“Coming out of hyperspace now Sir,” the Navigation Officer said, and his words were quickly followed by the deceleration of the massive Star Destroyer back into normal space.  There was a pause as he consulted his star charts.

“We are in the Arkanis system, approaching the third planet, Tatooine.” He continued.

Darth Vader, Dark Lord of the Sith, shuddered imperceptibly as the Navigation Officer’s words sounded out over the cold steel of the Star Destroyer’s main bridge.  He looked out the main viewport to see the suspected Rebel ship, the Tantive IV silhouetted by the massive planet.  Green fire sprang out after it, as the Star Destroyer Devastator’s main Turbolasers sought to disable the old Corellian Corvette.  This was the third system they had followed the old blockade runner to.  The first two times, the Imperial Gunners hadn’t had the opportunity to fire upon the Rebel ship, but this time Vader knew that there would be no escape for the pesky members of the so called “Rebel Alliance”.  Vader could see the system’s other two planets, Adriana and Ohann in the far background as they pursued their quarry.

Tatooine.  A name that brought many memories back to the Dark Lord, none of them good.  Much of the way his life had gone was owed to this insignificant ball of sand and dust.

He hadn’t thought much about his former home since his battle with his old mentor and Master, Obi-Wan Kenobi.  There had been too much else to be concerned about, his main focus had been on healing from his grievous injuries.  Only his iron will, and the Dark Side of the Force had enabled him to survive.  Then he had completed his training along side his new Master, the Emperor.  They had then spent a great deal of time hunting down and exterminating the Jedi Order.  The Jedi Order that had betrayed him.  The Jedi Order that had ruined his life.

His thoughts had returned to the planet a few times, in the dark of night, as his rage simmered in the fire that kept him alive.  The Dark Side told him to return to his former prison, and to wipe all life from it, and rid the galaxy of the animal-like Tusker Raiders once and for all.  And then he would finally have his revenge on them all.  But there was a small part of him, the small part that he kept buried deep within his hate, that small part of him that was still Anakin Skywalker.  That small part stayed his hand and he had left the planet alone for all these years.

Now, to find himself in proximity to it once again, he felt his anger building.  Memories he had thought buried forever were reawakened upon seeing it’s mottled brown and yellow surface.  Memories of his childhood, as a slave in the small port city of Mos Espa.  Memories of his mother, dying in his arms after being held captive in a Tusken camp.  He felt his hate swelling.  The rage he had to keep controlled threatened to overcome him.  He quickly turned his focus to the space battle in front of him.

The Imperial gunners had scored a hit on the principal solar fin of the small ship, just as they had been instructed.  This was a newly found weakness on the old Corellian ships, the resulting vibrations and destruction were usually enough to overload the main reactor, forcing it to be shut down.  Yes, there it was, Vader saw, as the main drives of the Rebel ship flickered.  They had them now.

He forced himself to forget about the planet below for the time being, as there was duty to perform for his Master, the Emperor.  The Death Star plans had to be retrieved from the Rebel Spies.  Perhaps he would be able to find a way to vent some of this anger upon the members of the Rebel crew.  Yes, he nodded to himself, he was sure he would be able to.  He forced down the Anakin part of him, and prepared to board the Rebel ship.
 

A day later, Vader was in his chamber aboard the Devastator.  Unfortunately this ship wasn’t equipped with the necessary medical devices to allow him to remove his helmet, but he knew that his new ship, the Executor, would be.  He sat in the darkened room, in deep meditation.  His anger hadn’t been satiated by the murder of the Captain of the Rebel ship, nor of the few other crew members that he had personally interrogated.  If anything, the lack of satisfaction from those killings had only made his anger burn hotter.

But also, the part of him that was Anakin Skywalker was inexplicably growing stronger.  He couldn’t understand it.  Certainly just being at this place again couldn’t explain why, suddenly, he was having these feelings of loss; of sorrow.  He had put his past life behind him, it had been burned away, along with parts of his body, by the fire that Obi-Wan had incinerated him with.  The Dark Side had dominated his life since that day; the Dark Side had been all he was able to cling to in those long weeks of pain and suffering, being tended to by his Master, Emperor Palpatine.

