Empire and Rebellion

by Snake Staff

First published 14th of February, 2015

As the Galactic Empire extends its reach across the galaxy, the ponies must choose their side.

The brutal Clone Wars have at last come to an end. The Separatists are no more, and from the ashes of the Galactic Republic, the Galactic Empire has emerged. Now, the ponies of Equestria must choose their path through a dark and terrible time.

TV Tropes page.

Cover art by Mix-up over at his his deviantart.

Prologue: An Empire Rises

It had been a mere four months since the apocalyptic invasion of the Separatist Droid Army, but everything had changed for the land of Equestria.

Princess Twilight Sparkle sat in her new chambers, staring out at the full moon rising gently over the bustling city outside. As it always did in those moments that she found herself idle these days, the lavender alicorn’s mind began to drift to what had happened to her beloved nation. It was hard to believe, even now, that this wasn’t all some terrible nightmare conjured by a malicious demon. But it was no dream. Everything since the day General Grievous had arrived in her backyard had been all too real.

The droid army had devastated Equestria in its vengeful rampage, leaving many hundreds of thousands of ponies dead, and even more left homeless and desolate. Entire cities had been overrun and their inhabitants pitilessly executed. To make matters worse, their opening orbital bombardment had sparked catastrophic fires that had raged throughout the nation’s grasslands, forests, and villages alike with nopony available to control them. Even after the Galactic Republic’s intervention had managed to turn the tide against the mechanical army, these firestorms had continued to spread for days afterwards. Pegasi weather teams and Republic firefighting crews had managed to contain the many blazes with great effort, but even then much of the nation’s carefully-tended natural environment had been razed to the ground. The forested heartlands in particular had been devastated, with such famous sites as the Everfree Forest simply wiped out of existence. Many priceless works of natural art were gone forever, never to be enjoyed by future generations.

But lost beauty was hardly the country’s greatest concern. Such was the number of dead that even now nopony was entirely sure exactly how many had been lost, the preservation of census records having been a very low priority in the immediate aftermath. Many of those that had survived had done so by fleeing into the wilds, leaving their homes behind to be burned by droids. Now these ponies needed homes and food and productive work, none of which Equestria now had in great abundance. Housing prices in those few cities that had endured mostly intact soared to almost unimaginable levels. In a truly sickening display, more than one cruel or greedy or simply desperate pony had taken advantage of homeless refugees, stripping them of what little they had before abandoning them, counting on the general breakdown of the government to let them slip away into the faceless masses. Even sadder was the fact that this worked more often than not, what was left of the state apparatus having little time left to pursue petty con artists, and no jails to place them in any way.

It was the Galactic Republic that had come to the rescue once again, their men descending on the ashen plains of Equestria to set up prefabricated refugee camps. These were neither especially comfortable nor designed with ponies in mind, but they represented food and some manner of shelter for millions, which was far better than nothing at all. The Clone Wars had given the Republic considerable experience in accommodating refugees on war-torn planets, and it was thanks to them that many more equines had not perished alone and starving in the ruined wilds.

Just because some god seemed to hate them, so many ponies had been slain that the civil order in some of the attacked cities had collapsed completely even after their rescue. Looting, arson, riots, and even murder of some of the remaining civil servants had broken out in numerous spots throughout the country. The Royal Guard, reduced to a pale shadow of its former self by the fighting, had not been able to effectively intervene in the many trouble sites that had popped up across the land. Even direct appeals for calm from those princesses capable of standing long enough to deliver them had not been enough on more than one occasion. Ponies were angry, hungry, and scared – a dangerous combination.

It was then that Equestria’s rulers had, once again, been forced to turn to the Republic for help. In effect, they had invited foreign troops to occupy their own land in a bid to restore order. Though the white-armored clone troopers had ultimately done the job, and efficiently at that, it had added substantial fuel to the whispers that the alicorns were at best no longer fit to rule, at worst active collaborators in the alien invasion of the planet. Such beliefs would have been unthinkable before the invasion, but now many ponies were questioning the old order, wondering if perhaps different leadership might have been able to steer Equestria away from the catastrophe that had engulfed it.

All of this and more had been dumped in Twilight’s inexperienced lap. Previously she had felt underused in her royal capacity, almost redundant when compared to the other three alicorns and her brother. Now she knew to be careful what she wished for – with Celestia, Luna, and Shining all wounded in battle and Cadence spending three weeks in a Star Destroyer recovering from her own, far more serious injuries, she had been the most active authority figure in the nation for some weeks. It had been a nightmarish hellstorm of frantic activity and momentous decisions that she had felt thoroughly unqualified to make. It was she, not Celestia or Luna or anypony else, who had made the judgment call to abandon the ruins of Canterlot. It was she who had opted to move the center of government to Los Pegasus, the largest and wealthiest city to remain mostly intact. And it was she who had sent out the call for the Elements of Harmony to officially join the Royal Army.

Effectively forcing her inexperienced friends into the role of a military auxiliary was not something Twilight had done lightly. But what else was she to have done? With the military all but wiped out, they needed every weapon they could get in their arsenal, for the Separatists might return at any time. Their miserable failure to acquire the chest containing the Rainbow Power in the midst of the burning Everfree had proven to the alicorn’s mind that more formal provisions for its use had to be made. Once the fires had burnt themselves out, the chest had been removed from its resting place with the Tree of Harmony and transferred to Los Pegasus under heavy guard. It had to be ready next time. They could not afford to be caught with their collective pants down once again.

Needless to say, this heavy imposition on friends that had already lost their homes and many ponies dear to them had not been particularly appreciated. Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Applejack, and Pinkie Pie had seen their town burned to the ground, and all save Rarity had lost family members from elsewhere in the country. Discord’s apparent death had been a further punch to Fluttershy’s gut, and they had all argued fiercely for their right to spread out through the ruined country to seek their remaining loved ones as well as properly deal with the dead. Twilight, though sympathetic, had denied them. She reasoned that if the Elements were spread out when a second attack came, the rest of the nation would be destroyed. The Rainbow Power might make all the difference – its integrity could not be risked. The screaming matches had worn out more than one throat, but in the end her friends had agreed provided that she make special arrangements for government assets to seek out their families and bring them to the nation’s new capital. Twilight had complied as best she could.

To add to the lavender alicorn’s already immense burden, her own family had been the victim of great tragedy. Her big brother had lost his horn in the fight against General Grievous, leaving him effectively crippled for life. Their parents, in addition to their aunt and uncle as well as their children, had been among the dead littering the streets of Canterlot. Twilight had been so consumed with her duties as princess that she had not even had the time to attend their funeral, for which she felt immensely guilty.

When the other royalty had been able to resume their roles in governing Equestria, it was very clear that what they had been through had left its mark. Princess Celestia, on the surface, had seemed least effected. Her physical body shed its injuries as a snake sheds its old skin, and she walked among ponies as a towering symbol of hope and living demigoddess once more. Her voice was gentle yet commanding, her posture firm, and her eyes alight with determination. To most, she had seemed to pass through the fires of war relatively unscathed. Twilight, from her privileged viewpoint and deep personal knowledge of her teacher’s behavior, could tell that they were wrong. It was when Celestia was interacting with the off-worlders that she saw the differences: downcast eyes here, a quiet tone of voice there, bows a little too deep to be entirely in the realm of pure politeness – all subtle changes, but they were there. The solar alicorn was obviously deeply frightened of the outsiders and what they could do, and extremely anxious about offending them in any way. It was a completely understandable viewpoint given what had happened, but the idea that even her seemingly-irrepressible mentor was vulnerable to such base emotions was one Twilight Sparkle found deeply disturbing.

Princess Luna, ever the night to her sister’s day, had changed in almost the opposite manner. Whereas before she had been learning to reach out to and connect to other ponies of the modern era, now she had become something of a recluse. She said little unless directly spoken to, and even then her answers were most often short and perfunctory. When not attempting to manage Equestria, she spent almost all her time in her own study, her nose in various books and scrolls of often ancient or dubious nature. She had even borrowed several books on magic and the nature of a unicorn’s horn from Twilight’s much-reduced collection. When interrupted, she acted sullen and irritable. It was understandable: while the dark alicorn still wielded the political power of a princess, with her horn’s removal her vast magical power had simply dissolved away into nothing. She could not lift so much as a teaspoon in her current state, much less the moon, so to her infinite chagrin her sister had had to retake that duty. She was frustrated and desperate for some miracle cure, and Twilight pitied her for it.

Her brother, Prince Shining Armor, had likewise suffered the loss of his horn to the monstrous cyborg general. Contrary to Luna’s approach, once he was able Shining had thrown himself back into the task of governing with insane, almost inhuman vigor. The unicorn clearly blamed himself for both the fall of Canterlot and the crippling of Princess Luna and simultaneously for not being with his wife in the north. In his mind, the defense of both Equestria and the Crystal Empire was ultimately his responsibility. Twilight’s brother had spent the time since his recovery trying to be everywhere, do everything, and especially rebuild the military along far more exacting standards than before. One of his first orders of business had been to acquire a not-insubstantial amount of outdated but serviceable blaster equipment from Republic surplus and immediately set about retraining old veterans and new soldiers alike in its use. To the unicorn, he had failed grievously and the only atonement that could be made was to run himself ragged until he dropped of exhaustion in order to protect the nation.

And then there was Princess Cadence, who in many respects had gotten the worst of it. Cut off from Equestria proper and Shining Armor during the initial bombardments, the pink alicorn had bravely stayed to fight against the droid army that had moved against the Crystal Empire. With the freezing winter weather preventing the massive fires that had been seen in the south from taking hold, large numbers of the civilian population had managed to use the time offered to flee into the wilderness. Nonetheless, the Crystal Guard was in the end routed, and the city burned. Princess Cadence herself had been virtually shot to pieces and then buried under a pile of her own dead subjects. She had endured many long, freezing hours under the morbid shelter, her agonizing wounds preventing even the mercy of unconsciousness. By the time Republic soldiers had stumbled on the alicorn, she was half-dead and thoroughly traumatized by the whole experience. Her body had been healed in a bacta tank onboard a Star Destroyer, but her mental state had never been able to recover. Twilight’s sister-in-law had in effect become a weak shell of the mare she had once been. While Cadence had always been a devoted and loving wife, she now was virtually never seen outside her chambers without her husband and clung to him in the presence of any aliens like a terrified filly to her father’s leg. In the presence of anypony she did know well and trust deeply, her eyes were downcast, her voice weak, and her demeanor fearful and meek.

With both its rulers incapacitated and its primary city burned to the ground and trampled beneath droid heels, the Crystal Empire had had little choice but to dissolve its existence as an independent state. Its refugee population had come south to Equestria, further swelling the Republic’s already-overstretched camps. From elsewhere around the planet, the news was equally if not more grim. Zebrica’s fragile unity had collapsed following the destruction of its entire capital city in random Separatist bombardment, with dozens of smaller tribal and warlord states vying with each other in often brutal warfare. Canida, home of the Diamond Dogs, had lost a third of its population to devastating earthquakes triggered by orbital bombardment, with starvation threatening many who remained. The Griffon Empire had been shattered by the death of its emperor and much of his court, several would-be heirs competing with one another to claim the throne. Everywhere the news was bad and sapients were dying, but Twilight couldn’t even begin to think about lending aid – there was far too much to do at home. As to the Republic, they seemed to be treating the Equestrians as the de-facto leaders of the planet and concentrating most of their own efforts on them.

To be perfectly frank, while she saw that policy as enormously unfair, Twilight wasn’t about to try and persuade the Galactic Republic to give her own subjects less. If she did, she would most likely have been tarred and feathered, princess or not. Too many ponies were already homeless and dependent on charity to eat for any ideals about fairness to take precedence.

As Twilight looked out at the stars, feeling overstretched, sad, guilty, and somewhat depressed all at once, she started to wonder if-

“Princess Twilight Sparkle?” a familiar voice interrupted her train of thought.

The lavender alicorn turned her head from the window of her borrowed room, looking back across the way to where another pony had slipped part of the way into the door.

“Princess Luna,” she acknowledged the elder alicorn.

Princess Luna’s face was, as it often had been since the invasion, heavy and lined with repressed irritation. Her starry mane was slowly but surely losing its ethereal state, no longer seeming to blow in a breeze only it could feel. Atop the ruined stub on her forehead was an intricately-crafted ornamental horn made of exquisitely polished enchanted silver. Shimmering sapphires dangled from short chains of the same material, adding further accent to the decoration concealing the princess’ crippling injury. Some had attacked the expensive ornamental horn as waste in these times of strife – though never to Luna’s face, of course.

“Come, young princess,” Luna beckoned with a wave of her hoof. “There is something that we think that thou shouldst see.”

With a tired sigh, Twilight roused herself from the sofa on which she sat and stretched her limbs until they popped. She had already spent her entire day, since the wee hours of the morning, in the business of the state, but if Princess Luna had found something important enough to come see her in person, she supposed it must be vital.

Suppressing a yawn, Twilight followed the dark princess of the night out the door and through the long hallways of the villa where the royalty now stayed. Once a large but somewhat-neglected vacation home gifted to Celestia, it had effectively become the new center of administration following the move of capital to Los Pegasus. As such, their new Republic friends had gifted it with all manner of their technological marvels in a show of goodwill. The large room where Luna led Twilight hosted one such device, an enormous projecting table that the aliens had identified as a holonet transceiver.

When she entered the room, Twilight found Celestia, Cadence, and Shining already gathered ‘round the transceiver, staring up an enormous hologram of a hooded man. With a start, Twilight recognized the Republic’s Supreme Chancellor Palpatine, though he looked… different than previous images she had seen. He now appeared far less handsome and distinguished-looking, for instance. He was speaking to what appeared to be the full Republic Senate, and Twilight listened in.

“…In order to ensure our security and continuing stability, the Republic will be reorganized into the first!” his voice suddenly boomed out. “Galactic! EMPIRE!”

The Senate erupted into applause.

“For a safe and securer society!”

The applause in the background became truly thunderous in scale. Palpatine raised both crimson-robed arms high into the air, and all around him Senators and their aides were cheering wildly. Many got to their feet, the better to applaud the Republic’s leader.

For reasons she did not entirely understand, Twilight got a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.

1: A New Mission

Three years had passed since the day that the Galactic Empire had been formed.

For Princess Luna, now seated behind a desk in her ill-lit study, those three years had been some of the worst in her long life. Even including the years she had spent trapped on the moon with a demon in her head. At least then she’d had her magic. At least then she’d not had to watch her nation and planet alike stolen from her with her own eyes. At least then she’d had hope.

It had begun with the rather unexpected appointment of her sister to the position of Imperial Governor of Equus. There had been no warning, no grand ceremony – just the holographic form of one of the new Imperial Moffs informing them that the solar alicorn was now considered responsible for all goings-on on their planet. As most of the planet was not and had never been Equestrian territory, not to mention considerable portions of it lacked a discernible government at all in the wake of Separatist bombardments, this had been somewhat shocking. Asked how she was supposed to govern an entire planet given that her own nation was in shambles, the man had simply answered “How do you think?”

A small detachment of the newly-reorganized Imperial Army had descended on the planet and, in a quick and thoroughly one-sided campaign, smashed any force that refused to give its allegiance to the Galactic Empire and answer to the planet’s new leader. For all that Celestia had protested that she didn’t want to rule the planet, and to please not militarily attack other lands, she had been summarily ignored. Apparently her newfound authority didn’t extend to any off-world Imperial forces. Once they had crushed any open dissenters, the Imperials had directed all complaints to the new Imperial Governor and mostly withdrawn, informing Celestia on their way out that aid levels would from then on depend on her performance as their representative.

It was, Luna reflected bitterly, a clever strategy. They had effectively coopted the only alicorn left capable of moving the sun or moon into their service, and simultaneously tarred all Equestria with the brush of collaborator in the collective mind of the common foreigner. If Celestia were to defy them, they would not need an army to crush her – simply cut off their shipments of food and technology and watch Equestria die a slow death. And now that the rest of the world associated them with Imperial invasion, they could not expect any help from them. On the contrary, the most likely result would be a retaliatory invasion. Celestia was, for the sake of her own people’s survival, essentially forced into playing the role of enforcer of Imperial law. Her power over the celestial bodies and the fact that the reformed Equestrian Army was most technologically-advanced military on the planet made her the ideal choice. For the bargain price of a handful of small ships in orbit, the Galactic Empire had secured the planet for itself.

And what had Princess Luna been able to do about any of it?

Nothing.

The dark alicorn gritted her teeth, seething as she reflected yet again on her own infuriating helplessness. The blackmail, the total disregard for the sovereignty of nations, and even the killing Luna might have been able to endure with some degree of stoicism. But the sheer indignity of being forced to sit by powerlessly as it had happened was simply a step too far. She ground her teeth for what might have been the millionth time as she again sought some sort of answer, some solution to this puzzle that would give the planet back its freedom. But there was none. What was she to do? She had no magic, no weapon that could stand against a force as large as she now understood the Galactic Empire to be. Hundreds of thousands of worlds answered to Emperor Palpatine, as did armies and ships beyond counting. Luna could play her appointed role as little more than a figurehead, or else she could try some futile act of resistance and die pointlessly, as all the others who had attempted to do so had. Perhaps she might even call down some collective punishment on her nation’s head.

Neither was escape a serious option. The Empire controlled all of the very limited space traffic to and from Equus, which was in any case so far from the established routes and systems that few were interested in coming in the first place. Even the rather radical idea of fleeing to another dimension was out, as Starswirl’s mirror was one of the many priceless magical artifacts that had been destroyed in the razing of the Crystal Empire. Unable to fight, unable to flee, Luna’s only option was to stew in her own miserable uselessness.

Once again, Luna cursed bitterly the day General Grievous had landed in the Everfree. Equestria had escaped genocide at his hands only to succumb to the miserable fates of slavery and collaboration at the Empire’s. She had heard over the holonet that he was dead by some means that the Empire did not disclose. Luna herself did not believe the durable cyborg would be struck down so easily, but if he was indeed slain she hoped it had been painful.

