Chapter Text
Darth Vader stood on the bridge of his personal stardestroyer, the Devastator. He was in his customary place before the viewport, hands clasped behind his back. Within the vastness of the stars, his eyes zeroed in unerringly on the small blockade runner currently taking heavy fire. The ship was trying desperately to escape; the crew’s fear and panic a clarion in the Force.
As soon as the Devastator had come out of hyperspace he’d known it was the right ship. The crew had tried to muddy their trail with a series of jumps and changed their transponder codes to that of an Imperial Consular Ship. However, the Force was clear, this was the ship with the stolen plans.
Soon, the ship’s shields would fail and the superior engines of the Devastator would bring them in range of the tractor beam.
Vader clenched his fists to soothe his rising impatience. The Rebels should never have been given the chance to steal the plans in the first place. As usual, it was up to him to correct the incompetence of Imperial command. In their arrogance, they’d allowed the Rebels access to information that had been carefully guarded for decades.
Admiral Montferrat had unhesitatingly followed his orders and relayed to the crew to open fire on the ship, despite the codes. The competence of his officers and crew, as usual, mitigated his frustration at the continued failings of the Empire and Imperial Navy.
He had more important matters to concern himself with.
Such as the search for the truth of his vision. For that’s what the startlingly real event must have been. It could be nothing less. With this distraction soon to be resolved he could then begin tearing apart the galaxy for the truth.
Discreetly of course.
His Master did not know, his impressive ability to foresee events failing him in this. Or… Vader clenched his teeth and glared venomously at the small ship… or his Master had known of the possibility, and kept silent. For his Master was notoriously against any distraction or splitting of loyalties on Vader’s part.
Behind him, he felt a relaxing of the crew in the Force. Captain Corssin reported to the Admiral that the Rebel’s solar foil had been damaged; the ship could no longer make the jump to hyperspace. Vader allowed himself a brief feeling of satisfaction, Admiral Montferrat once again proving his competence. In waiting for the little ship to enter the gravity well of the planet below, they had trapped it long enough to disable it.
With the impending completion of the mission, some of Vader’s impatience and frustration eased.
Soon, he would find her.
He would have that which had been denied him.
That power , he relaxed at the thought, eyes staring ahead half-lidded, it will be mine .
…
On the fiery shore of Mustafar, an intense battle raged. From his position at the base of his fortress, Darth Vader stared down at the clashing red and blue cylinders whipping up clouds of ash, obscuring the combatants.
He began to slowly walk down the slope towards them, black fragments of cooled magma shifting under his boots.
A great disturbance in the Force had alerted him to something invading his sanctuary. It had been nebulous at first beyond an insistent push to exit his specialized bacta tank and investigate. He’d almost ignored it, for the Force was an extension of his will and he was no longer its pawn.
But the increasing sense of urgency had ruined his meditation. Hovering limbless in the viscous fluid while alert was a form of self-torture he rarely indulged in.
The two figures battling before him were not what he’d expected to find when he’d hunted down the source. He could barely feel them in Force, their existence muted.
He was almost upon them when they broke apart.
"Jedi." He growled, igniting his lightsaber, ready to cut them both down for their trespass.
"It worked!" The man with the red lightsaber cried, turning his back on the other. Vader took in the young man's all black attire, down to the gloves and boots, as well as the long shaggy black hair. It was all very stereotypical of a darksider.
Who was this man? What game was his Master playing?
The woman with the blue lightsaber, left panting and forgotten, was significantly older. Old enough to be his contemporary. Which was strange, he had no memory of someone like her in the Jedi Order.
Unlike the ecstatic look on the young man's face, she looked horrified.
Then the young man took a knee and bowed to Vader. The Sith Lord paused in his advance, surprised that the young man would put himself in such a vulnerable position. Especially when he should know what Vader had done to the last idiot his Master had sent to Mustafar.
“Who are you, boy?” Vader asked. “A new inquisitor?”
“No.” The darksider shook his head, “I’m like you."
“Hardly,” Vader interrupted him, dismissively, “you’re barely more than a dark Jedi.”
Desperation rose in the young man's voice. “I’ll kill this Jedi,” he gestured back at the frozen woman, “and show you.”