He hadn’t dared to actually go down to the planet, his feelings and thoughts were in too much turmoil.  His rage threatened to overcome him, and he knew that finding the plans to the Death Star had to take precedence over his own revenge on the planet that had caused him so much suffering.

He also didn’t dare, because of the sense of regret that had been growing inside him since they came out of hyperspace.  The feelings of Anakin Skywalker had been buried beneath so many layers of hate for so many years, that Darth Vader wasn’t sure how to deal with these new emotions that were threatening to engulf him.  The Dark Lord of the Sith was actually, in a small way, afraid of these feelings.

The Dark Side was the more powerful, he knew that.  His life now revolved around the Dark Side of the Force.  It fueled him, it allowed him to keep on living.  It permeated him like a cancer.  The Dark Side was everything to Darth Vader.  That was why these new feelings disturbed him so much.  There shouldn’t be room inside him for these feelings.  There should be only hate; only rage.

Something must be generating these feelings in him.  He refused to believe that simply being at this place again could stir up such a conflict within him.  He began to stretch out his feelings, searching the Dark Side for some sort of clue as to why Anakin Skywalker had grown so strong in such a short period of time.  He began to search the planet below, desperate to find something, anything, that he could focus his hatred on, anything that could help him expunge Anakin Skywalker once and for all.  He felt a stirring in the Force.  It was small, almost imperceptible.  But it was there.  He began to focus more closely on it.  He couldn’t quite get a lock on it, so faint and distant.  He concentrated all his will upon discovering what the disturbance was.

Suddenly there was a loud beeping as his door summons went off.  Anger boiled up inside of him.  He had left strict instructions with the Captain to NOT be disturbed for any reason.  He swiftly came out of his meditation, and had grabbed the person on the other side of the door in a choking Force grip even before he opened it.  A junior lieutenant stood there, his hand clawing at his neck, gasping for air that would never reach his oxygen starved lungs.  Vader held him there for a few more moments, then crushed his neck with an audible snap.  The man fell to the deck, and Vader motioned for his Stormtrooper Honor Guard to dispose of the body.  He then went back inside his chamber, and summoned the Captain on his comm.

“I left instructions to not be disturbed, Captain” Vader said.

“Yes my Lord.  However, the Emperor desires that you return to the Death Star immediately.  Grand Moff Tarkin wishes to interrogate Princess Leia personally, and the Emperor wants you present for the final systems check.”

“Very well, Captain, ready a shuttle.  But know this.  I wish to be kept informed with hourly reports on the situation here, from you personally Captain.  You will not do anything outside of retrieving those stolen data tapes without my strict orders.  There is something else going on here, I can feel it.”

“As you wish, my Lord”

“And Captain, the next time you send a junior officer in your stead, I will make sure it is a decision you will regret for the rest of your life, however short it may turn out to be.”  Vader intoned, and severed the connection.
 

Shortly after arriving on the Emperor’s grand Battle Station, Darth Vader received a communication from Captain Manto.

“My Lord.  We have completed and extensive search of the area.  There is no sign of any droids.  We have expanded our search parameters to include the indigenous Jawas.  The droids must have been picked up by them.  I hope this meets with your approval, my Lord?”

“Very good, Captain.  Continue with the operation, and keep me updated.  I will be out of contact for a short while as I meet with the Senior officers.  Do not proceed further without my guidance, Captain.”

“As you wish, my Lord.” Captain Manto said, and the communication faded out.

Jawas.  Again memories from his former life were brought to the surface of his consciousness.  Vader could distinctly remember the small, brown creatures from his time on Tatooine.  Forever having to be on guard lest the little thieves steal everything you own.  Watto had constantly been admonishing him for being too lenient when they caught one of them rummaging through the salvage yard.  They had even helped him at one time, when he had gone in search of his mother’s captors.  As a child, he had seen them as harmless, relatively innocent and benign.  But now Vader saw them in a different way.  He realized that he could use these small robed creatures to his advantage.  He could use them as a small part of his revenge.  He reactivated the comm.

“Captain Manto.  I require you to locate a small band of Tusken Raiders.  Kill them and disintegrate the bodies, but keep their weapons and beasts.  I have something for you to do.”

“Yes, Lord Vader.”

“This operation is very important Captain.  Don’t fail me.”

