The Emergence of Vader
"Fortune,
fame
Mirror vain
Gone insane...
But the memory remains"
-Metallica
The Dark Side has a will of its own, not merely moving pieces in its
eternal war against the Light, but molding them as well, re-shaping
them to its own purposes. In this way, the essence of a promising
sentient can be altered, submerging those traits which the Dark Side
deems not useful, and bringing to the surface those which will further
it's design. Thus are Jedi transformed into Sith, and the shroud of the
Dark Side draped across the galaxy...
The eight Venator Class Star Destroyers dropped out of light speed in
the Ablus system within sight of Ablus I, a planet known for it's heavy
industrial resources. Orbiting the planet, as expected was a fleet of
ships, four Trade Federation Battleships and six Commerce Guild
Destroyers. It was one of the last remaining pockets of resistance
among the former Confederacy of Independent States, forces that had
refused to shut down their droid units when ordered to do so and which
had intended to carry on the fight despite the losses of Count Dooku
and General Grievous.
It was two weeks after the events on Mustafar, and a task force
under Lord Vader had been dispatched by the Emperor after clone
intelligence had reported it, and now they were about to experience the
might of the new Galactic Empire.
"Lord Vader?"
"Yes, Admiral."
"We are moving to engage the enemy fleet and are launching fighters."
"Very well. Ready my ship and inform the squadron commanders I will be
joining the attack," the figure in black said.
"Yes, My Lord, as you wish." The admiral spun on his heels and began to
bark commands down to the crew in the pit.
Darth Vader turned his gaze from out the view screen and began to walk
down the length of the bridge toward the turbolift. It was the one
thing he had in common with Anakin, he was never truly in his
environment unless he was in the cockpit of a starfighter. But as he
made his way to the hangar, his mind was elsewhere.
Vader's mind, of course, not Anakin Skywalker's. Anakin was gone,
having vanished somewhere in that surgical room high above Coruscant
where he'd been fitted with the black armor that Vader now wore
permanently. But he'd begun vanishing long before that as if had been
his destiny to do so. It had started with that moment when his mother
had died in his arms on Tatooine, when the Dark side had overcome him,
offered the power to get revenge. But it had taken control completely
and had not relinquished it's control until the deed was done. Until
the entire village was slain. That was the way of the Dark side, he
discovered even as a Jedi padawan. It brought power beyond what the
Jedi way could offer, but also a touch of madness. Madness was the
usual term people used, particularly when they wanted to separate
themselves from their actions. The question was did he want to separate
himself from his actions?
Certainly not when he'd killed Count Dooku. Oh, he'd felt guilty about
that afterward, just as he had about the Sandpeople, but it was in the
moment when all things truly counted. Five minutes after was a safe
spot, but in the moment, that was when decisions were made, action
taken and consequences brought about. Things in that desert village and
onboard the Invisible Hand had went as he had intended them to.
But the incident in Palpatine's Office, the killing of Mace Windu was
where he felt Anakin leave almost completely. Anakin hadn't really
intended to cut off Mace's hand. As that purple blade came
slicing down at Palpatine, for the briefest of moments, he could
visualize Padme lying there, screaming, "Help me, Anakin" just like she
had in the dream. Just long enough to spur him into action, and that
action lasted only long enough for Palpatine to kill him. Then there'd
been a rush of emotions with Anakin, stronger than he could contain.
Fear and despair mingled until Palpatine called Vader forth. Until
then, he'd had no name, had simply been there to do what must be done
when Anakin could not. Anakin retreated somewhere then, and Vader took
charge once again handling the threat that the Jedi Temple represented.
It was Vader who'd entered the Temple at the head of the columns of
clonetroopers, Vader who'd handled the problem of the younglings in the
Jedi Council chambers, and Anakin submerged himself deeper as things
were far beyond simply out of control. Whereas the Dark side had
briefly filled him at various times in the past, now it refused to let
go. All the killings in the Temple fed it so that it would not
relinquish its hold as it had in the past. Vader had found his purpose,
and the Dark side was strong with him. And Anakin submerged himself
deeper still. The Separatist leaders on Mustafar became the problem,
but Lord Vader dispatched that problem with ease. It seemed then that
Anakin might disappear for good never to return.