What followed was quite the odd encounter.
Vader of course had no patience for untested boys disturbing his place of rest just to show off their skill. He was not in the market for an apprentice and never would be. He very quickly decided to relieve the boy of his arrogant head.
But then in a move not even his master could have foreseen, the Jedi woman protected the boy.
When he wasn't able to kill her immediately, he decided to question her. Toying with her while he did so.
Then she'd spouted absolute nonsense about how the darksider who had almost killed her could come back to the light.
When that darksider had then interrupted their duel to kill the Jedi himself, Vader almost cut him down then and there. But then the boy had called Vader, 'grandfather.' It was so ridiculous it made him pause and just watch their fight.
Vader almost considered letting the boy live. Just long enough to discover what new delusions his Master was putting in his Inquisitor's heads.
The boy then said the words that sealed his fate.
And the woman exploded in the Force in a way that saved hers.
When she pushed Vader back, almost throwing him, with a blast of the Force full of anger and rage and denial he'd barely kept his feet. His boots had dug into the rough gravel of the slope, leaving deep furrows in the ground. He’d barely managed to ward off the worst of it with a raised arm.
It was not the Force push of a Jedi, nor was it filled with the hatred of a Sith, but it was powerful nonetheless, unfocused beyond a desperate need to get him away from the boy.
The woman screamed in anguish over the darksider’s body. She let out all her grief, her heartache, her pain, all of it. He could practically hear the darkness of Mustafar whispering to her to just let go, let it all out, give yourself over .
The emotions were so acute it was almost painful. Even to him. Her emotions had a vibrancy to them he hadn't sensed in ages. All the Jedi who could have affected the Force to this degree were long dead. Dead by his hand.
He approached her slowly and wearily, but she gave no sign that she noticed him, all her focus on the boy. The boy who had dared come to Mustafar and claim to be his successor. The boy who was steeped in the Dark Side but had yet to give himself over to it fully; the hesitation in his attacks on the woman obvious to any trained eye.
He stopped a pace away from them, debating if he should just end their existence and rid himself of these interlopers. But what he heard next shocked him into inaction.
“You’re my son.” She said to the boy. And, “I love you.”
The woman was the darksider’s mother.
He’d called her a Jedi, but there was nothing of the Jedi in the look she gave him. No Jedi Master would allow their grief to run rampant, as she did. Or used their anger and anguish to reach for the Dark Side, repeatedly, with no hesitation or faltering, as she had.
No Jedi that hadn’t already fallen at least, like the boy.
He felt her grow in the Force, as if she was finally able to grasp it fully. As if, during their duel, she’d been fighting at half power, unable to reach her full potential. If that was so, she was truly strong in the Force, stronger than any he had come across in a long time.
And only partially trained. It was almost an insult, to let all that potential go to waste.
“Who are you?” He’d desperately asked, needing to know with a strength of emotion that surprised him.
And then, with barely a whisper of the Dark Side, they’d faded away, like smoke on the wind. A hazy mirage that left him questioning what he had seen. And all that he’d known about that day, many years ago, when Darth Vader rose from the fires of Mustafar.
…
“Admiral, is the boarding team ready?” Vader cleared his head and brought himself back to the task at hand.
“Yes, Lord Vader. Shall I order them to await your arrival?” The Admiral asked, the question perfunctory. He had served with Vader long enough to anticipate his orders.
“Very good, Admiral.” With the Rebel ship now caught in the tractor beam, Vader turned and swept off the bridge, intent on personally seeing this mission to its conclusion. And take out his remaining frustration at the delay in his search for the woman on the deserving Rebels.
…
Vader allowed the stormtroopers to clear the way into the captured ship first. He could go in himself, but he found it was often more satisfying to revel in the enemy’s fear, to take the time to soak it in. And then, when their despair began to reach a crescendo, he would appear and break the last of their willpower.
However, this time, the usual rush he received from the Dark Side was lacking. Missing some key element. He frowned at the change in the Force. The more he examined it, the more he realized it was a change in himself that caused this different experience. The fear was just as potent, the Dark Side sang just as eloquently.