Vader cut the comm off again, and sat back, contemplating his plan.  He would much rather remain in contact with Captain Manto, to ensure that his orders would be carried out properly. But that would have to wait.  He had a meeting with the senior officers of the Imperial Navy that he must attend, at the Emperor’s behest.  He disliked them, they seemed clumsy and stupid, not worthy of carrying the name “imperial”.  Each time that he was forced to meet with them heightened his disdain and he was quickly running out of patience with their constant boasting and complaints.  Not to mention the fact that they thought too much of themselves, they were too convinced of their own positions, their own power.  Perhaps Vader would have to make an example out of one of them, to show them where the true power in the universe lay.
 

Immediately following his meeting with Grand Moff Tarkin, Darth Vader was once again speaking with Captain Manto.

“My Lord, we have located the group of Jawas that located the droids from the escape pod, and disabled their sandcrawler.  The droids we are looking for are not onboard, so we must assume they were sold.  We are in the process of extracting that information now.”

“Excellent.  Once you have the information, you are to wipe out that crawler.  Use the Tusken weapons and make it look like it was they who attacked the sandcrawler.  I want no trace of Imperial presence there.”  Vader said, and Captain Manto nodded his assent.  Vader had begun to conceive of a plan to wreak his ultimate revenge upon the Tusken Raiders.  If he could convince the Jawa and human settlers on Tatooine that the sand people were becoming more aggressive, then perhaps they would band together and finally wipe the Tuskens from the face of the planet.  That would also serve to create dissention and chaos, something the Emperor preferred on the worlds of his Empire.

Anakin Skywalker had had no problem with the small Jawas, but Darth Vader was determined to have his revenge here and now on the Tuskens.  No matter what the cost or the methods.  He fought again with his conflicting emotions, between the fondness that he had felt for the Jawas, and the desire for vengeance against the people who had tortured and murdered his mother so long ago.  His emotions continued to rage within him as Captain Manto began to speak again.

“My Lord, we have the information.  The Jawas have revealed the location of the moisture farm that they sold the droids to.  It is owned by somebody named Lars.”  Vader’s breath stopped in his throat.  Was it possible, that after all these years, that Owen Lars still lived on Tatooine?  That his supposed “step-brother” was still alive?  Vader knew that Owen’s actual mother had died during childbirth while he was only two, so he had considered Anakin’s mother Shmi, to be his real mother.

Vader had never liked Owen Lars.  From the moment he had first met him, way back when he had returned to Tatooine to free his mother.  He regarded the man as a coward, like his father Cleigg.  It was them who had allowed the Tuskens to capture and hold his mother prisoner.  It was them who had done nothing to try and rescue her.  Granted, Cleigg had lost a leg in an aborted effort to retrieve Shmi Skywalker, but that shouldn’t have stopped him.  And it was them who Vader had blamed for all these years for the death of his mother.

“Proceed to that moisture farm, Captain.” Vader said.  “I want a full holorecording of it, and send the feed directly to me.  Make them suffer after you receive the information, Captain.  Make them suffer terribly.  If you do not, I will make you suffer agonies you couldn’t possibly dream of.”

“Yes, My Lord.”  Manto said nervously, and began to direct his troops.  Vader reached out and cut off his half of the connection; he would receive, but he would send no signal.  He leaned back in his chair, and prepared to watch the events unfold before him.

Then the Dark Lord did something he hadn’t tried for many years, he began to stretch out with the Force over the parsecs to Tatooine.  Only the Emperor had ever attempted this much control, and Vader wasn’t sure he would be able match that feat.  He knew that his hate, and his utter disgust with his two targets might allow him to succeed.  He was searching, searching for the faint traces of Owen and Beru Lars.  He wanted to feel their pain, their fear.  He wanted to drown in their terror, to bathe in their suffering.

He stretched, and expanded his senses beyond anything he had ever attempted.  He could feel himself slipping away, drawing too thin.  But his desire, his hatred of the Lars’ kept him anchored.  He drew on that hate, and found his power increasing, his abilities honed by that anger.  If he couldn’t be there physically, Vader wanted to be there with the Force, to exact what revenge he could on the people who had allowed his mother to die.

He watched on the screen as the Imperial Forces arrived at the Lars farm, and saw as Owen and his wife Beru came up out of the dwelling.

