plating and the careless positioning of white armored and pedestrian soldiers from every vantage. The ravages of a battle she knew had played out around her but one that she couldn’t see, until now. ‘How many were there’ she found herself asking the question as she continued to survey the scene without a single sign of movement, her gaze focused on a group of stormtroopers, arms splayed at impossible angles, and the bodies of whom they waged their war, charred and baked holes in chest cavities and torsos alike. Human and Weequay, wearing a conglomeration of synthetic simple jerkins and loosely fitting field helmets, appendages missing, and weapons half buried in mounds of loose stone and debris.
Not one hundred meters distant, the unmoving cadavers of five Imperial walkers lay slumped together against the unyielding stone of the valley wall. The massive cockpit’s canted forward in a mechanical surrender, as if bowing to the prowess of the unnatural force that had stolen movement and life from them. Ahsoka continued to survey what she could, hope dwindling that she would find any movement at all as countless trails of smoke from smoldering debris and targeted cannon fire slowly roped its way skyward, unimpeded by the very air that carried it. She sensed nothing but a cold silence that stood in direct contrast to the scorching heat of the sun’s rays on her skin. She closed her eyes and reached out through the Force to aid her search for survivors finding nothing but the flowing connection to either Mirialan, the large cat, and Rex. “Nothing.” She could feel herself say aloud as she continued to scan the view before her, right to left and back again. A glacial emptiness stole the warmth the sun had been offering as hope evaporated with each passing second, hope of survivors, a life beyond their own.
✦
Nara shook her as she pushed herself up to her knees, quickly tugging at Rex’s torso to ensure he was ok before even attempting any self-diagnosis. Her head pounding with a hammering shrill, she heard his soft groan as he began to move under her touch. “Ahh.” He stammered lightly with a sharp inhale of breath and notable grimace stretching his old features, instinctively wrapping his right side with his hand. She looked him over as he rocked back on his own knees finding nothing else out of sort before giving herself a pat from head to toe as she shook the dust and debris from the folds of her synth leather jacket and stood up.
Nara noted Ahsoka immediately as the Togruta scanned the area, sweeping half closed eyes through the brightness of an unimpeded sun, then looked to Kowani, seeing the Mirialan push herself onto her own knees as Mushi seated himself beside her. ‘Traitor,’ she thought to herself, feeling the facial aches as a slight smile spread the skin over her cheek bones. She could feel the connection to them all, the connection she had initiated from the beginning, something she had no prior knowledge of nor training in. She refused to entertain the inexplicable nature of the ability at the time, but she did now. ‘How was that possible?’ She asked herself, half expecting a whispered response from the spiritual guide that had overseen the entirety of her experiences on Ambria. There was no response whatsoever, a mirror of the silent wasteland before her own eyes. She focused again on the connection between them all and gasped in surprise, finding it to be the only outlet the Force would allow. There was no connection to anything planetary other than their presence. “Zannah?” She asked mutedly, only loud enough for herself to hear. No response. “Master Thon?” She asked a little louder, cognizant of Rex’s turned head. Again, no response, only an uninflected sense of solitude and the emptiness of her own thoughts. She stepped back physically as a sudden wave of shock rifled through her core upon the realization, noting only then that this was the first time she had ever experienced the isolation of a oneness separate from intrusion, either welcome or not. Her thoughts were hers and hers alone. What she shared with either Ahsoka or Kowani would be by choice alone. The epiphany was both soothing and horrifying, opposing opposites that she struggled to meld as she married her memories to her reality. Remembering Barriss’ sense of oneness but knowing only the gelatinous substance in which she was grown. The mind and thoughts of Luminara forever ranging through her childhood to the reality of a subconscious suggestion dictating a pre-ordained destiny. She had never once been alone in her own mind, until now. As if sensing the mental transaction, Ahsoka turned to face her, devoid of sentiment. ‘Or am I?’ She questioned, returning the gaze, trying to divine the nature of the connection they shared. She knew it was no more intrusive than she was willing to allow but hadn’t fully explored the totality of that connection. Ahsoka’s gaze adopted a questioning element as her eyes opened wider, a slight shrug of the shoulders begging for some set of answers Nara wasn’t sure she had. She could only return with her own shoulder shrug, wondering for herself where the spirit forms had gone. She understood the sacrifices they each had made but it had never occurred to her that the sum of their involvement would equate obliteration, more to the point, if they were indeed gone as assumed, what, if anything, continued to serve as a tether to the promised threats the planet had been hiding for eons.
The battle that had been taking place around them seemed superficial in its own aftermath, the wounds of which stood in stark contrast to the thought as Nara fought to process the information Zannah had posited through cryptic means. Thon’s own additions, the focal point of her current focus and train of thought. She could only look into Ahsoka’s eyes and reflect the growing apprehension she saw for herself within their depths.
“We need to get off this planet Ahsoka.” Nara whispered only loud enough for the Togruta to hear, Ahsoka nodding with a growing smile, grateful that she wouldn’t have to take action to convince the clone of the same.
✦
“What the hell happened!” Kowani shouted as she yanked off her helmet and tossed it to the ground, Mushi turning a curious ear away from the boisterous howl as he snapped his jaw several times, annoyed at the extreme silence broken only by the Mirialan’s shout. Her voice carried in a booming echo across the valley floor, ricocheting off rock face and severed metallic panel alike. Ahsoka and Nara returning blank stares as they slowly turned their heads in her direction, even Rex sucked in the pain as he clenched his teeth to it, “you sure we all got that Ani?” He asked as sarcastically as he could manage in a much quieter tone, the reverberations of her echo continuing to resound with clarity.
Kowani seemed disinterested as she swung a purposeful scour across the landscape. “Where the hell did Vader go?”