But, inexplicably, Padme showed up, and that's where the madness came
in. Or at least, where he thought it came in. Anakin had made one of
his last appearances, reasserting control. He'd wanted Padme to follow
on the path that he and Vader were on, but she refused. She'd attempted
to deceive him, and had brought Obi Wan to kill him. His deepest,
darkest fears were realized when he saw that she had conspired with Obi
Wan against him. His whole purpose for existence became empty as she
retreated from him as if he'd become some sort of monster. She'd looked
at him with fear in her eyes. He'd killed Padme there, and that hadn't
been the plan. Quite the opposite actually. The Force choke he
administered to her in a fit of rage had squeezed the life out of her,
when up until that point, he'd been trying to save her. All the
killing, embracing the Dark side, turning against the Jedi Knights had
all been to save her. But he'd failed, and that's why Anakin had went
away. Because there was no further purpose to be there without Padme.
Maybe he'd gone to join her wherever she was. His last moments were in
front of the Emperor as he struggled to adjust to the new set of armor
that covered him, to the pain from his burns and the chill of the Dark
side which had become so much a part of him. Palpatine had informed
Anakin of Padme's fate, and that's when despair came crashing down on
him powerful enough to drive whatever was left of Anakin away until now
there was only Vader.
There'd been a great emptiness, and Darth Vader had filled it with only
a memory of what Anakin had been like. Almost as if he'd been waiting
to come out long before the Emperor had given him his name. And whereas
people would often look at Anakin Skywalker with disdain or even
disapproval, when they looked at Vader, the fear was evident in their
eyes. They would turn to face him as he approached, having been alerted
by the sound of his respirator. Then their gaze would shift towards him
and upward as he towered over them, their eyes would widen ever so
much, and he could sense the shiver of fear run through them. It was
merely the side effect of much more important fact, that the Empire
needed a warrior and a Dark Lord of the Sith to defend it, make it
secure. To make it strong so that none would ever be able to challenge
it again, and to destroy all opposition without mercy. Yes, Vader had
found a purpose, a purpose that Anakin was not strong enough to
fulfill, if he even existed anymore. That fear was a part of the
greater purpose, and it would help ensure that the Senate and the
member systems of the Empire would not forget their place or where
their loyalties lie.
Vader saw it now as he entered the hangar. The flight crews immediately
looked up at him as he entered, momentarily freezing in their duties,
but being careful not to make eye contact, simply bowing their heads as
he passed. Only because he had to, did the Flight Deck Officer approach
him nervously to report that his heavily modified V Wing had been
prepped and had passed the flight check. He could feel the man's
immense relief as he was able to turn away and make his way back to the
flight control center. It was not quite the same as genuine respect,
but it would certainly do.
He climbed into the V-Wing, engine humming and performed his own quick
check, not ready to trust the flight crew entirely in that
regard. Pulling down the canopy, he gripped the controls, let the
Force flow between him and them until they became one.
"Lord Vader, you are cleared to launch," the voice of the flight
controller came over the comm.
He brought the ship up and off the flight deck through the open doors
into space above the Star Destroyer. Already turbolaser fire began to
be exchanged between the two fleets, but it was the large swarm of
approaching Vulture Droids that drew his attention.
"Velon Squadron stands ready to assist, Lord Vader," came the voice of
a clone squadron commander over the comm.
"Commander, form up on me," Vader said into the comm.
"Yes, Lord Vader," came a familiar clone voice in response.
A nearby squadron of ARC-170s moved up behind him. The vulture droids
were almost on them, and his consciousness seemed almost to fade away
as he felt his senses and reflexes magnified by the Force. His hands
guided the controls as he fired bursts from the laser cannons and made
course corrections blasting a large enough hole in the oncoming swarm
for his squadron to pass through. All around them, the two groups of
starfighters met in a torrent of laser cannon fire and explosions. Even
as he heard the screams of clone pilots, Vader led his squadron through
center of the mass of enemy fighters. Then he and his squadron had
moved beyond the vulture droids and were coming around in a tight turn,
his V-Wing quickly outdistancing the ARCs as they struggled to match
his maneuver. It brought him up behind some of the vulture droids who
were attempting to turn themselves lest they come into range of the
fleet of Star Destroyers moving toward them. Vader's quick maneuver had
caught a pack of them off guard which he proceeded to destroy one by
one, their programming not geared to adjust to a starfighter
pilot of this caliber.