For years Luna had searched for some means to restore her power, and for years she had come up empty. Nothing in any of the recorded lore of ponykind suggested anything about how one could recover from a ruined horn, though many had tried. There were no suggestions on how one might perform magic without it. It was simply taken as a given that a pony that lost his horn was crippled for life. This might be acceptable for mortal ponies, but Luna was an alicorn and would not succumb to old age. She did not intend to spend the remainder of her potentially endless life as a miserable, helpless wretch in the eternal shadow of her older sister.

Even more frustrating was the lack of clarity on what precisely had happened in Canterlot’s throne room on that fateful day. Luna had had her horn removed via lightsaber and the monstrous cyborg had been on the verge of executing her when she had somehow found the strength to call on magic and send him plummeting off Canterlot’s cliffs. But she had no idea how it had been accomplished or even specific memories of what happened, just a vague haze of pain followed by an intense flash of rage and hatred. She had considered the possibility that she had somehow manipulated dark magic, but even her secret experiments into it had proven to be failures – nothing she did, chanted, or willed seemed to make her ruined horn function. She was little more than a powerless charity princess, unable to even muster the magic to set her mane to flowing once more.

It was deeply humiliating.

Feeling reminiscent, Luna slid open a drawer on her hoofcarved wooden desk and removed a small cherrywood box she kept inside. Delicately, she opened the box to expose its velvet-lined interior and the two objects nestled within. The first was the bronze-bladed lightsaber she had taken from General Grievous all those years ago. After the Battle of Canterlot, she had returned to the site of the former throne room, drawn by an unknown pull. The exotic weapon was the first thing she had found there. The second, and the other occupant of the box, was the severed remains of her once-beautiful horn. For many long minutes, Luna simply stared wistfully at the beautiful piece that had once been a part of her.

At last, she closed the box with a sigh, returning it to her desk. There was more productive business to be done.

The only part of the whole situation that could even vaguely be defined as tolerable was that the Empire did not seem to have taken a great deal of interest in her planet. So long as allegiance was offered, taxes paid, and no open revolt was in progress, they seemed content to leave the small Unknown Regions backwater mostly alone, their military’s focus on hunting down former Separatists and securing the war-ravaged Outer Rim. Besides a bare hooful of odd-looking scientists who had insisted on studying her sister’s movements of the celestial bodies and a few hundred technicians and supply officers to maintain refugee housing, there were almost no alien boots on the ground. It was somewhat odd, but Luna was hardly about to complain that the Galactic Empire saw better uses for its time than further dominating her people.

As she sat in her dim study at the wee hours of the night, little did Princess Luna know that all of that was about to change.

Many thousands of light-years from the unfortunate planet of Equus, aboard the Victory-class Star Destroyer Iron Fist, Imperial Inquisitor Indra'Ciasuera'Nethelan, better known simply as Inquisitor Cia, was on one knee. The blue-skinned, red-eyed Chiss female waited patiently in her meditation chamber, her head bowed low with her black hair bound tightly to minimize distractions. She was expecting a transmition soon.

At long last, the holoprojector before the alien woman flickered to life, displaying a life-size image of a towering black cyborg with his arms folded across his chest. He stared down at the slightly-quivering Chiss, who dared not look back up at the dark lord without his permission. His loud breathing echoed throughout the confined space for some time before he spoke.

“Inquisitor Cia,” he said.

“Lord Vader,” she answered, eyes to the floor. “How may I serve you?”

“The Jedi Order is all but eliminated,” Vader said. “The galaxy bows to its rightful rulers. And yet the Emperor forsees that new threats may yet rise up against him. There are those who yet may wield the Force against the Empire.”

Well, of course. If there were no such foes to be eliminated, the Inquisitorius – a group of dark siders pledged to the Emperor to root out and destroy the last of the Jedi – would not exist. The Chiss knew someone as highly-placed as Vader would not have made a personal transmission if he did not have something specific he wished accomplished.

“What is to be done, my lord?” Cia asked him.

“The Empire will require more Inquisitors in the days ahead,” he answered. “Many more. It is the Emperor’s will that you should help to bring this about.”

“As the Emperor wills.”

“You are free to choose any candidates that you think worthy, Inquisitor, but remember: my Master is expecting results. Do not disappoint him.”

Cia’s bow deepened. “I will not fail you, Lord Vader.”

“See to it that you do not.”

And then the hologram was gone.

The Chiss woman rose silently to her feet after several seconds, considering the cyborg’s command. More Inquisitors? She would need Force-sensitives for that, and a good supply of them. The Empire had many amateurs and cultists in custody across the galaxy, and the ranks of those she would scour first, but what if there weren’t enough to satisfy? Cia pondered for a short time before recalling some classified data she had been granted access to, about a very peculiar planet in the depths of the Unknown Regions…

The Inquisitor turned and left her chambers at a brisk pace, heading for the bridge. She knew just what to do.

2: A New Recruit

The sun outside the window was shining brightly on Los Pegasus, bathing the desert city in gentle morning light. Birds were chirping, bees were buzzing, and the greatly-enlarged population of Equestria’s new capital was just recovering from its still-wild nightlife. Ponies were crawling out of bed and out the door to early work, or perhaps simply taking a light jog to start the day. Overhead, teams of pegasi were already in the midst of setting up a light cloud cover that would stave off the worst of the afternoon heat when it came. Throughout the city, millions of ponies of every type were on the move.

Princess Luna could see all of this from her window, but chose to ignore it. Hustle and bustle had never exactly been her forte at the best of times, and now was not that. Los Pegasus had a much larger population than Canterlot, not suffering from the limitations of being built on an outcropping of a mountain side. Consequently, the dark alicorn found that the sheer number of petitioners who now personally came to see her each day had grown tremendously, leaving her feeling somewhat overwhelmed by it all.

Luna sat behind a desk in the office she used for an improvised throne room, this city having no proper castle and no budget to build one. It was a comfortable seat featuring numerous automated amenities, gifted to her by the Empire when it had constructed the large grey building that now served as the focal point of Imperial operations of Equus: the Imperial Hub, as it was known locally. The night princes liked neither the look nor the design of this place, it obviously having been built more with humans in mind than ponies. The villa where the royalty continued to live and where her study was based was much more aesthetically pleasing. Nonetheless, Luna had to admit that the Imperial hub was very useful, receiving transmitions and collecting data from across the planet via a network of orbiting satellites. It enabled instantaneous holographic communication to a number of sites on both on Equus and in orbit, easily trumping the old courier system or even magical dragonfire. Further, it contained a large set of databanks full of information on the wider galaxy – from an Imperial perspective, of course.

The holoprojector built into the alicorn’s shining metallic desk was active, showing an image of an earth pony in Equestrian Army armor. Far superior to the older models that had been forged from metal and left large gaps, this new plating was grey-colored plasteel plates and a rubbery bodyglove underneath. The pony’s rank insignia was that of a lieutenant, and his salute was crisp and sharp.

“Ma’am,” he was saying. “Our base has been repeatedly besieged by mobs of angry civilians. We are unable to reach the designated supply drop points. Our supply officer reports that our food stores will last another week. And just last night another of our men was ambushed by locals while on patrol and badly beaten. Three of his legs are broken, along with five ribs and a wing. One of his eyes has been rendered nonfunctional. Requesting medical evacuation.”

“Granted,” Luna said. “We will signal for a medical shuttle to descend on thy location forthwith.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” he sounded slightly relieved. “What are we to do about the greater situation, though? The locals don’t want us here, and they aren’t showing any signs of calming down,” he looked behind him to something outside of his holocam’s view. “There’s a crowd growing outside, and I don’t like it. Recipe for a flash mob.”

“Do not fire on civilians under any circumstances but those of life and death,” Luna commanded him.

“Acknowledged, ma’am, but… what do we do?”

Luna gritted her teeth. It was a cruel dilemma. On the one hoof, if she gave the order to pursue a more aggressive policy against the griffons that now protested foreign troops in their city, innocents would die for certain and the populace would likely as not only become more enflamed against them. On the other, if she ordered a withdrawal, the griffons might take it the wrong way and begin a large-scale revolt. If that happened, it would no doubt attract the attention of military forces with far fewer qualms about killing civilians, and her own people would suffer for the loss of the Empire’s aid.

And it wasn’t as though the alicorn had wanted to station troops in foreign lands in the first place! Foreign countries should maintain their own armies and handle their own affairs. The soldiers of Equestrian Army belonged at home, either guarding the nation or demobilized and helping the slow reconstruction. They did not exist to collect tribute for the Galactic Empire!

But if they didn’t, then the quotas would either have to be met entirely by Equestria itself – which it could not possibly accomplish with its ravaged infrastructure – or else they would suffer the retribution of the aliens. And judging from the Imperial Army’s own after-action-reports on the brief campaigns elsewhere in the world, they would not be any more merciful than the Separatists had been. So it was that the rebuilt armed might of Equestria was spread out to ensure that they were able to pay the Empire on time for the “privilege” of membership and the “protection” they were provided. With the dissolution of the Confederacy of Independent Systems and the Imperial subjugation of most of the known galaxy, the latter was little more than a cruel joke at their expense.

At last, Luna sighed. “Prepare all troops in the city for a general withdrawal,” she commanded. “We are not going to shoot down civilians for the Empire’s sake.”

The officer saluted. “Yes ma’am.”

Luna nodded wearily. “Dismissed.”

The hologram faded away, leaving the miserable-looking dark alicorn alone in her officer once more. She sighed again, wondering if she had done the right thing. For now what was she to do? The goods and precious metals that would have been collected to deliver to the Empire would have to come from somewhere, or else. They would have to be found. Elsewise, they all would suffer.

It was as Luna was beginning to conduct a review of the planet’s finances of a custom-made datapad just for her own hooves that her desk holoprojector lit up once more. This time, it showed an image of a middle-aged human male – Colonel Ferrus of the Imperial Army, the leading off-world military officer on the planet. He was, as far as they went, not so bad, being mostly professional and leaving the running of the planet to its natives.

“Princess Luna,” he said politely in his heavy Core Worlds accent. “I hate to interrupt, but a Star Destroyer has made translation from hyperspace and is demanding to speak to the planetary leadership immediately.”

“Then wouldst that not be mine sister?” Luna replied with an undertone of bitterness.

“It would, if Governor Celestia were not presently engaged elsewhere,” he said. “As she is presently occupied, it falls to you as her deputy to answer.”

“Then put them through, Colonel,” she answered. “And let us see what they want.”

The hologram of the uniformed human flickered and died away. Moments later, another figure took his place. Surprisingly, it was not that of a human, though it was humanoid. Clearly female, it was dressed in a black tunic, trousers, and jackboots, with some armor plates bearing the Empire’s insignia over her shoulders and chest. Luna vaguely recognized the figure from its blue skin and red eyes as belonging to a species the Imperial archives named as the Chiss. They were unknown and reclusive inhabitants of the Unknown Regions, and not widely associated with the human-dominated Empire. Luna wondered briefly what had drawn this one into Imperial service.

“You are Governor Celestia?” the Chiss asked immediately.

“Nay, we are her sister, Princess Luna of Equestria,” she answered.

The woman’s brow creased slightly. “Go and get her then,” she ordered, waving a hand. “I don’t deal with lackeys.”

“We are no lackey!” Luna snapped angrily. “We are every bit our sister’s equal and thou shalt deal with us!”

The Chiss paused, raising an eyebrow and considering. At last, she nodded.

“Very well. I am Inquisitor Cia of the Galactic Empire. In the name of state security I demand that you assemble your most talented magicians for immediate inspection.”

“What?” Luna’s mental alarm bells were going off. Inquisitor? She didn’t know much about them – not high-ranking enough – but what she did didn’t bode well.

“You heard me,” the Inquisitor replied. “I will be down in one hour. I expect to be greeted properly.”

The hologram vanished. Luna gritted her teeth.

Precisely one hour later, a Lambda-class shuttle, escorted by no less than six TIE fighters soared down through the planetary atmosphere of Equus. The twin ion engines for which the fighters were named were loud enough to be heard over even the hustle and bustle of the big city as the shuttle touched down on the landing pad of the planet’s small spaceport, the fighters continuing to circle high overhead.

As per the Inquisitor’s instructions, Princess Luna was there to meet the Imperial official in person. As always, it galled her to be on call like a dog on a leash, but then what didn’t these days? She simply had to grimace and bear it as the shuttle’s ramp began to open. Around her, soldiers of the Equestrian Army snapped to a salute in perfect parade-ground style. Down the shuttle’s landing ramp filed out twenty white-armored Stormtroopers in perfect unison, snapping to attention at the side and waiting.

The blue-skinned woman Luna had seen in the hologram walked rather briskly down the landing ramp, hands folded behind her back, polished jackboots barely making a sound as she descended. Without noticeable irises or pupils, it was difficult to tell where her luminescent red eyes were looking, but she did not turn her head in the slightest. The expression on her face, to the extent that there was one, suggested mild distaste. What Luna recognized as a curved-hilted lightsaber hung from a utility belt on her waist, instantly bringing to mind her sister’s descriptions of Count Dooku.

She did not like the comparison.

“Inquisitor,” Luna said, unlike her sister refusing to bow to an alien guest. “Welcome to Equestria. We-”

“Spare me the pleasantries,” Cia cut her off. “And show me what I came to see. I am a busy woman.”

Irked at being interrupted, but yet again having no real say in the matter, Luna pointed towards the Imperial Hub with her false horn.

“They are there, Inquisitor-”

And then the Chiss brushed right past her.

“Tell me,” said Inquisitor Cia, on one knee to allow her thin fingers to grip the edge of a nervous stallion’s chin. “Is this truly all you have?” Though her red eyes bored into the stallion’s blue, her question was directed to the princess standing behind her. “Because I find your lineup thoroughly lacking in exceptional talent.”

Luna once again grimaced as Cia released the pony and resumed her full height. She had, in the space of a very short amount of time, assembled those court magicians that were currently occupying Los Pegasus. Around thirty of the land’s most-trained adepts in the magical arts stood in an orderly row to meet the Chiss. None of them had the potential Princess Twilight had shown, of course, but they were far from weak. More than one of them had been involved in shielding of Equestria's cities from orbital bombardment all those years ago. The Inquisitor had inspected them all for varying lengths of time, though never actually asked them to perform anything.

“We brought them together on very short notice, Inquisitor,” Luna replied, barley refraining from throwing in an insult.

“So I see,” Cia said, turning her head towards a Stormtrooper wearing a captain’s insignia. “Ah well, take them all.”

“WHAT?!”

“Yes ma’am!” the white-armored trooper saluted, his fellow soldiers already beginning to round up the assembled stallions and mares. They all looked afraid of the armored Imperial troopers, beginning to instinctively herd amongst themselves.

The Inquisitor folded her hands behind her back and walked straight out of the room where they had been meeting, ignoring the dark alicorn’s sputtering cries of protest. Luna, teeth gritted and ears folded back in anger, stormed after the Chiss without pause. She had though that they would want to study their magicians, perhaps learn their arts, not steal them away! Equestria had given up many things to the Empire in exchange for its aid, but its subjects? That was a step too far! She would not stand for this!

“Inquisitor!” she shouted after the alien woman. “Thou hast no right to take our-”

“They are citizens of the Galactic Empire,” interrupted Cia, not bothering to look back. “And as such are fully subject to all the laws and regulations thereof, including conscription into the Imperial military.”

“That was never a condition of our aid arrangement! Nor did we ever agree to such terms in our entry into your state!”

“I am altering our arrangement. Pray I do not alter it any further.”

“Thou dost not have the authority to- ghck!”

The fingers of the Inquisitor’s right hand came together into a fist. Luna’s throat was abruptly clamped by an invisible vice, and she found that her windpipe had closed.

“I find your protests as tiresome as your existence,” said Cia, having ceased to walk but still not bothering to look behind her. Luna doubled over, front hooves pawing at her own throat as she struggled to force air down it. “I need no permission from a crippled alien wretch to tell me what I can and cannot do.”

The lunar alicorn sputtered and gasped for air as the pressure about her throat intensified, but to no avail. Slowly, Luna began to see spots as the oxygen in her blood ran low, the edges of hear vision beginning to go black on her. Her head swum and her hearing became distorted, the world around her becoming less and less clear with each passing second.

Inside, beneath the primal terror of her survival instincts, Luna seethed. She had lost everything – her magic, her kingdom, and even her planet – to these filthy aliens from the stars, and now she was going to lose her life as well! And not even a gallant death in battle, an enduring example of heroism to pass on to the next generations and remember her for all time. No, she was being executed like a lowly slave for speaking against her mistress! It was a miserable way to die, one of the lowliest that she could think of. Her mind raged with the helplessness and indignity of it all.

And, just as her vision was about to go entirely dark, Princess Luna embraced that rage.

“RARGH!”

Luna’s supernatural scream impossibly burst forth from empty, straining lungs, shredding and twisting the metal Imperial hallway before it. Inquisitor Cia, caught completely by surprise, was tossed off of her feet and thrown a considerable distance down the hall, impacting with a painful thud against a durasteel outcropping. Though she raised a hand and called on the Force to protect herself, small pieces of shrapnel cut into her blue skin, drawing faint drops of crimson blood.

Luna, at last freed from the vice clamped about her throat, gasped desperately for air, drawing in several large mouthfuls in so many seconds. The alicorn’s vision began to return to her as her bloodstream filled once more with fresh oxygen.

And then Cia made a one-handed gesture, and Luna’s head slammed into the ceiling.

The pain was intense and all-encompassing as the Chiss woman jerked two fingers around erratically, ramming the alicorn’s head repeatedly against the metal surfaces around her, giving Luna absolutely no time to recover. Badly dazed and feeling like her head was on fire, she was in no position to respond when the clamps reaffixed themselves to her throat with double the vigor. She struggled and squirmed, her hooves again flying to her throat as though the Force were a physical object that could be pulled off. Luna hung in the air for almost half a minute before at last her body could take no more, and her head slumped back.

Inquisitor Cia released her invisible grip, letting the alicorn’s unconscious form tumble roughly to the ground below. The Chiss female rubbed the aching spot on her back that had impacted on the wall, noticing when she did that her fingers came back coated in blood. She stared at it speculatively as several of her Stormtroopers rounded the corner of the hall, rushing to the source of the disturbance.

“It’s alright,” she raised her hand. “No serious injuries.”