Only now it paled in comparison to the vision. The depth of her emotions in the Force had been intoxicating. Her pure, unadulterated, unfiltered heartbreak. Her fear. Her anger. No Jedi, darksider, or non-sensitive person had ever felt so intensely.
Dissatisfied with what should have been a quick and easy release for his emotions, Vader moved towards the boarding ramp.
“Lord Vader.” The attending Commander approached him. “We have not yet secured the forward entrance.”
“Leave that to me.” Vader said darkly, intent on finding some release.
The stormtroopers at the hatch instantly stood to the side as he approached. Stray blaster fire zipped out the hatch, barely missing him. Smoke filled the entryway, used to give the boarding party some cover. He did not need it, but he anticipated the moment the Rebels realized just who had captured their ship.
Vader stepped through the hatch, ducking his head slightly to fit through the opening. Dead troopers littered the floor, while the survivors pressed themselves to either side of the corridor, exchanging fire with the rebels.
Behind him, he felt the anticipation of the stormtroopers rise. They knew what was coming. And they reveled in it.
One of the Rebels must have seen movement in the smoke for a red bolt was fired unerringly at his chest. With a quick motion of his hand, he caught it. The bolt hovered in the air before him, highlighting his dark form amidst the smoke.
A cry of alarm went up among the Rebels. Fear turned to terror before him, anticipation turned to glee behind.
A snap-hiss and his lightsaber deflected the frantic final shots of the dead; the blasts unerringly finding their point of origin. That was all it took for the rebels to break ranks and flee. A brief sneer of disgust at their cowardice pulled on his scarred cheek.
“Secure the vessel.” He ordered as the stormtroopers surged forward, harrying the retreating Rebels. “Bring me the Officers.”
The blaster bolt, still held in his outstretched hand, was finally deflected harmlessly at his feet.
“Commander, begin with a search of the main computer.”
…
Later, multiple dead rebel officers lay at his feet. The last one, the Captain, hurled against the wall in disgust. All claiming the same thing, that this was a consular ship. All repeating the same refrain, they were on a diplomatic mission. All denying the truth, they intercepted no plans.
And all lying .
None knew what had happened to the plans, he could feel that much through the Force. Killing them only slightly relieved his anger. This was taking far longer than he had the patience for. The continued lacklustre feeling of the Force only fed his impatience.
He needed to meditate on this shift in his awareness. The effects of the vision needed to be examined and dissected. The power it currently had over him, to change his interaction with the Dark Side, was unacceptable. When he found her, he needed to be the one in control. For if he could not fix this change in perception, if she ever realized what even the mere memory of her did to him…
“Lord Vader.” The Commander approached. “The Ambassador has been found, a squad is bringing her in.”
“Excellent.” Perhaps now he would have someone with worthy information to interrogate. Someone to satiate the itch under his skin.
The Commander continued with his report on what had been found on the ship. So far, the protestations of the crew had, to all appearances, been proven true. But he knew better. They may have done a good enough job to cover their tracks and fool the average Imperial, but they could not fool him.
Vader listened with half an ear, something catching his attention in the Force. It was small, a compressed ball of tightly held emotion. Spikes of fear and anger manifested and were quickly suppressed , as if they had briefly escaped someone's control.
Mildly curious, he turned to look down the hallway the feeling originated from. What he saw would have torn the breath from his lungs, had the respirator allowed it.
How had he not felt her before this moment?
Before him, a diminutive woman in a simple white dress was marched down the hallway. Her hands were cuffed in front of her and she was flanked by a squad of Stormtroopers. She was almost a head shorter than them and he knew, from the vision, that when she stood before him she would only reach the base of his shoulder guard.
It was her.
The woman from the vision.
His daughter.
His daughter was standing before him and the sight of her was more electrifying than he could have possibly imagined.
His daughter's presence had a fiery vibrancy that drew him in, like a moth to the flame.
His daughter was strong in the Force. So very real and present in a galaxy full of pastels and dull greys.
His daughter would be magnificent in the Dark Side, she would be everything he dreamed of and more.
“Lord Vader, only you could be so bold. The Senate will not sit for this.” The spiked ball that was his daughter’s force presence lashed out. Popping Vader’s euphoric thoughts as reality reasserted itself.
His daughter… was a Rebel.