The central computer that guided the droids aboard the Droid
Control Ship attempted to compensate by diverting more and more of the
droids to the target it had designated as R-1, but R-1 refused to be
contained by the swarms of Vulture Droids sent after it, slipping out
of each attempt to contain it. The enemy target performed one maneuver
after another that defied what it had been programmed to accept as
possible for a human pilot and which rendered its database on Republic
starfighter tactics all but useless. And even as the Vulture Droids
made one course correction after another in a vain attempt to entrap
R-1, the other enemy starfighters began to inflict heavy casualties on
the droids forces. Computations in the Droid Central Computer guiding
the Vultures began to suffer errors as missing variables began to
appear thus throwing off more complex adjustments to rapidly shrinking
group of droid starfighters. The Neimodian techs struggled to make
manual adjustments to the computer, even as blue friendly forces
disappeared one by one of their computer monitors. That's when matters
suddenly started to look ominous.
The Star Destroyers had closed the gap with the Separatist capital
ships and began to open fire with their medium and heavy turbolasers,
delivering a pounding to the Commerce Guild destroyers which had been
spread out to protect the Trade Federation ships. The destroyers
returned fire with their own turbolasers, badly overmatched against the
Republic capital ships.. Clearly recognizing that fact, one of the
destroyers broke ranks with the others and began to turn away from the
battle, slipping past a pair of Trade Federation ships in the direction
of the planet.
But even as the opposing capital ships began to fire at each at close
range with the starfighters dodging between them and blasting one
another to bits, the comm sounded inside Vader's cockpit. "Lord Vader,
we are beginning are assault on the Droid Control Ship now. Four squads
of Clone Commandos are moving into position."
"Good work, Commander. I will join you there." Vader broke off from the
battle, leaving the remainder of the Vulture Droids to the clone
pilots, and guiding the V-Wing just above the hull of Commerce Guild
ship which attempted in vain to catch him in the sights of their laser
cannons. But he ignored stream of fire coming from it, brought the ship
into a dive underneath a Trade Federation battleship and then came into
view of the Droid Control Ship. Already he could see four Theta class
shuttles moving in on it, dodging a storm of laser cannon fire directed
a them. The shields covering the landing bay went down as a sliced code
was sent to the Droid Control Ship by the ARC troopers aboard the
shuttles. As he cleared the battleship, Vader could see that their
entrance into the landing bay was met by the flashes of droid blasters.
He increased the throttle on the starfighter bringing it up and into
the landing bay where the ARC troopers had already engaged the battle
droids and were currently pinned down by a pair of droidekas positioned
near an exit.
Quickly he slipped the harness off, opened the canopy and jumped out
the starfighter, lightsaber activated. For the briefest of instants he
caught himself turning and looking back to tell R-2 to stay with the
ship, but of course the astromech was not there. In its place was a
bland model lacking any personality and to which he had no connection.
Odd that he should be thinking of R-2, but of course, Obi Wan had taken
even that from him. Turning his attention back to the battle, he found
that he had drawn the attention of several battle droids who were now
firing in his direction, their shots hitting the V-Wing behind him. So
raising his blade, he charged them, swiftly closing the gap between
them. Once he was amongst them, droid parts began to fly in all
directions as his blade cut sliced cleanly through one droid after
another, until he was standing amongst a pile of them. How useful Force
lightning would have been against the destroyer droids which had by
then cut down half the ARC troopers, he thought to himself. It was
denied to him on account of his mechanical arms. But a strong Force
push served just as well, driving the two droidekas into a power
conduit nearby, shorting out their ray shields first then the droids
themselves.
One of the troopers approached him, "Lord Vader, what is your command?"
"Wait here, Commander," he told them. "Have your men secure the hangar
so what we have an exit when I return."
"You do not want us to accompany you then, My Lord?" The puzzlement was
obvious in the trooper's tone.
"You will remain here. I will handle these traitors personally." And
with that, the large figure's black cape swirled about him as he turned
and walked toward the exit to the hangar.
"Of course, My Lord. It will be done," the trooper replied to Vader's
back and then began issuing orders to his remaining troopers.