“Ma’am,” their leader acknowledged, before looking down at the limp body of Luna. “What should we do with this one?”

Cia considered. “Take her as well,” she commanded at length. “This one has potential.”

3: A New Plan

“You did what?!” Princess Celestia all but screamed at the holographic image before her.

“I found that your sister, Princess Luna, had certain talents that met my needs,” the small hologram of Inquisitor Cia repeated calmly, her hands behind her back. “So I drafted her into the Imperial military. I hope that will not be a problem.”

“OF COURSE THAT”S A PROBLEM!!!” Celestia’s Royal Canterlot Voice boomed out, shaking the durasteel building around her and temporarily deafening more than a few humans and ponies with the misfortune to be near her office at that moment.

The Chiss woman, by contrast, did not look phased. “Hmph,” she shrugged. “That is unfortunate. However, the needs of the Inquisitorius and the Galactic Empire come before the needs of your planet, Governor.”

“You have NO right to do this!” Celestia seethed, her teeth grinding together. “I demand as per Section 36, Subsection 729 of the Imperial Code of Law that the citizen of my planet be extradited back to Equus at once!”

“No,” replied Cia’s image. “Per Section 2, Subsection 31, I am well within my rights as the highest-ranking officer of the Empire to conscript anyone I choose into the military for an indefinite period. And I chose to conscript your sister. She, along with the others, are presently onboard my vessel. We will be leaving your system shortly.”

“You can’t do this!” Celestia protested, though she only half believed it.

“I can and I am,” the other woman answered.

Celestia’s ground even harder. “I will be taking this up with your superiors, Inquisitor,” she declared after a moment’s pause.

“Oh?” The corner of the Chiss female’s mouth twitched upwards into a slight smirk. “I am certain that Lord Vader will be sympathetic to your case. Would you like me to try and forward your holocall to him?” she asked with mock concern.

Underneath the ridiculous hat she had been given to wear in her official capacity as Imperial Governor, Celestia’s ears folded back at the mention of that name. Though it was impossible to see beneath her white fur, the skin of her face went slightly pale. Though her planet was too out of the way and primitive to have ever earned the dark lord’s presence or personal attention, rumors got around even to here. If even half of them were true, he could kill a dozen men by looking at them and enjoyed nothing more than strangling an unruly subordinate. Not a single one painted him as somepony who would help anypony else on moral grounds.

Still, she had to try. For Lulu.

“Yes,” Celestia said after a moment. “Send my transmission through to your master. I shall speak with him.”

The smirk was gone from Cia’s face in an instant, replaced by a wide-eyed expression of surprise and incredulity.

“Are you…” she paused, tilting her head slightly. “Are you serious?”

“I am,” Celestia said resolutely.

“You actually want me to redirect your transmission to Lord Vader?”

“Yes, Inquisitor,” the white alicorn repeated. “I want you to do that. I shall speak to him over the holonet. I shall even speak to him in person, if that is what it takes for you to return my sister.”

Cia blinked more than once, her face still looking both shocked and incredulous that a small-time governor of a backwater planet would dare to demand to speak with the fearsome black cyborg, but at last she nodded.

“Very well,” she said slowly. “But I warn you: it will be your funeral.”

“That is a chance I am willing to take,” Celestia declared.

“You’re either far braver or far more stupid than I thought,” muttered the Inquisitor, her holoimage turning.

Inquisitor Cia fiddled with something outside of her holocam’s range, her back now to Celestia. For several seconds she simply appeared to be pressing something on a console only she could see, and then without warning her image disappeared from Celestia’s projector. Multiple minutes ticked by in silence as Princess Celestia waited for the device before her to start up again. Her ear flicked nervously underneath her hat and a few drops of sweat rolled down the back of her neck. After a while, she began to fidget with her hooves slightly, ruffle her wings, and even lick her lips a time or two.

Finally, just as Celestia was beginning to wonder if the Inquisitor had simply hung up on her, the holoprojector burst into life again. A miniaturized image of what the alicorn knew from the scant reports she had to be a towering black cyborg took shape on the table before her. The sound of his loud mechanical breathing resounded throughout the confined space of the princess’ office. As he scrutinized her, Celestia had the very uncomfortable sensation of being a field mouse eyed by a hawk soaring overhead.

“Who,” said Darth Vader in his booming bass tone. “Are you?”

The white alicorn swallowed once, resisting the urge to shut down the projector and hide under a rock somewhere.

“I am Princess Celestia of Equestria, Imperial Governor of Equus, Lord Vader,” she said with a bow of her head. “And I wish to speak to you about the actions of one your subordinates.”

Vader said nothing, simply crossing his arms over his chest and waiting, his soulless lenses gazing deep into the alicorn’s eyes.

“Yes, well,” Celestia continued awkwardly, averting her gaze slightly. “Your Inquisitor Cia paid an unexpected visit to my world and in the process abducted several of my citizens, including my own sister, Princess Luna. I-” she forced her eyes back to his face. “I want them back.”

“No,” Vader said simply.

“What?” Celestia blinked.

“No,” Vader repeated. “Inquisitor Cia is undertaking a mission on behalf of the Empire, and as such had every right to conscript your entire planet if she chose.”

Celestia swallowed again, working up her courage. “Lord Vader, I must protest that- ghck!”

Darth Vader’s right hand had stretched out and made a three-fingered fist. Immediately Celestia’s throat felt like it was enclosed in bands of solid durasteel, her windpipe utterly sealed shut. She gasped and sputtered for air, a hoof flying to rub against her throat, but it was of absolutely no help.

“What about the word “no”,” Vader said, lifting his hand. Celestia’s body left the ground, hovering several feet in the air as the white alicorn clawed at her throat. “Do you not understand, Governor?”

For what seemed like an eternity but could only have been several seconds, Celestia simply hung there, clawing at her throat. Visions of another war if she resisted and the utter destruction that would surely follow filled her mind with terror, preventing her from invoking some spell to save herself. Instead, she simply gasped futilely for air like a drowning mare. She might as well have tried to ingest her own sun, for all the good it did her.

Finally, just as Celestia’s vision was fading to black, Vader spoke again.

“Consider this your first and only warning, Governor,” the black-armored cyborg declared. “Do not presume to waste my time again.”

With that, the hologram vanished. Simultaneously, the clamps around Celestia’s throat faded to nothing, and she plummeted to the office floor. The hardened durasteel might have hurt another being, but she was already far too focused on swallowing frantic mouthfuls of air to pay attention. Slowly, the alicorn’s senses returned to normal, her heartrate slowing back to its usual moderate pace.

Rubbing her sore throat with one hoof, Celestia unsteadily resumed her standing position. She was already starting to reach for her holoprojector again. There were more messages to be sent.

The other royalty had to hear about this.

“They did what?!” shouted Prince Shining Armor, pounding his hooves onto the wooden villa table.

“That was my reaction too,” noted Princess Celestia in a rather somber tone. She had replaced her ridiculous Imperial-issue hat with the golden tiara crown that she continued to favor when not on official duty.

The three remaining alicorns, one white unicorn, and one purple dragon had gathered around a circular oak table inside the villa that continued to serve as an impromptu palace at Celestia’s request. As was now the norm, the royalty had been spread out across the nation in their efforts to personally oversee reconstruction. When they had received the solar alicorn’s message, all of them had dropped everything and rushed back to Los Pegasus to hear what had happened to their fellow.

The reactions around the table had varied greatly. Shining Armor, as Celestia had expected, looked furious. Princess Cadence, by now heavily pregnant with the couple’s first child, swallowed nervously and shrank back slightly at the news, as if trying to make herself look smaller. Spike looked similarly afraid, biting the ends of his claws. Her former student, Princess Twilight, just looked sad.

“They took…” the white unicorn continued, growling. “They took Princess Luna?!”

“Yes,” Celestia said, looking miserable.

“Gah!” the unicorn slammed his hoof against the table again. “How dare they?! We’ve already agreed to everything they wanted even at our own expense, and now they just up and abduct our princess?!” his teeth clenched into a snarl.

Celestia nodded sympathetically.

“They took her just like they’ll take anything else they want from us, Shiny,” Twilight said quietly, looking at the floor.

“Grr…” the unicorn prince simply growled angrily.

His sister looked up at him. “You know what I’m saying is true. They have all the cards,” she sighed. “They can take anything they want at any time. You,” she pointed a hoof at Shining. “Me,” she pointed it back at herself.

“Never!” Twilight’s brother hissed.

The lavender alicorn pointed the same hoof over her sister-in-law without pause. “Cadence.”

“NO!” the unicorn shouted at the top of his lungs.

For her part, the pink alicorn merely shrunk further and shivered, doubtless remembering the brutal trauma of the last alien invasion. She simply hadn’t been the same since.

“Be realistic, Shining,” Twilight said sadly. “If the Empire wants any of us, it can have them. Your wife included.”

“I’ll die before I let that happen!” Shining declared.

“Then they’ll kill you,” said Twilight. “And take her if they want her.”

Cadence actually took a shaking step backwards, still not able to bring herself to say anything.

For his part, Shining could only stay silent.

“You of all ponies should know how little military strength we have next to the Empire,” Twilight continued.

The siblings locked eyes for several seconds, staring at one another across the table. Finally, Shining Armor hung his head and nodded meekly, accepting the inevitable conclusion. A few tears trickled down his cheeks.

“It’s just…” he said after some time had passed. “It’s just not fair! We do everything they say, give all the concessions they want, and still they just string us along and force us to do their dirty work! Do you know how many loyal soldiers I’ve seen coming home injured or in body bags because they had to go and collect taxes for the Empire? Do you know how many families I’ve had to inform that their parent or child or spouse didn’t make it?” he raised his head, his eyes for once visible watery. “Our ponies are spread out across foreign lands, making their people hate us! We lose more each month than we did every year before the war! And for what?” he hung his head once more. “I’m their leader! I shouldn’t have to send them away! Not like this!”

His wife nuzzled him gently on the neck. “There, there,” she said in a soft voice that had grown weak from disuse. “It will be alright. You’re not a bad pony.”

“If I were a good pony I wouldn’t be doing dirty work for a bunch of alien thugs,” he retorted.

“We all do it,” pointed out Twilight. “We don’t really have a choice in the matter.”

“We have all committed sins to protect our people’s future,” Celestia injected herself back into the conversation. “The question before us is: what do we do about it? What can we do about it?”

For a short time, there was only silence around the table. Downcast eyes stared at the aged oak as their minds processed just what kind of odds were against them.

“C-could we appeal to the higher-ups?” Cadence suggested timidly.

“I tried,” Celestia rubbed her neck. “Lord Vader was… unsympathetic.”

The mention of that name sent a chill down the spine of everypony there. Few in the Empire didn’t know at least something of the Emperor’s primary enforcer. Conversation came to a temporary halt.

“Uh…” Twilight Sparkle spoke up again when it was clear that nopony else was immediately going to.

“Yes?” Celestia asked.

“I’ve been running some numbers, and the conclusion I’ve come to…” Twilight paused, then sighed. “We simply can’t beat the Empire from Equus. It’s just not possible. Even assuming their own reports exaggerate the magnitude of their forces by a factor of two and we are somehow able to gain access to the full spectrum of their military technology in such a way as to be able to reproduce it reliably – both extremely generous assumptions, I might add – this planet alone simply does not have the resources or numbers to endure a concentrated Imperial assault.”

“I see,” Celestia said. She had known as much without running any numbers, of course, but it was still depressing to hear her most faithful student tell her as much to her face.

“But…” Twilight continued.

Everypony’s ears perked up at that.

“Yes?” prodded Celestia.

“I did… kinda have an idea,” Twilight scratched the back of her head with a hoof. “But it’s a bit of a longshot.”

“Let’s hear it,” said Cadence, her voice still little better than a whisper.

Twilight looked to Celestia, who nodded.

“I was thinking,” she said. “We can’t beat the Empire – on our own at least – but what if there is somepony else who can?”

“The Empire has just about subjected the galaxy,” Shining pointed out.

“According to the records they let us see,” Twilight countered. “In any case, I would bet that there are more than few worlds out there like ours – exploited and disenfranchised. It wasn’t so long ago that the Clone Wars tore the galaxy in half, remember? They were all about that kind of problem, and I doubt it’s gotten any better since then.”

“What exactly do you propose, Princess Twilight?” Celestia asked.

“I was thinking… maybe… that one of us could, you know, go out into the wider galaxy? Try and find some like-minded people and groups. I admit it wouldn’t be easy, but just maybe we could find enough friends to drive the Empire from our world and others like it for good,” Twilight looked at each of the other anxiously. “Does that sound stupid? It sounds stupid doesn’t it? What was I thinking?!” she buried her face in her hooves.

“That sounds far from stupid, my student,” Celestia rushed to reassure her. “In fact, I would say it sounds like the best plan we’ve come up with yet.”

“The question is,” Shining Armor said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “Is who is going to go? And how do we get them out? The Empire has a total monopoly on all space transport in the system.”

“I was thinking… uh…” Twilight scratched the back of her head again. “Me.”

“They’ll recognize you on sight,” Celestia pointed out. “No offense, my student, but both our species and yourself in particular are very distinct from most others that we know of.”

Twilight nodded. “Yeah, I thought of that. I’ve been practicing.”

The Princess of Friendship got to all four hooves and closed her eyes in concentration. Her glowed brighter and brighter over the course of few seconds, filling the room with a blinding purple flash. When it was gone at last, the alicorn was gone. In her place stood a two-legged creature wearing an Imperial engineer’s uniform.

“Imperial Army Engineer Ziara Blane reporting for duty,” came Twilight’s voice as her new body snapped to attention and gave a crisp salute.

“Uh, Twily?” Shining spoke up. “Your skin is purple.”

“Huh?” she looked at herself, then blushed. “Uh, whoops! Lemme fix that!”

This time, she clasped both hands together and closed her eyes again. Once more, a purple light enveloped her. This time, when it faded, her skin was white. Other than a slight streak of purple running through her black hair, which could just as easily be dye, she looked to be a relatively ordinary human.

“How’s that?” she asked the assembled ponies.

“Not bad,” Spike said, walking around the alicorn to get a good view of her. “Yeah, I can see you passing for one them.”

“Visually at least,” Celestia added. “Do you think you can accurately reproduce the knowledge and behavior of an Imperial human?”

“Long enough to get off of here and to another planet with more spaceports?” Twilight asked. “Absolutely. I’ve been through their databanks more than they realize.”

“Won’t they notice that they don’t have a record of the human you’re supposed to be?”

“Ah,” Twilight had a glint in her eye. “I thought of that too! I’ve spent a lot of time learning something of how they keep their personnel records here. I think I could insert myself into their files. It wouldn’t hold up under detailed scrutiny, but I think it would be enough.”

“I don’t know,” Shining sounded reluctant. “This all seems pretty risky to me. So many variables in the equation.”

“You’re the soldier,” his sister pointed out. “You should know that no operation ever comes without risk.”

“But there are so many ways this could go wrong!” he protested. “You could be found out… or get lost out in the galaxy… or get killed by somepony else… or get sold into slavery… or anything!”

“Do you think I don’t know the risks?” she countered. “But what’s the alternative? Stay here and continue doing what we’re doing until the Empire decides it just wants everything on the planet?”

All three of her fellow royals looked at one another, as if mentally debating amongst themselves.

“Shining,” Twilight said, more delicately, taking a meaningful glance at her sister-in-law. “Do you want your child to grow up under the Galactic Empire?”

The unicorn visibly recoiled from the suggestion. “I… No.”

“Do you have any other ideas?”

“…No.”

“Then I suppose we should make an effort.”

“I’m coming with you,” he declared firmly.

“You can’t,” Celestia said before Twilight could.

“And why not?”

“Three reasons,” the solar alicorn replied. “One, because having two of our royalty vanishing at once seems suspicious. Twilight could perhaps be excused for some time as being involved in diplomatic projects in corners of the globe far from Imperial eyes, but what excuse would there be for the sudden absence of our military commander? Two, because your wife needs you.”

The unicorn and pink alicorn looked at each other briefly, Cadence leaning slightly against her husband.

“Three,” Celestia tried to be gentler in this. “Because of your… condition.”

“Because I’m crippled, you mean,” Shining said bluntly, looking up balefully at the polished steel of the ornamental horn that covered his injury.

Twilight nodded delicately. “I’m sorry, BBBFF, but on this mission our biggest advantage is going to be magic, and…” she trailed off.

“I don’t have any,” he observed drily.

“Kinda… yeah.”

Shining Armor sighed. “Promise you’ll be careful?”

“I promise.”

Twilight’s body faded back to its natural alicorn form while the room’s other occupants watched.

“And there’s one other thing,” she said once she was a pony again. “I need a way of communicating back to you that the Empire can’t monitor.”

Everypony’s eyes shifted quickly to the small purple dragon at her side.

“Ah, what the hay?” Spike said, preempting any requests. “I’m in.”

Author's Notes:

I'd just like to take a moment to send a shoutout to Chadbane, who has been helping me proofread this story. Thanks man!

4: A New Journey

Aboard the Iron Fist, Inquisitor Cia stood at her place on a long black conference table, blue hands folded simply behind her back. Around her, at various other spots at the table stood or sat the holograms of almost two dozen other beings: all members of the Inquisitorius. Most were human, as was to be expected, but there were other species with representatives in attendance as well. An eyeless Miraluka called Jerec – once a Jedi Master, now an Inquisitor in the Emperor’s service – was among them. Another alien was a tall, pale Pau’an individual with a curious double-bladed lightsaber who had never deigned to reveal his name, preferring simply to be referred to by his title. The ranks of the Inquisitorius were one of the few places nonhumans could reasonably expect to rise to prominence in the human-dominated Galactic Empire, their talents with the Force serving to counter the subtle but distinct bias that permeated the Empire’s ranks.

“Twenty-two,” rang out the voice of one of the human males once everyone they were expecting had entered into the holoconference.

“Thirty-six,” Cia declared her own count of Force-sensitives picked up on her brief inspections.

“Fifteen,” came another voice.

“Fourty-five,” said another Inquisitor.