There!  He locked onto Owen’s fear as he saw the Imperial Stormtroopers fan out in front of him.  It was an easy task to then locate Beru Lars as well.  Vader channeled their fear through himself, and then back at them, amplifying their terror.  His anger burned hot as he was filled with the Lars’ fear.  At last the time was upon him, his revenge on them would be complete.

The fear escalated as Captain Manto began to question the Lars’ about the droids, to which they had no ready answers.  Vader felt the sharp spike of pain as one of the Stormtroopers drove his E-11 blaster rifle into Owen’s stomach.  Using the Force, he amplified that pain as well as sending it on to Beru as well.  The Imperial Forces seemed confused as she collapsed to the ground beside her husband, but that barely slowed them down as they began to beat the two moisture farmers, yelling questions about the droids all the while.

After it was apparent that the two broken people in front him knew nothing more, Captain Manto began to fire his blaster, set on low, burning away pieces of the two screaming people.  Having to do this sort of thing disgusted him, but he knew he had to make them suffer, on the orders of the Dark Lord, or he himself would suffer horribly.  Even more horribly than he would have to hurt these people.

Vader amplified and controlled the pain that he sensed, and fed it back at the Lars’ many times over.  He made them suffer more than any human being had suffered before, keeping them conscious and alive through the power of the Dark side of the Force, beyond what any human would be able to withstand.  Vader was lost in a world of anger and pain as he held open the Force conduit between himself and the two suffering people.  Only his own will kept him from being lost in the maelstrom of emotions.

Vader began to turn the pain upon himself as well, in an attempt to strengthen his mastery of the Force.  He wanted to rid himself of this conflict of emotions, to burn away the part of him that was still Anakin Skywalker.  As the hatred flooded through him, he sensed the scream of Anakin Skywalker.

For the first time in many years, Darth Vader actually smiled.  He felt saturated with his rage, and his anger.  He could dimly see the twitching, burning bodies of Owen and Beru Lars on the viewscreen.  The Imperial Forces had backed off, not understanding how the two people could still be alive.  Vader drove one final wave of hatred and pain through the bodies of the dying people, and then severed his connection through the Force.

Vader fell back, exhausted from his efforts in the Force, but also feeling rejuvenated.  The Dark Side coursed through him, feeding him energy like he had never felt before.  Even when he had fought for life so many years ago, he hadn’t felt this type of power, this type of connection to the Dark Side.  He rose from his seat, and paused before the viewscreen, watching the bodies of Owen and Beru Lars as they smoldered on the hot Tatooine ground.  He reached out and flicked off the viewscreen, just missing seeing the young man in the battered brown landspeeder as it pulled up to the moisture farm.  He exited his chambers, and made his way down to the detention level.  He would use this new power, this new resolve on an interrogation of Princess Leia.  He would get the information from her, and find out the location of the hidden Rebel base.  Then there would be no more conflict.  Neither in the galaxy, nor within him.
 

Darth Vader had been too deep in the hate, too deep in the pain, to notice what had really happened as Owen Lars had died.  The scream he had felt wasn’t of Anakin Skywalker dying; instead it was a scream of anguish.  While Vader had opened himself up to Owen Lars’ pain, he had also unwittingly opened himself up to all of Owen Lars.  And as the man was suffering, as he was dying, he was also feeling love.  Deep love for his wife of so many years, Beru.  And love for his family; his father Cliegg, and more so, the love for the person he missed the most, his mother, Shmi.

So that love also fed back into Darth Vader, and gave the part of him that was still Anakin Skywalker more strength, even as the hatred had given Darth Vader more strength.

Anakin Skywalker survived within him.
 
 
 
 

I wrote this after seeing AotC again, and seeing the look that Anakin gives everybody after arriving back home with the body of his mother.  The singular look of hate in that glance to Owen Lars gave me a quick story idea, and I wrote it up.

This is a pretty quick, down and dirty version, I didn’t do much editing other than spelling, so if it seems a bit blocky at times, forgive me.

I hope you enjoyed it.

Please, please, PLEASE feel free to send me an email at indigojade@fanforce.net and let me know what you though of this story. I usually don't let many people read my writing, so any feedback would be really appreciated!!!