Vader entered a long corridor, which as he glanced around him at
semi-familiar surroundings, brought back flashes from recent
memory of his not so distant visit aboard a ship called the Invisible
Hand. The interior of the Droid Control Ship bore a resemblance to that
of General Grievous' flagship, though he could not sense the presence
of Count Dooku as he had there. But nor could he sense the presence of
Obi Wan which, with great irritation, he found himself attempting to do
from time to time. It was a sensation that would not leave. Again and
again he found himself expecting to see his old master appearing from
around a corner and having to remind himself that Obi Wan was the enemy
now. That he'd twisted Padme's mind against him and then left him to
die next to a river of fire. He reminded himself that Palpatine had
been right about the Jedi all along, that they had been using him, and
when he refused to be their pawn, they'd turned on him. They'd expected
Anakin to simply allow Padme to die, and failing at that, had brought
about her death through their machinations.
The Dark Side had taken a tragic victim of the Jedi and transformed him
into something much greater. Vader came forth in Anakin's great time of
need, driven by a new purpose and possessing a power greater than that
which he could have conceived of. A power he had only begun to tap
under Palpatine's guidance. The Force flowed through him like never
before, guiding his lightsaber in combat and responding to his will
with a new urgency. Most importantly, the Dark Side demanded only that
one give in to their passions and not practice the denial that the Jedi
Order dictated. Such denial of their emotions had weakened them until
now they were no more. Like the purge at the Jedi Temple and on
Mustafar, this task would serve to increase his power which and was
something he needed to do alone.
Which was why, the Neimodian Commander, Tol Manos, watched the monitors
with increasing apprehension quickly transforming into a panic that
rippled down his spine in waves as the figure in black swept down the
corridors, destroying super battle droids and droidekas alike with an
almost ridiculous lack of effort. Closer and closer to the bridge the
figure drew, and no amount of droids sent at it seemed to stop it, only
slowing it when a large enough concentration was present. But time and
time again that red blade cut them to pieces or an invisible power
smashed them into the bulkheads. The ray shields they erected
around him seemed to fizzle out shortly afterward as pieces of conduit
and even entire sections of wall ripped free, as if that dark figure
could sense where the power lines ran behind sheets of metal that made
up the corridor walls and ceilings. But then, most alarmingly, it
struck a vital point in the network, and the security cams went dead,
as did communications in that section. And that section was very close
to the main bridge.
"I want to know what's going on there," Manos commanded one of his
senior officer. But even as he spoke the words, he felt a lump in his
throat, and wasn't entirely sure he did want to know. He'd heard of the
massacre on Mustafar, and now he found his breathing became labored.
"Sir, communications have been cut in that section," a Neimodian
sitting at a console replied.
"I want droidekas up here at once," he ordered, "Prepare my
shuttle for immediate departure," he yelled at the officer.
"But Sir," the officer protested, "the blast doors have been sealed. In
order to reach the hangar, we will have to open the blast doors. If we
open them, it will leave us vulnerable to...the intruder."
Manos began to formulate a reply intended to remind his junior officer
of how the chain of command worked, when a strange noise could be heard
behind the doors leading to the bridge. All hands froze what they were
doing to turn their attention in that direction, and all eyes came to
rest squarely on the doors. After a moment, the center of the doors
could be seen beginning to glow orange under the apparent application
of extreme heat to it. In the next instant, the middle section turned
molten and fell to the floor. And the doors opened to reveal the tall
figure in black armor and helmet, lightsaber activated.
In the general panic that ensued next, Darth Vader felt the Force
swirling about him, while the doors that the Neimodian officers and
techs opened from the bridge to escape, closed just as quickly under
his will. He almost didn't hear their protests and screams as they fell
under his blade one by one, the Force moving more easily for him with
each successful strike. As the last Neimodian fell to the floor
lifeless, it was almost numbing the sheer magnitude of the Force
flowing through him. A gift of the Dark side which not only approved of
such ruthlessness, but demanded it. It was a moment he savored in
silence, only vaguely aware of the battle still raging outside the view
screen where the last of the Trade Federation battleships
withered under the combined assault of the Republic Star Destroyers
until it was shattered in a series of explosions along the
circumference of its ring.
"Lord Vader?" the voice of the ARC trooper commander came over his
comlink. "Do you require assistance?"
Keying it, he spoke into it absent-mindedly. "No, Commander. Prepare
for departure. The Trade Federation commanders have been dealt with. I
will be there shortly."
"Yes, my Lord."
He returned the comlink to his belt and, with a final glance around the
bridge, turned and began his walk back to the hangar...