And so it went for the next few minutes, the gathered dark-sides soldiers of the Empire each declaring their tally of captives to be processed, openly stating for all to hear the exact number and species of their prizes. And then it came to a process that was little better than barter, each Inquisitor offering certain numbers of captives or prime training grounds to their fellows in bargains not terribly different from those made at Zygerian slave auctions. Each Inquisitor knew that to train the most powerful, or most numerous class of recruits would give them a substantial edge in the oft-cutthroat politics of their order. Or perhaps, if Lord Vader or Emperor Palpatine were particularly impressed with them, a promotion.

In this particular arena, Cia had a notable advantage: no one had ever really dealt with equine species whose members comprised the majority of her captives before. They were so obscure, and had been involved in galactic affairs for such a short time, that she was able to play them up in the eyes of her fellows without ever strictly lying about what she thought their capabilities were. Mentioning that they already had training in the ways of the Force – though not the dark side – only increased their perceived value in the eyes of several other Inquisitors. By the time that the impromptu bartering was done and the various courses of action settled, she had come away with a large number of potent inductees and a training ground noted for its deep historical affinity with the dark side. The perfect place to produce many powerful servants for the Empire.

When the last of the holograms around the conference table faded away, Inquisitor Cia walked away with a smile on her face.

Elsewhere on the Victory-class Star Destroyer, Princess Luna was considerably less happy.

“What dost thou mean that we cannot leave this cell?!” she raged at the man in an Imperial Navy uniform, flanked by two Stormtroopers. “Dost thou know who we are?!”

The man, who had identified himself as Lieutenant Zsinj, looked at her like she was some kind of idiot. “You are an inductee into the Imperial military. And I meant exactly what I said: you are confined to this detention cell until new orders are issued.”

“We shall have thy head for this,” she swore through gritted teeth. “We are royalty! We will not be treated so disgracefully!”

“Yes, well,” the man rolled his eyes. “You may feel free to take it up with the Inquisitor if she deigns to visit. In the meantime, my task was solely to make certain that you were conscious and relatively undamaged.”

“By jabbing us with an electric prod?!”

“Yes,” the lieutenant turned his back on her. “My mission here is accomplished. Feel free to rant and rave at the walls of this facility if you wish, but I suggest a more cooperative attitude. It will get you further in your new career.”

“How dare thee?! We are not some toy that thou canst-”

But Lieutenant Zsinj had already walked straight out the cell’s door, which sealed itself shut behind him.

For some minutes, Princess Luna followed his “suggestion” screaming her lungs out at the uncaring metal walls about the sheer indignity of her position. She had given so much in service to the Empire to protect her home, and still they demanded more! It was an outrage, and she felt few qualms about expressing as much in a very vocal manner. Her cell echoed with the booming sound of the Royal Canterlot Voice.

Eventually, however, it dawned on the princess of the night that absolutely no one was paying attention to her screams. It was, perhaps, the one thing that was even more humiliating for the alicorn than being trumped: being ignored. With her voice worn thin from shouting, Luna slowly began to settle herself against the hard and uncomfortable bed that the cell provided.

She could already tell that it was going to be a long journey.

“And who might you be?” asked the bored-looking man behind the processing desk at the Los Pegasus Imperial spaceport.

“Ziara Blane of the Imperial Army Engineering Corps,” Princess Twilight Sparkle answered, doing her best to suppress the profound unease she was feeling. “Departing Equus on cargo transport A3-479.”

“I don’t recall anything about any Ziara Blane on that ship’s manifest,” the man, whose name plate read Private Secris, said, looking down at a datapad below him. “Let me see here…”

Twilight waited nervously and with baited breath as the Imperial before her scrolled rather casually through the data on his device. Now was the time that all the practice she had done modifying Imperial data caches would be put to the test. If the cover identity and orders she had inserted into their system less than an hour ago failed to pass muster, she might well be arrested on the spot or worse. She resisted the urge to swallow – too suspicious. She wouldn’t fail her planet again. Couldn’t fail her planet again.

“Ah,” the man said after around half a minute, though it seemed much longer to the alicorn wearing a human form. He looked up at her. “You appear to be something of a last-minute addition, Engineer Blane. Captain Rakis sent you, did he?”

Twilight nodded. “He did,” Rakis was an Imperial Army Captain based on the other side of the planet, and consequently unlikely to actually be contacted for verification or inadvertently spoil the party by turning up in person.

The man looked closer and frowned. “Though he appears to have done so rather recently. In the last few hours, apparently. Care to explain?”

“We had a dispute, sir.”

He raised an eyebrow. “A dispute?”

Twilight leaned in close and whispered. “Of a rather “personal” nature, if I may say so.”

His lips formed a silent “o”, before glancing back down at the datapad. “Well, whatever the exact circumstances of your departure, everything looks to be in order, Engineer.”

Twilight smiled and resisted the urge to breathe a sigh of relief, turning and preparing to head further into the space port, to where the enormous supply freighter she had selected as her ride waited.

“There’s just one more thing,” Secris said before she could.

Twilight turned back to him with a slight shiver up her back. “Yes, sir?”

“I simply have to conduct a few simple scans of yourself and your baggage. Standard exit procedure and all,” he chuckled lightly. “Nothing too intrusive.”

Twilight forced a smile and nodded. “Of course.”

“Stand over there, please,” Secris gestured towards a moderate-sized booth extending from a spaceport wall. “And we’ll get this through in a moment.”

The alicorn stepped into the designated space, pulling the small hovercart containing a few pieces of luggage along with her. She held her breath as the advanced alien technology swept over everything within, a blue light running over both herself and her things. Private Secris looked down at the datapad before him for some few moments, before gesturing for her to step back out. Releasing a breath lightly from her mouth, Twilight did so.

“Well,” said the Imperial after a moment of examining the results. “Everything looks to be in order…”

Twilight’s shoulders relaxed a little, a she let out an inadvertent sigh.

“Except…”

Her muscles tensed back again, and the disguised alicorn prepared to call on her magic if need be.

“You have a life form in one of your bags,” he said, pointing to a box piled atop all the others. “Let’s have a look.”

Reluctantly, Twilight removed the box from her hovercart, straining slightly under the weight in this unfamiliar body. It was somewhat different from the one she had had in the land on the other side of the magic mirror – the proportions and center of gravity were altered, and her limbs were thicker. Thinking about the other world made her wonder how her friends’ duplicates, that cute guitar player, and Sunset Shimmer were doing over there. Better than Equestria was, she hoped.

Private Secris pried off the top of the box and looked inside. “Why?” he asked. “Do you have a fat purple lizard in your luggage, Engineer Blane?”

Twilight resisted the urge to defend her dragon friend’s dignity. “He’s a pet, sir. I picked him up in the jungles of this backwater and just haven’t been able to put him down since.”

“And so you are attempting to smuggle him offworld?” He raised an eyebrow. “You surely know that the unauthorized removal of potentially hazardous lifeforms from the Unknown Regions is against Imperial regulations.”

“He’s quite harmless,” Twilight assured the man. “I’ve had him for quite some time.”

“And fed him far too well, it would seem,” he commented. “I do believe you, Engineer Blane. You seem a good subject of the Emperor to me. Nonetheless, rules are rules. I’m afraid I must-”

Before Secris could go any further, he found a fifty credit chip slipped into his palm – more than week’s salary for a man of his lowly level and station. He froze up, staring blankly down at it.

“What’s say,” Twilight immediately leaned in conspiratorially. “That we make nice and forget the regs? Just this once.”

Private Secris looked down at the credit chip in his hand, then back up at Twilight, then at the chip again, and the back up once more to the disguised alicorn. His hand swiftly closed into a fist and disappeared beneath the desk.

“Everything looks to be in order,” he said with a smile and considerably more enthusiasm. He tipped his hat to Twilight. “Have a safe and pleasant journey, Ms. Blane.”

“Thank you, Private,” Twilight curtsied as best she could in the trousers of an engineer’s uniform, before grabbing her hovercart and pulling it past the desk. Now she was into the spaceport proper, and nothing remained between her the bulky cargo vessel that was their way off of Equss.

“Fat purple lizard?” came a slight but evidently annoyed hiss from the box. “Pet? This is so degrading.”

“Shhh…” Twilight hissed, before leaning in close to hurridly whisper. “Spike, I promise that if we succeed and make it back you’ll be more than compensated. I will personally guarantee you get anything you want as a reward.”

“Aw, you know I’m not doing this for perks,” responded the small dragon.

“Still,” said the alicorn princess as they entered into the hustle and bustle of the spaceport’s main terminal. “You have my word.”

When the time came that Princess Luna was at last let free of cramped cell of the bowls of the Star Destroyer, she found to her total lack of surprise that it was with no more concern for her comfort or dignity than any other part of this trip had been. She was without ceremony shaken awake from her troubled slumber by two Stormtroopers, then lead without a word through the depressingly-grey corridors of the Imperial ship. Everything around her was the same miserable-looking architecture that so defined the construction of the Galactic Empire, the humans scuttling about in the same manner as their machines did.

At last, the two silent, white-armored soldiers conducted the alicorn princess into a docking bay, and up the ramp into what she recognized for an Imperial landing shuttle. There were other sapients already inside when she was fastened into an uncomfortable seat, and more filed in throughout the next few minutes, until at last the space around her was nearly full. Lastly came the loathsome Chiss Inquisitor who had abducted her in the first place. Shortly thereafter, the shuttle’s ramp closed behind her and the engines began to whine.

The shuttle's descent through what Luna presumed was the planetary atmosphere was bumpy, uncomfortable, and loud. It reflected, Princess Luna felt, the unstable collective mood of those that rode within it. Some, like herself, seemed to positively ooze anger or resentment at their situation. By way of contrast, others seemed to be positively excited about what was happening, whispering frantically amongst themselves. Still more appeared frightened, nervously glancing around and up, or reciting prayers to various deities. Finally, a small number of the sapients weren't showing any kind of emotional reaction at all, simply sitting back and observing.

Most of the shuttle's other occupants were humans, but there were members of other species that her reading allowed to identify as Togruta, Falleen, Gran, Bothan, and Duros. And of course, Luna thought with gritted teeth, there was the hateful Chiss woman who stood imperiously above and in front of them all, hands folded behind her back, luminescent red eyes observing and judging them. Her blue face was a mask of indifference with a vague undertone of scorn.

The mood in the shuttle grew only more agitated as it seemed to pass through the worst of the atmospheric turbulence, smoothing out considerably. Luna spent the ride curled against her seat in the corner, refusing to give anyone from this horrible galaxy the privilege of conversation with true royalty unless absolutely necessary. They did not deserve it.

It was when the shuttle touched down on the planet's surface, when the whine of the engine was dying away, that the black-clad Chiss female held up a single hand for silence. Almost instantly, she was obeyed, even the most eager conversationalists shutting their mouths and giving the alien woman their undivided attention.

The power, Luna reflected, of fear.

"Acolytes," she said in her resounding alto tone, the sound of her voice echoing easily in the confined space. "We have arrived. This is the planet where you will become what your Empire needs you to be..." she paused for effect. "Or you shall be found to be unworthy. Be honored, for you have been selected to come here because of your great potential. Be humbled, for this is ground sacred to the dark side, and those who prove themselves lacking here meet fates that are often... unpleasant."

Behind her, the shuttle's landing ramp was extending, revealing a sunny, sand-covered landing pad. Powerful winds could be seen blowing clouds of red sand through the air and heard whipping up into the spacecraft. They felt unpleasantly dry.

"Welcome," the Chiss continued. "To Korriban."

5: A New World

Twilight Sparkle was packing the items she’d selected to take with in the small, cramped quarters she had been assigned on the transport A3-479, not so affectionately dubbed Rust Heap by its small Imperial crew. A Gozanti-class freighter that looked like it had seen better days, to put it mildly, the Rust Heap was a regular visitor to Equus with a predictable flight schedule. That made it perfect as an innocuous way off the planet – it was not likely to undergo serious scrutiny, especially on the way out.

The Rust Heap, like many other vessels of its kind, served to carry shipments of blaster technology, much of it outdated Republic surplus or confiscated Separatist material, to the planet in general and Equestria in particular. It was extra work to ship loads such a long way into the Unknown Regions, but the Empire’s refusal to allow modern weapons factories on the planet made it a necessity. This strategy had the nice benefit of allowing the Empire to precisely calibrate the level of weaponry in the hands of their proxies, as well as maintain a total monopoly on replacement parts and ammunition. Any revolt could expect to run out of useable advanced weaponry very quickly. It was a very effective system for making certain that the blaster rifles they handed over to the Equestrians were always aimed at other natives of the planet rather than their Imperial overseers.

On the way out, the freighter carried simple cargoes of raw ore, precious metals, and gemstones mined from across the planet, though to Twilight their way of doing so made little sense. Equus generally and Equestria especially were mineral-rich, yes, but the way the Empire set about getting those riches was puzzling. Crunching the numbers based on what she had seen in Imperial databanks, it would have been far more efficient to bring in large amounts of modern mining and processing equipment and ship the finished or almost-finished product from the world rather than just taking everything to be processed into useable form elsewhere. Yet the Imperials had done the opposite, demanding certain amounts be mined and enforcing it violently but not lifting a finger to make the mining more efficient or process the results on-site. It was a conundrum: in some ways it almost looked as though the Empire was simply oppressing them for the sole sake of doing so, rather than any material gain. What end they hoped to achieve by that, Twilight couldn’t fathom.

At least her shipmates – three human males, two R-series mechanical droids – were not particularly bad, at least as far as Imperials went. Mostly, to Twilight, they seemed like down on their luck regular folks who simply took what work they could find. None of them had been in the least bit interested in her or her elaborate cover story of what “Zaira Blane” had been doing on this planet. They had simply told her to shut up and stay out of the way, and there wouldn’t be any trouble.

And that suited Twilight just fine.

Inquisitor Cia led the small group of humanoids and one equine princess through the burning red sand dunes of Korriban at a moderate pace. They stretched out for miles in every direction from the small, elevated landing platform, broken only by reddish-brown formations that often uncomfortably resembled jagged teeth. Even worse than the unpleasantness of the environment was the fact that the weather itself seemed to be against the intruders. The howling winds of Korriban whipped the red sands into blinding storms that came and went without warning, getting grit everywhere, forcing people to squint and cover their eyes, and generally slowing the party down even further. But, in Princess Luna’s opinion, the sandstorms were the better part of this planet’s weather. For when it was not storming, the sun came out.

Princess Luna had, rather obviously, never been the biggest fan of the sun even back at home. She was nocturnal by inclination and magical affinity, and her prior experiences as Nightmare Moon further inclined her to living primarily in the night. Still, that didn’t mean she didn’t appreciate her sister’s burning orb – far from it! The sun was the bringer of life and warmth to Equus, and without it all things should perish. Luna recognized that now, even if she had forgotten in the past. Moreover, Celestia’s sun glowed golden with warm, welcoming light that seemed to, in some small way, contain a measure of her sister’s beneficence. It was a subtle effect, certainly, but in its own way her sister’s sun served to boost spirits, calm tempers, and generally make life more pleasant for those under its gentle rays.

The sun on Korriban was nothing like that.

The light here was harsh and distinctly tinted with crimson. The sun’s rays were blazing hot and very intense, scouring the skin of those lacking in fur or protective clothing with bright red burns within the space of minutes. It beat down constantly and without mercy, save for when sudden sandstorms emerged to offer a temporary shield. But far worse than any mere heat-related inconveniences was the feel of the great ball of fire. Celestial bodies, Luna knew from experience, had to a certain extent their own spirit. It was not what she would call a sapient mind, but rather simply a general flow of energy inclined towards their own particular idiosyncrasies. They could aid magic that drew upon similar energies and hinder those magicks coming from opposed sources.

The spirit of Korriban’s star was utterly malevolent.

Luna, even with her horn removed and her magical senses crippled, could sense as much. The star overhead seemed to her to be watching the group as a predator does its prey, or even how a torturer might his victim. Its light was poisonous to harmony and love, thriving on hatred and desiring spilt blood. It was in many ways the polar opposite of her sister’s star. This planet, she decided, was not a good place to be caught out in the open.

On the whole trip, there were no guards with the group. Indeed, there were no Imperials around at all save for Cia, who had her back to the group. At any moment, anyone was free to try and run of into the distance. But few did. The going was slow and uncomfortable, yes, but where else were they to go? There were no structures in sight save the landing platform where the shuttle had touched, and waiting aboard it was obviously no option. Their choices were limited to following the Chiss woman or taking their chances on an unknown desert planet. Only one Togruta male chose the latter option, taking a chance to vanish into the swirling red sands during one of the periodic storms.

Luna did not fancy his chances.

Despite the murderous weather and general misery of the trek, the Inquisitor saw fit a few minutes in to launch into a brief speech, her voice rising above even the scouring winds.

“Korriban,” she lectured in her alto tones. “Is a world greatly immersed in the dark side. Throughout all of recorded history the true power of the Force has run deep and wide here, feeding the strength of those with the will to take it. Some of you, especially those well-versed in galactic history, may well have heard of it before. Others of you might know it by another name it has gained only in the past few centuries: Moraband. I prefer the old name, so that is the one we shall be using, but know that both names refer to the same planet.” Cia paused momentarily as the group crested a large, rocky hill, continuing on the way down. “As the strength of the dark side here is unparalleled, it is the perfect place to begin a rise to true greatness! But be warned,” she said. “It is also the perfect place to meet your untimely end. Korriban will test you, one way or another, before your training here is through. Those of you who prove too weak… or fail to embrace the dark side fervently enough… shall perish, and your bleached bones shall serve as an example to the next class of students. So be on your guard.”

Luna did not need telling twice on that front.

“Now,” continued the Inquisitor. “We shall begin your training even as we march. As we go, I want you to tune out the material, to close your eyes and reject the weak senses of nature. Feel the currents of the dark side winding around you, and use that to navigate as we go. Know that I am watching, and observing who succeeds and who fails.”

Princess Luna growled irritably at the order, and for a moment considered not obeying. But… what would she do then? She had nowhere to go, and as far as she knew no way off this blasted rock. The Inquisitor could kill her at any time, and at the present there was nothing she could do about it. And of course, being reminded of her humiliating helplessness, and the potential for regaining her magic…

Once she had that back, she could make the Empire suffer for what it had done.

Luna closed her eyes as instructed, reaching out with the crippled remnants of her magical senses. The sense of malevolent power infusing the air was even stronger without visual stimulus to occupy her mind, the feeling so overwhelming that even her hornless self could pick up on it immediately. Willing it to obey its royal mistress, to guide her forward, Luna took a hesitant step. Then another. And then another. And then another. And then another. And then another.

And then she hit her face on a rock.

Growling angrily, Luna opened her eyes again to see that she had wandered slightly out of the column and directly into a red outcropping of sandstone. Flush with anger and embarrassment beneath her dark fur, and with a spot of blood dribbling down her muzzle, the alicorn hurried back to take her place in line. She still didn’t want to be here, but she would rather do this than die miserably in the desert.

Luna tried twice more on the march to navigate via the Force, with her eyes closed. Neither time did she succeed: the first ended when she stumbled into the back of a human male trying the same thing, leading to them both taking a tumble down a sand dune. The second time the princess of the night tripped over a rock embedded in Korriban’s sands and wound up face-down in the sand. After that trio of embarrassments, Luna decided to take a break and walk with her eyes open.

The only consolation was that hardly anyone else was doing any better. Around her more than one person trued to navigate with their eyes closed, only to wind up in similarly humiliating incidents or even a few more serious injuries. When one human female broke her leg in a tumble, she was summarily abandoned by Inquisitor Cia, her cries for help unheeded by the rest of the new students.

It was just as the column was about to leave the wounded woman behind entirely that Luna ran back to her. Despite her great dislike for the human race, for all the suffering the wretched species had brought to her planet, the alicorn still could not bring herself to leave another living thing to die so wretchedly. For all she knew this woman was in the same position as herself.

“Oh thank you!” gasped the blonde-haired woman as Luna lowered her neck for her to grab on to. “Thank you so much!”

“Nnngh…” said Luna, feeling the pain as the human pulled on her now-static mane to hoist herself up. “Don’t… mention it.”

“My name is Mirabelle Hyding,” she replied, managing to wrap an arm around the pony and support her bad leg on Luna.

“We are Princess Luna,” the alicorn answered as she struggled to catch up to the column while supporting her limping companion. “Please do not pull on our mane again.”

“Right, sorry!” Mirabelle apologized hastily. “Thank you again for helping me!”

“Thou art… quite welcome, Ms. Mirabelle.”

The winds of Korriban blew fierce drafts of sand and grit into the faces of the two females even as the sun conspired to roast them alive. Following the tracks of the column was not easy, especially when they could so easily be blown away in the drafts. More than once they almost lost sight of their fellows, and Luna felt sure that would have been the end of them, but at last, after a grueling three hour hike, the group of recruits halted.

When the two stragglers eventually wandered into the rear of the group, Luna at last spied what she presumed would be their training ground. It was… honestly, kind of a letdown for the alicorn. It looked to be nothing more than a bog-standard grey, boxy Imperial building built into the side of a vast red cliff. Save for the surroundings, it might easily have been any one of the outposts established on Equus or elsewhere throughout the galaxy. The night princess had expected something more dramatic.

“Well done,” came the voice of Inquisitor Cia, again carried over the sound of the howling winds. “You have all passed your initial trial. All of you have shown a degree of ability, endurance, and obedience to orders. These things and more will be expected of those who will be Inquisitors themselves, but for now you may glory in the fact that you have taken your first steps,” here she paused for some seconds. “All of you, that is…” her red eyes scanned the crowd balefully. “Save one.”

Suddenly, the Chiss woman was a blur of motion. Her black-gloved hand darted to her waist and seized the curved hilt hooked upon the belt there. With a *snap-hiss* the silvery hilt became a long red blade, which hurdled through the air faster than thought. Instinctively, Luna ducked her head and wings towards the ground as the projectile approached.

But the attack wasn’t aimed at her.

The humming, blurry red blade spun in circles as it flew, becoming a virtual disk of deadly plasma. The lightsaber passed well over Luna’s head, not even coming close to touching the dark alicorn. The human clutching her, by contrast, relaxed her grip almost immediately and slumped to the ground.

Minus her head.

“The Inquisitorius,” Cia declared firmly as she caught her returning lightsaber in one hand. “Has no use for those too incompetent to simply walk from one place to another without being carried.” Even as she deactivated her saber with a casual flick and returned it to her belt, the Chiss’ narrow, luminescent eyes gazed out on her recruits again, each of whom now shrank before her.

Save Luna.

“Let this be a lesson to you all.”

6: Into the Unknown

Inquisitor Cia folded her hands behind her back and without a further word proceeded to walk directly into the double doors of grey durasteel, which parted to open before her. The Chiss vanished quickly into the dark corridors within the Imperial facility, which most of the worn students took as their cue to follow her. All kept their heads down as they did, not wishing to be the next to draw her attention. Most were relieved to be getting a chance to be out of Korriban’s miserable weather conditions. A few even seemed to perk up a bit as they crossed the threshold into a climate-controlled building once more.

Princess Luna thought them all wretched.

How could they just do as they were? How could they just shake off what had just happened? One of their own, a fellow pupil, had just been abandoned to die and, when that didn’t do the trick, callously murdered for the crime of following her instructor’s orders and being injured! Not one was pausing to honor the fallen. Not one was bothering to even try to bury Mirabelle’s headless corpse. She knew that these aliens were miserable scum, but even the night princess hadn’t thought them so cold to their own kind!

Luna snorted disdainfully at them. Once again, the outsiders proved their lack of even the basic decency one could find on Equus, much less the harmony that flowed through Equestria. Separatist, Republic, or Empire, they were all the same violent, self-centered murderers without empathy or even the simplest kindness.

The princess’ eyes flicked down to the human’s corpse, trying to make a split-second judgment. She hadn’t the time to bury Mirabelle on her own – if she was not in soon enough, the blue-skinned Imperial harlot might well lock her out to die in the desert – but that didn’t mean she couldn’t do her one last kindness. Even these aliens did not deserve to have their remains desecrated or left to rot.

Hastily, Luna pawed at the red sands around with two hooves, rapidly digging a small trench. With as much gentleness as she could manage with only her blunt hooves to work with, she placed the human’s head inside the hole. It was a gruesome thing, the woman’s last expression having been one of surprise and terror. The dark alicorn rapidly filled the hole with sand before turning and hurriedly galloping in between the slowly-closing doors. They sealed shut behind her with an ominous clang.

It was dark inside, but Luna could hardly be called a fit princes of the night if her eyes weren’t able to easily compensate for low-light conditions. Even now, without magic to help her see, her blue eyes adjusted almost immediately. The barely-lit room around was in fact a long corridor, with numerous smaller doors and hallways branching off in all directions. Straight ahead, however, was where everyone else was going, and so that is where Luna went as well.

The hallway was long, metallic, and dark, lit only by thin strips of white affixed to the ceiling every twenty feet or so. Luna could not see Cia from where she stood, but the rearmost of her fellow students were clear enough. Four legs and no magic might have denied her much manual dexterity, but they did enable her to catch up with the others very quickly.

Princess Luna filed in behind the others to a much larger room with better lighting. As the others spread out before her to get a better look at what was ahead of them, a few of them muttering to one another in the process, Luna was able to force her way through the others to get a view more befitting royalty. Before them, on a slightly elevated platform built into one of the walls a crude stage, Inquisitor Cia stood motionless, hands still behind her back. And beside her…

Luna’s heart skipped a beat as she recognized the red-eyed droids.

MagnaGuards! Soldiers of the Confederacy of Independent Systems! Personal bodyguards to the likes of the loathsome cyborg General Grievous! They had been among the many droids to participate in the destruction of Canterlot, and Luna found bile rising in her throat to see them here. But what, her logical mind asked, would Separatist machines be doing in a facility of the Galactic Empire?

As if waiting for a cue, Cia raised a hand and conversation once again instantly ceased.

“Welcome to first formal gathering of the latest class of Imperial Academy of Korriban,” she said, her voice booming easily through the auditorium. “As you have no doubt noticed, there are droids on the stage with me.”

A fresh round of whispered speculation was exchanged in the brief pause before the Inquisitor silenced everyone with another wave of her gloved hand.

“For this particular course, I will be your one and only teacher. As such, I have acquired a considerable amount of confiscated Separatist war material from Imperial warehouses. They will be serving as teaching aides, curfew enforcers, and performing general base maintenance. I find that they are a general improvement on living staff on Korriban. They are much less likely to be possessed or driven mad by voices in their heads,” Cia paused to allow that to sink in. “You will be seeing a good deal of them, I suggest you grow accustomed to it. Any of you who suffered at hands of similar machines during the Clone Wars are advised to take that pain and turn it into hatred, and allow that hatred to fuel your power. You will have your chance to exact a measure of revenge on them… if you are strong enough.”

“Soon enough, that will not be a problem, wench,” Luna thought, already relishing the idea of scrapping the machines and cutting down the Chiss who led them. She would learn what this woman had to teach, and once her power was restored…

Well, she’d just have to see, wouldn’t she?

“Now,” the Inquisitor continued. “We shall begin your training with the most basic of exercises: meditation. Take a seat. Close your eyes. Tune out all distraction. Focus on what inside of you. Seek out the darkness within you. Find your pain, your rage, your envy, your hate. For now, I simply want you to bring it to the front of your mind and hold it there.”

Inquisitor Cia looked around, her already-luminescent eyes seeming to blaze. Luna and a few others were getting to their knees, sitting, or otherwise lowering themselves to the floor, but some had yet to do so.

“Well, what are you waiting for?!” she barked. “Get started!”

“Yes, captain,” Princess Celestia was saying to an armored pegasus stallion. “Please, see them in. Make certain they are comfortable while they await my arrival.”

“Yes, your majesty,” Captain August Wings of the Royal Guard saluted crisply. Turning, he exited the villa study that Celestia called her own, shutting the door behind him.

Sighing, the solar alicorn turned back to her composition. It was a formal petition to no less a figure than Emperor Palpatine himself for the immediate release and return of Princess Luna and their stolen subjects. She had tried to contact the galaxy’s reclusive monarch by hologram, but had been met with an impenetrable stone wall of bureaucracy. At length, her persistence had drawn the intervention of Grand Vizier and head of the Imperial Ruling Council Mas Amedda. The blue-skined, horned Chagrian male had gruffly informed her that if she wished to petition the Emperor, she must do it through proper channels.

Celestia had little hope that her plea for her sister’s liberation would get anywhere. Nonetheless, every potential means of freeing Lulu from… wherever she was had to be at least attempted. The alicorn had drawn on her centuries of diplomatic practice to make the petition sound respectful and humble without seeming sycophantic. The result was, she hoped, a moving plea from a subject to a ruler for help.

Still, she doubted it would get anywhere.

But she had to try.

Celestia read over her petition for a final time and, with another weary sigh, sealed it. A golden glow enveloped her work, sending it away to be sent to the Emperor as soon as she was through with this next piece of personal business. The ruler of Equestria got to all four hooves, stretched her stiff wings, and then gently trotted out of her study, past the saluting guards, and down the hallway. She stopped before a particular set of double doors, steadied her composure, and then walked in.

Instantly, the five ponies seated or standing about the guest room halted what they were doing, turning their immediate attention to the princess of the sun. Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, and Applejack watched closely as Celestia stepped inside, the doors magically sealing themselves shut behind her. The solar alicorn invoked a brief spell to shield the room from prying eyes or vigilant ears, a practice that had become necessary since the rumored arrival of personnel from the Imperial Security Bureau – the feared secret police of the Empire – to Equus. Their technological toys, Celestia had heard, could be anywhere.

“Princess Celestia!” Rainbow Dash, the brash mare she had ever been, was the first to speak up, getting almost directly in her majesty’s face. “What gives?! Twilight came knocking in the night, said she had something real important to do, and then just- mmph!”

Rarity and Applejack were on their friend quickly, before she say any more. The unicorn and earth pony together pulled the squirming a few feet back, giving Celestia a bit of space.

“Now now, Rainbow dear,” Rarity soothed as best she could. “I’m sure Twilight had a very good reason for what she did.”

“And ah’m sure,” Applejack cut in. “The Princess Celestia is goin’ ta give us the low down on this whole thing,” she looked up at the alicorn. “Ain’t ya?”

“Very perceptive, both of you,” the alicorn complimented. “And you can let your friend go, I assure you that I don’t mind.”

Both ponies released Rainbow Dash right on cue, who glared balefully at the two but sat herself against one of the room’s couches and sullenly awaited an explanation.

“Now,” said Celestia once she had everypony’s undivided attention again. “Yes, Princess Twilight left you with only hurried goodbyes. The reason she declined to provide an explanation on the spot,” she paused momentarily. “Is because we feared that the news might get out by chance or accident. I invited you all here because you are the heroes of Equestria and you have all earned my greatest faith a dozen times over. But not everypony that might have been around you is so trustworthy.”

Immediately, there were objections.

“Now don’t y’all go insultin’ ma family, now, ya hear?”

“You think I would associate myself with loose-lipped gossips?”

“I don’t squeal on my friends!”

“My animal friends… they can keep a secret…”

“I Pinkie Promise I wouldn’t tell a soul!”

Celestia raised a hoof for silence, and after a moment got it.

“I do apologize for any emotional distress this has caused you, my little ponies,” she said. “But you must understand: the circumstances Princess Twilight found herself necessitated the utmost of secrecy. It was vital that news not leak. You are all utterly trustworthy, but I cannot completely say the same about anypony that might have found out by accident. So, before we gone, I want all your words’ that none of what I’m about to tell you will ever leave this room.”

After the alicorn had received a due chorus of assent, she continued.

“Twilight Sparkle has left Equestria along with Spike,” Celestia told them. “In fact, she has left our planet altogether.”

“W-Why?” asked Fluttershy.

“Because, my little ponies, we do not wish to remain subjects of the Galactic Empire forever.”

“Tell me something I don’t know,” grumbled Rainbow, with a baleful glance out the window towards the Imperial Hub.

“But we cannot hope to break their grip on Equus on our own. For that, we will need… new friends. Twilight has gone to seek them among the stars.”

“Then why didn’t she take us?!” Pinkie asked. “We’re great at making friends! I’ve got so many pony friends that sometimes-”

“She didn’t,” Celestia interrupted. “For a number of reasons. First of all, because excusing the absence of her and Spike alone will be difficult. The Empire may not care much for us, but eventually somepony is going to start wondering where our fourth princess has gone. For all six of you very prominent mares and Spike to vanish at the same time would be extremely suspicious. I have a series of destinations that should buy her some time, but if this mission takes as long as I think it might, I will eventually be announcing her untimely death.”

There were a series of gasps and fervent denials at that.

“It would be a heavy blow to the ponies of Equestria, but if she must be thought dead in order to have time to succeed, then Twilight understands. I know how hard this would be to you in particular, which is part of the reason I tell you here and now what is going on. Now, the second reason she did not take you along is that in order to leave the planet, Twilight has disguised herself as a human. She has experience in such a body and has studied their culture extensively, which will help her maintain her guise. None of you have comparable experience or knowledge. You would be much easier to pick out. Thirdly, disguising you would be very taxing on her magic. Species transformation spells are not easy to cast, much less maintain for prolonged periods. She would be forced to spend much of her energy just to prevent you from reverting in your sleep or the like. The fourth reason that she did not ask you to join her is that she believes that the false identity she set up in order to secure passage off-planet will be discovered eventually. She thinks six false identities would be sniffed out much faster than one. By leaving with only Spike, she gives herself more time to slip away before the Empire notices something out of place.”

Celestia chose to give the five ponies a moment to contemplate what she’d told them before giving her former’s student’s final reason.

“And lastly, Twilight Sparkle knows that you have your own lives here. Picking up the pieces of shattered homes and slain loved ones even as some of you begin to start families of your own has not been easy on any of you. She believes that you have sacrificed enough for the nation, and that you should remain behind and continue with your lives.”

“That isn’t her decision to make!” protested Rainbow Dash.

“Actually, Rainbow, I’m afraid it is,” Celestia looked weary. “She is a princess, and the original proponent of the mission. It was up to her who came along.”

There was momentary silence as everypony processed exactly what kind of task their friend was taking on without them, and why she had opted to do so.

One pony eventually spoke up again. “Uh, princess?”

“Yes Applejack?”

“Ah don’t mean ta sound rude or nothin’,” the orange earth pony scratched the back of her head. “But why ain’t Twi here tellin’ us this herself?”

“A very good question, my little pony. One I also asked her. She told me that the answer was that she wasn’t sure if she could emotionally take the experience. She found even briefly saying goodbye very taxing on her resolve to go through with this. She was not sure if she could bring herself to leave, knowing that it might be the last time you all ever saw each other.”

“So T-Twilight,” Fluttershy squeaked. “Might n-never come back?”

“As much as I hate to contemplate the possibility,” Celestia answered, sounding grave. “There can be no certainties in this task.”

7: Into the Void

“It’s all just so… big,” thought Princess Twilight Sparkle as she stared in slack-jawed wonder at the planet around her.

The journey aboard the Rust Heap had been… honestly, kind of anticlimactic. Twilight had rehearsed her story a dozen times and more, and had thought of plausible answers to almost any line of inquiry that the freighter’s crew might have come up with. But it had soon become very plain that the overworked humans did not really care at all about their temporary passenger. They were concerned only with getting all their cargo to its destination on-time and in full, getting paid their meager salaries, and avoiding angering any superiors. She, as far as they were concerned, was little more than another piece of cargo that happened to move and think. Who she was or what she had done on Equus was of about as much interest to them as the dietary habits of the common womp rat.

To be perfectly frank, the ease with which they had accepted “Ziara Blane” aboard their ship had been almost insulting.

The Gozanti-class freighter had made decent time out of the Unknown Regions for a ship saddled with its slow hyperdrive, taking only ten days to circumnavigate the many hazards in the region and reach its destination: the Outer Rim world of Yaga Minor. Twilight had been able to leave with the same casual ease with which she arrived, assuring the crew that she knew where she was going and them not truly giving a damn.

For all that she had read, all the holo-clips she had seen, for everything that she had done to prepare herself for the moment she stepped out of the spaceport and into one of the planet’s cities, Twilight Sparkle still found herself utterly stupefied and overwhelmed. The sights! The sounds! The smells! So many people! Thousands going every which way, droids of bewildering variety and complexity zipping about underfoot and overhead on their tasks. Buildings dwarfing the largest of Manehatten’s prewar skyscrapers – how laughable that term now seemed – by orders of magnitude. Speeders of all kinds zipping through the air or over the roads. Far above the city were construction facilities dedicated to the production of everything from the new TIE fighters to mighty Star Destroyers, to which a constant stream of traffic flowed. Everything was so much bigger and more advanced than anything she had ever seen before in her life. It was all just so much to take in at once!

As she glanced around carefully, Twilight began to feel very small indeed. Like an insect caught in a vast trap too large to even make out, much less escape. To help herself concentrate, she opted to practice breathing exercises while reviewing what she knew.

Yaga Minor was a major shipbuilding facility in the region and, according to Twilight’s research, had been since the days of the Galactic Republic. The insectoid natives, the Yagai, were renown around the galaxy for efficiency and loyalty, as well as mechanical prowess. These nonhumans had as of late been suffering from increased restriction and labor quotas at the Empire’s hand, though from what she knew of them Twilight did not expect to see a major resistance movement here. The insectoids were too cool-headed and pragmatic to try.

As a major shipyard and Imperial production facility so near to the Unknown Regions in which Equus resided, it was natural that a considerable percentage of the flow of traffic to Twilight’s homeworld came from this place. More to the point, it housed a large human population to get lost in, as well as an abundance of small ships for sale, which is why it of all possible destinations was the one Twilight had selected. The disguised alicorn had no intention of remaining on this planet for very long. It would be the first place anyone who discovered that Imperial Army Engineer Ziara Blane had never existed would go looking. She wanted to be far away by the time someone started searching.

That thought managed to assert itself through the haze of emotions running through Twilight’s mind. She needed to obtain a starship, and quickly. She had a substantial amount of credits, either taken discreetly from the Equus’ coffers by herself or Celestia, or simply stolen on the sly from the Imperials. It was time to put some of that money to use.

Calling up a map she had uploaded to her datapad, Twilight gripped the container holding her dragon friend in one hand and began to move.

She had a goal now.

“Come on!” Inquisitor Cia’s voice boomed out over the howling sandstorm winds. “If you cannot find the pain and anger to focus on here, where in this blasted galaxy do you expect to find it?!”

Princess Luna’s jaw was clenched tightly into a snarl, though she dared not open her lips to show it. Partially because of the Chiss, partially because of the sandstorm.

The black-clad alien woman had, after their first few sessions of meditation practice indoors had failed to yield results she considered satisfactory, decided to hold the next one outside. During one of Korriban’s frequent sandstorms. The prevailing theory was that the merciless heat and whirling, stinging dust would cause pain, which would lead to anger, which would lead to hatred, which would lead to power over the Force.

Well, Luna reflected, the first part of the theory had definitely proven true. Being out here certainly hurt. Her fur coat might have shielded her from sunburn, but it also meant she was being cooked like dragon’s dinner, and the infernal red grit was getting absolutely everywhere on her royal person. Cleaning her fur and mane would be a nightmare.

Before Luna and each of the thirty-odd students were small sets of metallic weights. Their task was to call on the power of the dark side to hoist these into the air where the Inquisitor could see them, and then move the lot in a precise series of patterns, demonstrating a degree of fine control.

Thus far, all that anyone had demonstrated was that it was bucking hard to concentrate in a sandstorm.

Luna did as the blue-skinned woman commanded, doing her best to shut out the distractions around her. These other creatures could somehow use magic without horns, she reasoned, so why shouldn’t their methods work for her? She had been without power too long to start getting picky over what methods she used to get it back.

In any case, Luna had plenty of bitterness and resentment to draw upon.

Her eyes closed, her mind’s eye firmly affixed on her memories, Luna called on her own memories. She remembered the rage at the brutal deaths of her precious ponies during the Separatist invasion. She remembered the agony of having her horn brutally amputated by the monster Grievous. She remembered her humiliation at once more being the weaker and inferior sister, reduced to little more than a political figurehead while Celestia controlled both sun and moon. She remembered her sense of powerlessness as the Republic became an Empire and enslaved their world, forcing her nation to do their dirty work while she sat helpless and watched. And of course, she remembered how this horrible woman that now berated them had been on the verge of casually executing her like a lowly slave for daring to talk back. How she had executed another for the crime of tripping and falling.

The ambient power of the dark side flowing through the very air of Korriban could sense her powerful emotions, and it responded. Luna felt an icy sensation running through the charred nub beneath her ornamental horn. For the first time in years, power was beginning to accumulate on her ruined appendage.

Her eyes scrunched up in concentration, Luna tried to focus the feeling on the small sets of weights in front of her. Clumsily, inch by inch, the metallic orbs began to lift themselves from the red sands below. The alicorn risked a quick peek with her right eye. Excitement and elation flooded her as she saw with her own eye that she was actually managing to accomplish.

“We did it!” she thought gleefully. “We did it!”

The weights promptly dropped to the ground with a dull thud, the icy flow of power fading to nothing as her anger dimmed.

Before Luna even had time to feel dismay, there was a powerful blow to the back of her head. She plunged forward face-first burying her muzzle deep in Korriban’s red sand and getting the infernal stuff into her mouth. He blue eyes flicking backwards, she saw to her complete lack of surprise the Chiss woman standing there, arms crossed and one boot casually extended to where her head had just been.

“Come on!” Cia snapped irritably. “Is that all you can do?! What happened to this oh-so-powerful moon princess I heard about? Where is your hate?! Where is your rage?!”

With a snarl, Luna pulled herself out of the desert sands and tried to begin again.

“Yeah,” said the human male in front of Twilight was saying, patting the brown ship behind him. “She’s a beauty. Clone Wars era. Only slightly used.”

“She’s fast?” the alicorn, now appearing as a much younger human female with blonde hair and slight purple streak, asked.

“Gets 800km per hour in a planetary atmosphere and has a Class 2 hyperdrive,” the man grinned. “So yeah, she’s fast.”

A Class 2 hyperdrive matched the speeds of most Imperial starfighters equipped with hyperdrives, and exceeded that of their capital ships. That was very promising if quick escapes were needed.

“And what of those?” she pointed to two pairs of what looked to be linked laser cannons. “Are they functional?”

“Ask the Seppie raiders who tried their hand in this sector,” the salesman answered. “If you can find what’s left of them.”

“And this is a package deal, yes?”

“It was quite a bit of work, but I got it all. One Corellian Engineering Corporation Hwk-290, slightly used, one FA-4 Pilot Droid, two used H-1ME mechanic droids, all just like you asked,” he replied. “And all of this can be yours for a mere 200,000 Imperial credits.”

With neither Twilight nor Spike having the foggiest idea of how to fly or repair a ship beyond “read the manual”, droids were a necessity. She had neither the time nor any good idea of how to recruit a crew in suitable timeframe, and did not yet feel comfortable trying. Machines to handle the actual flight and routine maintenance would be an invaluable aid in departing Yaga Minor for other worlds as soon as possible.

Given that her brief research into the subject had pegged the average price of a used Hawk-series freighter at 55,000 credits, Twilight had the distinct impression that she was being ripped off. She also had the impression that she did not care – speed was more important than money right now, as she was barely restraining herself from looking over her shoulder for Imperial Security Bureau agents. Spending three days on Yaga Minor searching for just the right kind of ship that could be bought without too many questions being asked already felt like too long for her.

Still, it didn’t hurt to haggle a little bit. That would also seem less suspicious.

“Make it 150, and you have a deal.”

The salesman frowned. “190.”

“160, and that’s being generous,” she countered.

“You know how much work went into this thing?” he asked. “I’ll do 180, even though my boss will kill me.”

“Oh please, you’re making more than double on this as it is. 170.”

The man looked at the ship, then back at Twilight and gave a momentary sigh. “Tell you what, Ms. Alilia. I like you. I’ll be going home hungry for a week, but I’ll do 175, and not a decicred less,” he folded his arms.

Twilight pretended to think about it.

“Deal,” she said at last, sticking out a hand. “One hundred and seventy-five thousand Imperial credits, paid in cash and immediately.”

The man smiled and shook her hand firmly. “Pleasure doing business with you. Let’s just see you to my office for a few signatures, and then we’ll have you out of here in a flash,” he turned and took a few steps away before seeming to remember something and flipping his head back. “Oh,” he said. “You got a name you want on this thing’s transponder and registration? We can do that free of charge.”

Twilight hadn’t really thought hard about something like that, but one name seemed to spring up just the instant the question was asked.

“Call her the Harmony,”

“The key to success in lightsaber combat, as in all things,” Inquisitor Cia was saying. “Lies in drawing on the Force to augment your senses and surpass your body’s limitations. You must not only see what the opponent is going to do before they do it, you must train yourself to defeat them before the engagement has even begun.”

The Korriban class had been gathered inside for its first experience in lightsaber dueling. They had been paired off, one to another, and faced each other across the confines of auditorium. Princess Luna’s partner was a young human male by the name of Kerric Derus, who was looking at the alicorn with a confident expression in his eyes. In their hands – or in Luna’s case in what weak telekinetic grip she could muster – were simple blunt blades equipped with crackling electrical charges.

Given the woman’s track record, Luna supposed she should be thankful that Cia wasn’t starting them off with actual lightsabers.

“Call on the dark side, feel its power flowing through you,” Cia commanded, closing her own eyes and waiting as the students slowly did the same.

For almost a minute, all was silence in the auditorium and everyone who possibly could drew on whatever negative emotions they could feel. The temperature in the room seemed to drop several degrees as the currents of the Force shifted in response to their surge of emotion. Luna could feel the freezing sensation enveloping her horn’s remnants once again, fueling the power within.

Without warning, the Inquisitor spoke again.

“Begin.”

Across form Luna, Kerric was in a charge even before his eyes had fully opened. The look on his face raw and primal, he swung the electrified sword directly at Luna’s head in an overhand blow. Her own sword came quickly up to block it, but shook heavily on contact. Kerric rained down a series of rapid blows against the quivering sword with enough speed that Luna never had time to consider a series counterattack. Inch by inch the human pushed it back, until finally the alicorn’s grip slipped.

Luna shrieked in pain as the electrified blade jabbed her in the chest, sending a powerful current throughout her body. Her nervous system thrown completely off, her limbs lost coordination and she toppled over onto the hard metal floor, adding more bruises to a growing collection of small injuries. Her legs and wings spasmed and twitched for several seconds as she lay there, panting.

The alicorn could hear footsteps over the sounds of clashing swords and the screams of other students, drawing near to her. A silhouette appeared in the corner of her eye, looking down at her radiating contempt.

“Pathetic.”

The newly-dubbed Harmony accelerated out of Yaga Minor’s planetary atmosphere at a relatively slow, easy-going pace. There was no need to appear as though they were in a rush, especially with several Victory and Venator-class Star Destroyers hovering protectively over the planet’s orbital shipyards. The fleet around Yaga Minor boasted a full half-dozen such massive ships, with dozens smaller cruisers and frigates interspersed throughout. Fighters in their thousands, ranging from older models from the Clone Wars to fresh off the line TIE models, were everywhere, running their patrols for any would-be pirates, rebels, or dissidents. All in all, the forces above the planet were a nerve-wracking reminder of Imperial military might.

As she stared out the cockpit’s viewport at the forces of the Galactic Empire, Twilight for the first time really felt in her gut the magnitude of the task that awaited her. This fleet by itself would be more than enough to tear through her homeworld like paper, and there were even more ships in the construction docks!

“This is Yaga Minor System Control to freighter designate Harmony,” a voice emerging from the ship’s comms declared. “Transmit authorization codes and flight path.”

“Yes sir,” said FA-4Z7B, the pilot droid currently flying the craft. It tapped several buttons on the ship’s control console while Twilight watched.

The alicorn, still wearing a human form just in case, waited anxiously as the system traffic controllers processed the data that had been sent. Everything was, as far as she knew, legitimate and in order. As long as no one thought to check too extensively into the identity she’d used to purchase the ship – which they probably wouldn’t, as the dealer was hardly reputable himself – there shouldn’t be anything off about her. Still, as the small freighter was slowly approached by an enormous Star Destroyer, Twilight couldn’t entirely suppress the feeling that it was about to open fire and disintegrate the lot of them.

“Your flight plan is approved,” the voice came back without warning.

Twilight let loose a breath she hadn’t been aware she was holding.

“Two fighters will escort you to the designated jump point,” the system controller continued. “Do not attempt to stray from your path. Failure to abide by this restriction will result in your termination.”

Twilight swallowed, but without facial features the pilot droid could not express any similar anxieties, if it had them at all.

A pair of standard TIE fighters broke off from their patrol to flank either side of the Harmony, watching it closely as it broke free of the planet’s gravity and zoomed by the precious shipyard facilities at an unthreatening distance. They accompanied the alicorn’s ship still further as it approached the edge of the planet’s gravity well, where travel to hyperspace would become possible.

“Mistress,” the dull-sounding pilot droid spoke up as the trio approached the point they had been given. “The navicomputer requires a destination. To where are we bound?”

Twilight worked up her nerves. This was it. The moment she had been waiting for. The moment when her mission to free her homeworld truly began.

“Set your course for Serenno.”

8: Into the Darkness

Princess Luna stood, along with the remainder of the class, outdoors under Korriban’s blistering sun. Even as the infernal red orb was sinking beneath the sky it burned those beneath it, as if it wished only to inflict as much pain as possible before surrendering to the frigid night. The sandstorms and howling winds had temporarily subsided that evening, and so Inquisitor Cia had dubbed it an appropriate time to practice another aspect of lightsaber combat – the deflecting of blaster bolts.

Each student stood ranged out on the dunes, faced by a trio of aging B-1 battle droid apiece, blaster rifles gripped in their mechanical fingers. For this exercise, the Inquisitor had assured them, those rifles would be set to stun. Just so they wouldn’t get “too complacent”, she also announced that the first to fall would be left to lie there in sands throughout the night, to be let back in only if they managed to survive it. To make it “fair”, she would also be participating, facing off against ten droids rather than three. Luna wasn’t sure if she was doing it because she thought it would stoke the pupils’ envy and ambition, or because she simply enjoyed humiliating those under her.

Probably both.

“Ready,” came Cia’s voice.

All around her, students were readying the practice swords they had been given and shifting into the defensive stances that the Chiss was currently modeling. Luna, not being bipedal like the rest of them, was forced to imitate as best she could. Her blade, still weakly held in the telekinetic grip she could muster up, hovered over her head.

“Aim.”

Cia’s own red lightsaber blade leapt from its hilt, covering her torso in what Luna recognized vaguely as a Soresu defensive position. Its glow brightened the slowly-dimming desert around them.

“Fire!”

Immediately, all of the B-1s burst into action, squeezing the triggers of their E-5 blaster rifles. Blue rings of energy shot out at high speeds towards the alicorn princess and all her fellows. Slower than regular blaster bolts but still far faster than even the quickest organic, the stun blasts were difficult to intercept. Luna caught one on the edge of her blade, whereupon it dissipated into a surging electrical charge. Three more she ducked.

Around her, the other students were finding success to varying degrees in defending themselves, though for most it seemed a challenge. The exception was, of course, the Inquisitor. Her red lightsaber flashed through the air in a blur, easily catching each and every blue ring that flew at her along its length. The Chiss even had one hand behind her back and confident smile on her face.

For some time – she did not know exactly how long – Luna’s only focus was on the hateful machines in front of her and their guns. As she focused on her loathing for her past failures, the dark side of Force flowed through her body, lending her split-second precognition of where the droids were to aim next. It was a small advantage, but it made all the difference as she struggled not to be the first to be shot down. One-by-one she caught the stun bursts as they came or else twisted her body so that they went around her. The effort was exhausting, but through the sweat Luna began to feel a sense of accomplishment. She was doing it! She was really doing it!

And then one of the blasts got through.

Luna shrieked as the blue ring clipped one of her extended wings. It immediately dissipated into a powerful charge that coursed through her body, overloading her nervous system. Her beaten body once more spasming out of her control, she lost her grip on the sword she had been given. Immediately, several more blue rings took the alicorn princess head-on. She tried to duck, but her muscles were clenching, her joints refusing to obey her commands. Luna managed to keep wobbly hooves for a number of seconds before collapsing onto her side in the sand.

Unable to move, barely able to breathe through her incredibly constricted chest muscles, the princess was reduced to glancing about with her blue eyes at the students around her. To the proud alicorn’s infinite chagrin, she saw that not a single other being had yet been overcome by the droids’ weaponry.

She was the first down.

The Harmony’s engines whined loudly as the freighter prepared to make the jump to hyperspace. Then, with a jolt, the ship left Yaga Minor and its fighter escorts behind. For only the second time in her entire life, Twilight Sparkle watched as the dark void of space was replaced with swirling streaks of blue. She felt a little nauseous at the sight.

“We have entered hyperspace,” FA-4Z7B announced mechanically. “Estimated travel time to Serenno: 16 galactic standard days.”

“Thank you, FA,” the alicorn princess responded as she unsteadily got to her feet. “Please keep the ship on course and alert me if anything new comes up.”

“Roger roger.”

Twilight paused before the cockpit’s rear door. “…And please don’t say that.”

“Yes, mistress.”

“Thank you,” Twilight said, slipping out the door.

As soon as the automated door sealed shut behind her, Twilight released her spell with a sigh of relief. Her human body shimmered and faded as she resumed her natural form. She hadn’t dared risk it while still in the system, but it felt so good to be back on four legs again. Human bodies felt so unnatural.

“Hey Twilight,” said Spike, who was seated atop a crate containing portable rations, munching on one of the nutrient bars contained within. “Want one?” he offered one to the alicorn. “They’re not bad.”

“Thanks Spike,” Twilight took the ration bar gratefully, peeling off the rapper and immediately biting in.

It wasn’t particularly tasty, but according to her research was the most efficient way of getting the necessary nutrients to both herself and her dragon friend without undue risk. They could hardly hope to save their planet if both dropped dead from some alien food that wound up being poisonous to them, after all.

As both gnawed on their first meal in the Harmony, Twilight reflected on her choice of destination. Serenno was the homeworld of the deceased Count Dooku and a major Separatist bastion during the Clone Wars. After the mysterious shutdown of the droid army, however, the planet had surrendered peacefully to the new Galactic Empire. That, combined with its immense wealth and the fact that its populace was almost entirely human, meant that it had been treated more gently than most former CIS worlds. What data she had indicated the Imperial occupation force was not particularly large.

Twilight did not know where, if anywhere, other disgruntled worlds could be found – it wasn’t as though the Empire told the galaxy where it was facing insurrection. But starting with a world that had fought a bitter war with the Republic and yet remained relatively intact seemed a decent idea to her. That Serenno was located in the Outer Rim, far from the Core Worlds where the bulk of the Imperial Fleet resided, only added weight to the idea. Twilight was virtually certain that she could find dissenters there, even if they were nothing more than Separatist diehards.

After all, she reflected, an old ally had become a new enemy. Why couldn’t an old enemy become a new ally?

Korriban’s night cycle was, in its own way, as brutal as its day. While the sun overhead had been a raging ball of fiery hate, the seven moons that circled the planet were icy-cold incarnations of cold anger. They seemed to desire nothing more than to drain the life and heat from anything caught under their blue-white rays. The sensation they invoked in Luna reminded her very uncomfortably of the feel of Nightmare Moon on her soul.

As temperature dropped around her, the dark blue alicorn slowly found that she could once again move. At first it was just a twitch of her leg, but soon it was moving the leg, then her other legs, then her wings, and then her entire body. By that time, three of the moons were high overhead, chilling the very sands of the desert world below. The alicorn princess soon took to outright burying herself in the sands, even her fur coat unable to protect her from the sheer supernatural chill of Korriban’s night. Even shielded from the winds in her improvised burrow, Luna shivered endlessly in the cold. Unsurprisingly, that night she got no sleep at all.

After several frigid, miserable hours in the hole in the ground, Luna was even ready to welcome back Korribam’s horrible reddish sun.

The fiery orb’s return to the sky marked the immediate end of the chill, banished as if it were never there. In its place came the all too familiar sensation of baking heat, the sands of Luna’s hole perceptibly beginning to warm beneath her hooves. At first it was almost pleasant, banishing the goosebumps that had crept across the alicorn’s skin, but very soon it grew too hot to remain underground. The fact that this seemed completely counterintuitive – Luna knew many desert creatures on her homeworld survived the day by hiding beneath the sands – did not prevent it from being so. Cursing the star that seemed determined to drive her out into the open, the alicorn princess emerged from the sands dirty, bruised, and feeling angry.

The doors of the Imperial facility were closed, and remained so for some time, leaving Luna with nothing to do but bake and simmer. By the time that the double durasteel doors trundled open, she felt ready to punch somepony’s lights out.

“So,” said Inquisitor Cia, looking as nonplussed as she usually did. “You survived.”

“Didst thou ever doubt?” Luna huffed.

“Yes,” she answered.

“Well, now thou knowest better!”

“We shall see. You displayed potential, but…” she frowned. “You have been my worst student, and I am not certain why. I would advise you to do better in the future.”

Luna simply gritted her teeth and snarled.

Cia smirked. “A good attitude to take. Now come.”

The Chiss turned her back on the alicorn and led her straight back into the climate-controlled building, the doors sealing shut behind them. Without a further world the Inquisitor led the princess down a series of corridors, past rows of motionless droids, and down a long hallway with twin rows of identical sealed doors. From behind some of them, Luna thought she could hear faint sounds of sobbing or screaming.

“Here we are,” said Cia, stopping at one of the many featureless durasteel doors. It opened with a wave of her hand. “In you go.”

Suspiciously, Princess Luna stepped through the portal. The room inside was a rather featureless grey box resembling greatly the room she slept in, with faint red ceiling strips providing the only light. What immediately caught her attention, however, was the metal table in the center.

Shaped in manner vaguely reminiscent of a coffin, the slab of durasteel was connected to twin mechanical limbs bolted to the floor on either side. They could obviously raise and lower the table at will, adjusting the angle to whatever their controller wished. Around the centerpiece were smaller tables bearing ominous-looking implements and devices whose purpose Luna did not know, but could guess easily enough.

Strapped to a table was a man.

“This,” said Cia, stepping into the room after Luna. “Is former Staff Sergeant Alton Drech, once of the Confederacy of Independent Systems.”

Luna let out an involuntary hiss at that name. Cia nodded approvingly.

“He is a traitor to the Empire, and a coward. He fled into the wilds of the galaxy after the end of the Clone Wars,” Cia took a few steps forward and grasped the human’s chin in one blue hand. “But the Imperial Security Bureau always gets its man, doesn’t it?”

“Please,” Drech said, his green eyes looking up into Cia’s red. “I’m innocent! I swear! You have the wrong-”

Cia slapped him across the face. “Do not lie to me! You are Alton Drech of Ruusan, former member of the Republic’s Judicial Corps, defected to the Separatist Alliance, fought in the Clone Wars, fled after the collapse of the CIS, captured two standard months ago on Ord Mantell,” she leaned in close. “I have your entire history on record, from your service to the Republic to your years in the Separatist Alliance. So do not think you may lie here.”

The man looked down, saying nothing more.

“Now,” Cia turned back to Luna, beckoning her forward. The alicorn approached cautiously. “We are going to try something different. I want you to break him.”

“W-What dost thou m-mean?’ Luna stammered, more to buy time that anything else. She had guessed the instant she had seen the cell.

Cia raised an eyebrow. “What do you think I mean? Probe his mind, torture him, whatever works. Wring the names and locations of his old contacts out of him.”

“But I don’t know anything!” protested Drech, earning him another slap in the face.

“Silence! You will speak when spoken to, worm, and not before!”

“But-”

Cia pressed a small button to the side of the table, unleashed a powerful electrical pulse across the metal surface. The man screamed and writhed against his restraints, to no effect. After a moment, the Chiss released the button and electric current ceased. Drech went limp, sobbing and smoking slightly.

“So,” Cia continued, ignoring the man’s soft moans. “This should easy enough. The man is a great coward. I imagine you’ll have no trouble interrogating him.” When all Luna did was stand motionless in place, appalled, the Inquisitor gestured. “Well, go on.”

“P-Please…” Drech managed between heavy breathes. “I w-was just… a q-quartermaster… I d-don’t k-know anything…”

“What did I tell you about speaking out of turn?” Cia’s finger gestured slightly, depressing the button again and triggering a longer round of electric shocks. Drech’s shrieks echoed throughout the confined space. Eventually, the Inquisitor relented and the flow halted once again. “Some people never learn,” she sighed. “Regardless, I shouldn’t be the one doing this. This is your lesson, after all, not mine. So, Luna, show me what you can do.”

“…No.”

The Inquisitor’s luminescent red eyes narrowed. “What?” she hissed dangerously.

“We said, no!” Luna repeated, stamping her foot down. “We will not be party to such barbarism!”

“Even after what the Confederacy did you homeworld?”

“…” Luna hesitated, looking down at her hooves.

“After all of your kind that those like this man killed? After all the cities razed, all the lives extinguished?” Cia smiled knowingly. “After all that, you say you won’t deliver justice to one of the guilty parties?”

Luna looked her in the eye. “Aye,” she declared. “Even one of them. We are not a monster! We will not torture a victim on thy behalf! We are better than that!”

“I see.”

Without warning, Luna was flung off her hooves. She slammed roughly into the durasteel door behind her, head first. Dazed, she could do little to respond as Cia slammed her telekinetically against walls, floor, and ceiling.

“You,” she said, punctuating each word by ramming Luna against something else. “Are. Weak! You. Are. Worthless! You. Are. Pathetic!”

Cia gestured again, and Luna tumbled to the floor in a pained heap. It felt as though a dozen tons of weight were atop her body, and she could not move. She could barely flick her eyes up to look at the Chiss looming over her.

“I see what your problem is now,” said Inquisitor Cia, frowning. “You refuse to give yourself fully over to the dark side. You want your power back, but you foolishly think to cling to your antiquated moral code at the same time. You haven’t the strength of will to be an Inquisitor,” she drew her lightsaber, the red blade illuminating the cell around her. “Perhaps I should just kill you now as an example to the rest.”

Still crushed under the alien woman’s telekinetic strength, the alicorn couldn’t even manage a snarl. After a moment, Cia raised the glowing red blade high above her head.

And then she hesitated.

The moment seemed to stretch on for an eternity. Time stood still as the Chiss regarded the prone alicorn, lightsaber held high for the final blow, merely awaiting her decision to deliver it. Luna tried to struggle, but found herself thoroughly unable to move so much as a single feather in her own defense.

At last, Cia deactivated the saber and returned it to her belt with a shake of her head. “No… you still have great potential… It would be a waste.”

The pressure on Luna loosened slightly, enough to allow her to speak.

“We will not,” she hissed through gritted teeth. “Be thy torturer.”

“Perhaps a lesson on the futility of heroics is in order, then,” Cia gestured with two fingers.

Behind her, Alton Drech screamed once again as more electricity coursed through his body. His screams grew louder and louder by the second, his body’s wild thrashing enough to even shake the table somewhat. But the electricity did not stop – on the contrary, if anything it grew in intensity. One of the man’s sleeves caught fire under the barrage, which quickly spread itself to the rest of his clothing. Burning and shrieking with agony, the one-time soldier of the Confederacy of Independent Systems was tortured to death as Luna looked on.

At last, when the mercy of death had claimed her victim, Cia made another gesture to shut off the flow of electricity. The human’s limp corpse hung there, the smoke flowing upwards into the ventilation shaft overheard.

“You know,” Cia commented idly. “He really didn’t know anything. I just wanted to see what you would do,” she glanced down at Luna. “You failed the test.”

Luna spat at her feet.

“Yes, well,” the Inquisitor looked distastefully down at the smudge on her jackboot. “The question remains: what to do with you? Hmm…” she tapped her chin thoughtfully, the other hand behind her back. Then she smiled. “I have it.”

“We will not do thy bidding,” Luna growled.

“You will,” replied the Chiss, kneeling down to better look the alicorn in the eye. “Or it will be you on that table next.”

Luna’s ears folded back. Cia smirked.

“I have your attention now, do I? Very good,” she resumed her full height. “I am sending you on… a little expedition. You will follow my directions exactly, and when you return you will have either fully embraced the dark side of the Force… or you will be another set of bleached bones in the sand.”

“Where,” Luna managed. “Are we going?”

“The heart of the darkness on Korriban,” Cia answered. “The ancient burial ground of the Sith. The Valley of the Dark Lords.”

9: Into the Valley

Princess Luna trudged miserably through one of Korriban’s countless sandstorms. Her face was wrapped in an improvised cloth mask, her wings tucked tightly into her sides. And yet still the infernal red grit got everywhere, stinging, itching, and irritating every inch of the alicorn’s body. Countless minor injuries received during her training blazed back to life as the sands met raw, red flesh. Luna grimaced at the pain, but was determined to soldier on through it all.

In the old days, her journey would have been simple. She would have simply teleported, or just flown to her destination. Both options were out now – teleporting could obviously not be done in her current state, and lacking magic to support them pony wings were simply too small to carry their bodies through the air. When Luna had lost her horn, her ability to fly had consequently faded as well. The alicorn had no choice but to make the long journey on hoof.

“Go to the north,” Inquisitor Cia had said. “Follow the sight of the mountain range. Many miles from here you will find a vast valley covered in weathered statues and ancient tombs. This is the Valley of the Dark Lords. It should not be difficult to locate – the spirits that dwell there are always seeking to draw the living to their resting place. One of the ancient chambers built into the cliff sides is marked by a certain rune. I shall show you which one. In the depths of that place you will find a lightsaber of great antiquity and prestige, once belonging to a certain Darth Nox of an ancient Sith Empire. Bring this weapon back with you, or do not return at all.”

“What else shall we find in this valley?” Luna had asked.

“I cannot say,” Cia had answered with a tight smile. “On Korriban the dead do not rest easily, and the Valley is their domain. You will find whatever they wish you to find. Know this, however: the Valley of the Dark Lords is a place where no light can reach. Only the dark side can save you from what dwells there.”

Luna snorted at the memory. She feared neither ghosts nor demons nor whatever else this wretched place could conjure. Neither, she told herself, did she fear pain or her own death. A proper princess could not allow herself such selfish indulgences, as her time as Nightmare Moon had taught her. The only harm worth being afraid of was that which befell her people.

That was why she was on Korriban. That was why she obeyed the horrible woman. That was why she ventured into such danger. Her ponies needed her. Her nation needed her. Her world needed her. And to protect that world, she needed power. Not just her old power, but even more than that. She needed to become greater than she had ever been, and if the Inquisitorius offered a path to that, she would take them for all they were worth and then betray them when she had learned everything she could.

Thinking on the sheer cruelty displayed both to herself and to her planet, Luna had a hard time believing that Empire was truly so foolish as to expect loyalty from beings it abused so grievously. Despite that, the evidence all suggested that it actually did, pinning its hopes on the power of this “dark side” to secure adherents’ collective allegiance. But once Luna had the power she needed, Equestria could be safe, she had long ago decided. They could all be free once again. To Tartarus with the Empire.

It was with these thoughts foremost in her mind that Princess Luna pressed onwards into the dunes of the red desert.

Many days had passed since Luna had set out from the Empire’s facility, though exactly how many she did not know. After the fifteenth – or was it sixteenth – the alicorn had stopped bothering to count. After so long, her hooves were aching and cracked in several places. The muscles in her legs were worn and sore, her skin soaked by sweat. Her fur was utterly filthy with sand, to the point where she was starting to blend in with the seemingly-endless red dunes. Her cloth mask was little more than a dirtied rag with more than a few holes. The ration supplies she had been given were running low, but in spite of all this she had little choice but to continue forward. To halt or go back was to die ignominiously and leave her people to the Empire’s mercy.

Luna had trekked across great sections of desert, always headed to the far north, and mountain ranges she could make out there. As time had passed, they had grown immensely in size until the current moment, whereupon she was entering into their foothills. They were rocky, jagged things of worn sandstone prone to crumble away at the slightest misstep. The wind around her had died away as mountains loomed large, reduced now to a mere whisper. At times, it almost sounded like actual disembodied whispers, which would have been unnerving to a lesser soul. The alicorn princess had seen far worse in the many nightmares she had visited, and remained unimpressed.

Cresting another rocky foothill, the princess spied in the distance a wide gap between some mountains. She had never seen this terrain before in her life, but she knew immediately and without needing to be told that this was the entrance to the valley she sought. How she came by that knowledge Luna could not say, but something was pulling on her soul, urging her towards the gap. She guessed it was these alleged spirits that were supposed to haunt the tombs here. Snorting disdainfully, Luna proceeded down the hillside and directly towards the mountain gap.

She did not fear the dead.

Though the alicorn would have guessed that the distance between the rocky hill the valley’s entrance to be a distance of some miles, it grew larger and larger within minutes. Where before she had been wandering slowly through Korriban’s wastes, now she seemed to be eating up ground like a supersonic pegasus. Though she hadn’t a way to keep a precise count, the princess estimated that it took her a mere half hour to traverse roughly six or seven miles worth of ground at a comfortable walking pace. It seemed the Inquisitor was correct – this place wanted to be found. Luna was not oblivious to the implications of her supernatural speed, keeping a wary eye out for anypony nearby as the valley entrance loomed large above her.

It was just as she crossed the threshold of the gap in the mountains that Luna spied something ahead of herself. Lying on the rocky valley floor not far in was a small, lumpy bundle covered in brown cloth. Covered in red sand from the planet’s many dust storms, it was well-camouflaged but the princess’ keen blue eyes caught sight of it anyway. She glanced around slightly at the red-brown stone walls, but saw nothing more, and so turned her gaze back to the mysterious bundle.

Warily, the alicorn approached the downed object, keeping a careful eye out for any sudden moves from the thing. No matter how close she got, however, it failed to move or otherwise react to her presence. Inch by inch, foot by foot Luna trod closer and closer, until at last she loomed over it. She poked it with a cautious hoof, once more getting no reaction.

Carefully, Luna invoked what small telekinesis she had regained, her memories of the injustice, indignity, and pain she had been subjected to providing the necessary fuel. She found that it was easier here, the Force responding smoothly to her command. The brown, sand-encrusted cloth slowly unraveled itself, revealing what lay within.

Bones. Bloody bones.

Startled, Luna took a hurried step backwards. Her eyes darted up and around, seeking the source of this carcass. There was still nothing but unmoving stone and the sounds of the low wind flowing through the valley. For a moment, the alicorn thought she had seen the slightest quiver of movement from the corner of her eye, but when she jerked her head to give it her full attention saw nothing there.

Reluctantly, Luna returned her attention to the corpse. Taking a few steps forward again to get a better look, she was surprised to find that some of the bones were identifiable. The bloody but mostly-intact horned skull was undoubtedly Togruta in origin. The lack of yellowing suggested that this kill was recent, though the dried blood and small strips of rotting flesh indicated it had been at least a little time since this being’s unfortunate end.

Casting her mind back to her first day on the planet, Luna recalled vaguely one male Togruta student choosing to use the opportunity presented by a sandstorm to slip away from the group. Knowing no other beings that lived here, and seeing no reason they would, she concluded that this was likely all that remained of him. Her ears lowered and eyes downcast in sympathy, Luna touched the bones with one hoof.

“Poor soul,” she said, head bowed. “May thou findest thy rest somewhere far from this accursed realm, and thy spirit knoweth peace, wherever it may be.”

It wasn’t much of a funeral, but it was the best she could do. The ground was far too hard and rocky to bury him in, even if Luna had had the time and necessary tools to dig with. As it was, she began to move on, passing the bloody bones by when she by chance spotted a mark on one of the pieces. Looking closer, she realized that it was a bite mark.

Before the alicorn had time to process this new information, before she even had the chance to blink, the corner of her eye caught something moving.

Fast.

It was Luna’s instincts that saved her. Forged through many different battles over the centuries, honed in the war against the Confederacy of Independent Systems, and focused recently in the Inquisitor’s training, her combat reflexes were quite good. It was thanks to these that she hurled herself backwards at the slightest hint of an incoming enemy. Which was a good thing, as less than a second later the spot where she had been standing was crashed into by an enormous beast.

Scrambling backwards, Luna got a quick look at her would-be killer through the dust cloud its rough landing had kicked up. It was vaguely canine-looking quadruped, with numerous spikey horns jutting backwards out of its head. Larger than the alicorn by a few feet, it had a tail almost as long as the rest of its body put together, culminating in a nasty-looking spike. Its four legs displayed numerous claws several inches in length. Its chin featured a small “beard” of spikes. Its open mouth revealed vicious-looking incisors in multiple rows.

The monstrosity’s eyes were a vicious, glowing red.

As the creature turned to face the alicorn, growling in evident anger over its failed pounce, Luna tentatively identified it as one of the tuk’ata hounds she had been warned prowled certain regions of Korriban. It advanced on her, teeth bared and body tensed. Behind her, Luna heard two heavy thuds as an addition pair of tuk’ata joined the first one. She was surrounded. The princess gritted her teeth.

So be it.

The hound that had narrowly missed killing her by surprise acted first, throwing itself at Luna in a leaping charge. As it flew through the air, claws extended and teeth bared, she did the one thing it least expected.

She met it head-on.

Luna’s countercharge was swift and direct, ducking low under the flying beast to bring her artificial horn right up where she guessed its chest would be. Her split-second estimate of its trajectory proved accurate, the tuk’ata’s own momentum impaling it on her instrument. The enchanted silver punched straight through the tough flesh of the hound’s chest, burying itself deep in one of the beast’s lungs.

Though this would have been more than enough to fell a normal opponent, the vicious tuk’ata were products of ancient Sith magic and almost as tough as the alicorns themselves. The wounded beast raked the claws of its right legs across Luna’s face, cutting deep furrows into her cheek and along her jaw. The sheer kinetic force tore the ornamental horn from the alicorn’s head and sent her flying several yards away. Luna impacted roughly against a rock and crumpled to the ground in a heap.

Though one of the hounds was badly injured, two were not and these two rushed forward to finish their prey. One Luna was able to send flying backwards with a hurried Force push, but the other reached its target. Its long incisors bit straight through her right wing and deep into her side, even the supernaturally-tough flesh of alicorns unable to totally repulse them. Luna screamed her agony as crimson blood poured from her face, wing, and flank.

But she was a princess of Equestria, and in this place her pain only fueled her hatred for these beasts. A pair of Luna’s hooves swung around, impacting on the side of the tuk’ata’s head with a sickening crunch. Tough enough to dent even the durasteel armor of General Grievous, her hooves visibly cracked the hound’s skull. As the badly-dazed and bleeding beast released its hold and staggered backwards, Luna leapt on it before it had any chance to recover. With a great cry of rage, she wrapped her forelegs around its thick neck and twisted as hard as she could. The tuk’ata’s alchemically-engineered bone held for a bare handful of seconds before giving out with an abrupt crack. Luna cast the limp corpse of the beast to the valley floor.

The uninjured hound had regained its footing and was already in the midst of another charge, heedless of the fate that had befallen its fellow. As before, the beast leapt high into the air, aimed directly at the wounded alicorn princess. But Luna no longer even noticed her wounds. Adrenaline flowed freely through her body, and the icy power of the dark side had consumed her senses. Pain was channeled in to rage as she focused once more. The split blood of the slain tuk’ata had pleased the darkness, and its power flowed freely through Luna.

The tuk’ata suddenly found itself frozen in mid-leap, unable to go on, unable to even move. Before its mind had a chance to truly process this astounding fact, it was flying backwards. It smashed into the already injured hound, sending both tumbling across the valley’s floor. Neither even had a chance to rise before arcs of supernatural blue lightning coursed through their frames, eliciting high-pitched howls of pain.

Even this, however, was not enough to dissuade them, and the pair rose again. Still crackling with residual electricity, the two mounted a simultaneous attack on Luna, coming around from two different angles to pounce at her. Still buoyed by the strength of the Force, the alicorn met them both. The uninjured hounded she lashed out at with both of her rear legs, catching it on the chin with enough force to break its jaw and send the creature flying. The one with her ornamental horn still embedded in its chest she hit with a simple telekinetic shove, hurling it across the valley and into a rock formation.

Before the hound with the shattered jaw could rise, Luna was on top of it. She rained a series of blows onto its prone head, hooves smashing repeatedly into its monstrous skull. Empowered with the might of the dark side, the beast’s bone stood no chance. Very swiftly, it was cracked and broken, and all life passed from the ancient Sith creation.

Breathing hard and sweating with the effort, Luna turned to regard the final tuk’ata. It regarded her as well, glowing red eyes matching the gaze of her blue. Aggressive and vicious they might be, but the tuk’ata were far from mindless. The beast knew a losing battle when it saw one, and was not so impetuous that it failed to recognize the value of patience. The intruder had won this round, yes… but it was injured, and alone. Its wounds would drain its strength, and in time it must rest. The pack must be alerted, must be ready to finish the masters’ mission.

With such thoughts occupying its mind, the final tuk’ata hound turned and ran. Even with Luna’s silver horn still embedded in its lung, it was incredibly fast, darting easily between the rocks and broken statuary littering the valley floor. Within seconds, the hound had vanished deeper into the Valley of the Dark Lords. Luna, worn out from the fight and still oozing blood, let it go.

As the immediate danger faded away, Luna’s rage and the attendant power of the dark side went with it. The icy flow of energy slowly dissipated, leaving the alicorn princess to face the stark reality that she was now injured, bleeding, and exhausted in the midst of a strange valley, with at least one hostile creature still out there. And she still had not accomplished her mission.

Cursing openly, Luna reached into what was left of her pack to see what her scant medical supplies could do.

It was almost an hour later and the sun just reaching its noonday peak when Luna set off again. She had applied basic disinfectant, bandaged her wounds to staunch the bleeding, and injected herself with what painkiller she had. Proceeding in this state was risky, but, she had decided, staying in the vicinity of fresh corpses was even more so. Without her healing magic, this was the best she could do, and so it would have to be enough.

Luna’s advance into the Valley of the Dark Lords was slow and cautious, her eyes carefully scanning each rock and piece of rubble as she went. Another ambush might well be the end of her, and she was determined not to fall into one. But very soon the wind that ran through the valley began to pick up. Faster and faster it blew, picking up the red sands and sending them flying through the air. It did not take long before the valley was engulfed in full-fledged sandstorm.

Frustrated and hateful but not stupid enough to press blindly through the area while virtually blind, Luna quickly sought of shelter. She hunkered down beneath a half-buried chunk of what looked to have been an ancient statue, though its features were now so worn by time and weather as to be unidentifiable. Spitting curses at the sandstorm, the alicorn princess simply sat and brooded for some time.

It was only after many minutes had passed and the whirling storm was beginning to die down that Luna’s ears perked up. She heard a sound. It was faint, but it was getting louder. It was the sound of something hard impacted rhythmically against rock and it seemed somehow… familiar.

Shaking her head to dispel any such notion, Luna retreated deeper into the shadow of the ruined statue. Drawing on her pain and frustration, she called the power of the Force to herself. Shaping and twisting the dark energy to her whim, she prepared to unleash a telekinetic blast against whatever it was that was making the sound.

Minutes ticked by slowly as the last of the sandstorm died away to nothing, the sound growing steadily louder. It was echoing throughout the valley in an unnatural manner, as if it wished to be heard – or, at least, something wished it to be heard. Luna hadn’t the foggiest idea why anything in this godsforsaken death trap would want to be heard, with such beasts as the tuk’ata on the prowl.

At last, after countless tense minutes of waiting, the source of the sound was almost upon Luna. She was, by this point, almost eager for it to show itself and die to her hoof, that she might cease cowering here and get on with her task. Her muscles tensed as she registered that it was virtually on top of her. Carefully, she peeked out from her refuge.

And then her jaw dropped.

“C-Celestia?!”

The white-furred, rainbow-maned head the princess had seen so many times jerked suddenly at the sound of Luna’s startled voice. The night alicorn beheld once more the purple eyes she knew so well. Beset by black rings and heavy with pain, yes, but unmistakably those of her sister.

“Lulu?” the white alicorn managed, her lips cracked and voice extremely hoarse.

“Tia?” Luna could barely keep the excitement and relief from her voice. “Sister, is it truly thee?”

“Lulu!” Celestia cried, racing towards her sister with a newfound spark in her eyes.

Abandoning all attempts at caution, her fears and pains swept away by sheer joy of reuniting with her sister again after all this time, Luna rushed out of her hiding place. The two alicorns met in a wild tumble of limps, embracing each other madly on the dusty valley floor.

“Oh thank all the gods you’re alright!” Celestia exclaimed even as the two continued to hold each other. “I was so worried! When they took you… When the spell brought me here… I thought… I thought…”

“How didst thou get here?” Luna asked. “Why wouldst thou wish to be here at all?!”

Celestia smiled warmly as the pulled apart, regaining their feet. “Why? Lulu, how could you even ask such a question? For you, of course!””

“But… how didst thou arrive here?” the darker alicorn questioned, her mind still struggling to grasp this apparently nonsensical turn of events.

“When they took you…” Celestia hesitated, looking downcast. “When the Empire stole you… I was so worried! I had no idea where you were! No idea what they wanted! Nopony would tell me anything! I couldn’t find out where you had been taken to, when you might be back.”

“If ever,” Luna added.

Celestia nodded. “If ever. So I worked and worked and worked until I found something. An old piece of magic. Form before even our time.”

Luna marveled. That was literally tens of thousands of years ago! What in all the hells could her sister have unearthed from that era that would be of use?

“I meant it to take me to you, but…” Celestia looked around. “It took me here. To this horrible place. I don’t know where I am. I don’t know how long I’ve been here. But I just feel so… weak.”

“Weak?”

“It’s the sun here,” Celestia said, glaring balefully up at the red orb. “It hates me. It thinks I’m a threat. It saps my strength and tries to kill me.”

“A plague on thee, foul denizen of the black depths!” Luna cursed up at the star that dared to harm her sister.

“Regardless… I’ve been wandering this place for so long. I haven’t seen or heard anypony, anywhere.”

“By at ease, dear Tia,” Luna nuzzled her sister’s neck and embraced her affectionately. “We are together again. And together we shall prevail over this foul place.”

“How very touching,” came the sound of another voice.

Luna jumped and, with a start, glanced around hurriedly. Nothing… Nothing… Nothing…Nothing… There! Atop another piece of a broken statue stood a figure. A very familiar figure.

Luna’s ears folded so far back on her head as to be virtually flat. Her eyes widened to the size of dinner plates. She shrank back, all relief and happiness instantly driven from her by the sight before her.

“No…” she managed. “No… It cannot be thee!”

The figure chuckled, leaping down from its stony perch. The valley echoed with sound of heavy feet impacting on the rocky floor below. Lightsabers ignited as the figure’s cape fluttered in the breeze his landing had created.

“And why,” said General Grievous. “Is that?”

10: A Grievous Encounter

General Grievous advanced step by step towards the horrified alicorns, his talons clacking loudly against the stony ground. A blue and a green lightsaber clutched in his hands, the towering cybernetic monstrosity rapidly ate up the distance between them. Princesses Luna and Celestia were both shrinking back before the sudden appearance of their old foe, but Luna especially so. The stub of her horn seemed to ache with the pain of the burning lightsaber Grievous had used to severe it all those years ago.

“Thou…” Luna managed, in between gaping like a fish. “Thou c-canst not be here! Thou art d-dead!”

Grievous chuckled without breaking stride. “And if I am? This is the land of the dead, princess. Such trivialities are of little consequence here.”

“Thou a-art…” Luna was able to back away a few steps, but was still too stunned by the rapid turn of events to do much else. “T-Thou art naught b-but an illusion!” she accused, pointing a hoof at him. “A s-specter conjured from our p-past by the energies of t-this place! Thou canst n-not harm-”

“Illusion this!”

Grievous, by now virtually on top of Luna, lashed out with a swift kick of a single taloned foot. It impacted squarely on the side of the dark alicorn’s face, breaking skin, knocking loose several teeth, and most importantly sending the princess hurdling through the air. Luna smacked roughly back onto the valley floor some yards away, rolling a not inconsiderable distance before coming at last to a halt.

The sight of her sister being injured seemed to jerk Celestia from her cowering stupor, replacing it with gritted determination. As Luna rose shakily to her hooves, fresh blood oozing from her old, bandaged wounds, she saw her sister conjuring a bright golden field around her horn, with evident strain. A beam of golden magic burst forth and threw itself at the cyborg. But both lightsaber blades formed an X in front of Grievous, catching the attack and dissipating it harmlessly against the burning plasma blades.

Before Celestia had a chance to try again, Grievous was on her. He swung both sabers from different angles, the stolen blades arcing down towards the white alicorn’s head. Frantically, she ducked and scrambled backwards, managing to evade the blazing death by scant inches. Against the follow-up kick, however, she was not so fortunate.

Celestia flew backwards the instant Grievous’ foot made contact with her chest, all her size and weight accounting for nothing against his enhanced strength. She smashed back into the ground head-first, skidding a short distance along the sand-covered stone to collapse in a heap at her sister’s hooves.

“Tia, get up!” Luna shook her dazed sister rapidly as Grievous began once again to stomp his way towards them.

Celestia moaned painfully, Luna’s eyes flicking between her and the rapidly-closing cyborg with frantic urgency. Calling on the power she knew was there, Luna jerked her head forwards and sent an invisible telekinetic blast at Grievous. Somehow, though, he seemed to see it coming, shielding his chest with both arms. With a grunt that was half effort and half triumph, Grievous simply powered his way through the Force push, his sturdy frame shaking but not moving a single millimeter backwards. Luna attempted to pin his feet to the ground with another concentrated telekinetic grip, only for the cyborg to nonchalantly shatter the invisible bonds as though they weren’t there.

Luna gasped out of both surprise and effort. The power she had used against the tuk’ata was still out there – she could feel the icy strength of the dark side permeating this place. So why wasn’t anything working.

Concentrating deeply and struggling to ignore the increasingly-overpowering sensations of pain and fatigue, the princess cast her mind back to Grievous’ invasion of Equus. Tens of thousands dead, millions homeless, Equestria in ruins, their freedom sacrificed to the Empire – all because of the being that now stood before her. Focused on her rage at the injustice and hatred for the perpetrator, Luna’s eyes burned yellow once more. With a cry, she channeled it all into the wild and instinctive lightning that she could call on in such moments. The supernatural blue electricity surged through the air and threw itself at General Grievous.

To absolutely no effect.

The cyborg simply stood there, lightsabers crossed, taking the lightning head-on. It sparked and crackled as it flew into the blue and green plasma blades, but it did not flow onwards or strike Grievous. The crossed blades absorbed every last volt without difficulty. No matter how much energy Luna summoned, it did not break the barrier. To make matters worse, Luna felt the power of the Force slipping away as her injured body threatened to surrender to exhaustion. The lightning died soon away, the burning sulfuric yellow of her eyes fading back to their ordinary, weary blue.

“Your little tricks won’t save you this time,” Grievous taunted. “You may have gotten lucky once, but there’s no Republic to bail you out anymore. Heh heh heh heh heh ha ha ha ha ha ha ha HA HA HA!”

Luna gaped openly. Her most advanced Force attack, the very same skill that had sent Grievous plunging over the side of the Canterlot cliffs… had been completely useless. He had shrugged off everything she had thrown at him. Was this truly the revenant of General Grievous, sent from beyond the grave to eliminate her? Had he perhaps somehow survived the Clone Wars and sought her out once again? Or, part of her wondered, was this something else altogether?

More importantly: did it matter?

“Lulu,” Celestia gasped out as she finally shook off her dazed state. “Run.”

After she had pulled her sister up as quickly as she could, Luna did exactly that.

The tuk’ata hound stared down from its high perch in the Valley of the Dark Lords. Standing atop an ancient, weathered statue depicting a mighty lord from the days of the golden age of the Sith Empire, it could spy on the valley floor for miles in both directions. It had held this position for many days, loyally playing sentry over this section of the great valley. The Sith Lords who had made the beast and its kin to guard their tombs were long gone, but the tuk’ata were ever loyal and would never abandon this place for so long as they lived.

At the moment, it was keeping a careful watch out for the intruder its fellows had warned it about. She had dispatched two of the pack and wounded another near the valley’s entrance. That was unusual, and therefore she was more of a threat to the masters’ tombs than those few grave robbers and rabble that occasionally showed themselves here. She would have to be eliminated, but only when the time was right or she posed a direct threat to the sacred tombs. The pack could not afford to take too many losses on a regular basis – its reproduction was far too slow to permit that.

The creature’s keen luminescent red eyes spied a small cloud of dust towards the extreme end of its watch. The tuk’ata adjusted its position, hopping out onto the statue’s extended, half-crumbled arm to get a better view. Very swiftly the situation resolved itself to the beast’s satisfaction. It was movement, definitely, and not by one of the pack. It was advancing deeper into the valley, towards the sacred sites that the hounds had been created to guard.

The tuk’ata bounded down from its high perch with astonishing speed and grace, its mind focused entirely on where it was going next. The pack must hear of this.

Luna and Celestia fled through the red-brown sandstone of the Valley of the Dark Lords in an adrenaline-fueled sprint. Their quadrupedal gait and large size lending them speed no biped could hope to match, they tore through the rubble-strewn valley with the ease of experience. They dodged around jutting stones and broken statuary alike with the grace of the divine, seeming almost to flow around the obstacles that littered their path.

Not far behind the alicorns, scuttling along the ground like some enormous metal insect, was General Grievous. His two arms split into four and legs reversed, all six of his limbs gave him the speed to match the alicorns. He climbed, jumped, and crawled over what terrain barred his path in a graceless but highly-efficient gait.

Luna, with a backwards flick of her head, sent another wave of Force energy flying at Grievous, attempting yet again to slow him down. Somehow, the cyborg saw it coming. Out of the corner of her eye the princess saw him push himself up and off the ground with all four arms, flipping nimbly forwards as the invisible wave shattered a rock behind him. The cyborg landed on all six of his limbs without delay. Far from being slowed down, his maneuver had slightly closed the distance between him and his prey.

Now openly breathing hard from the effort of summoning such sorcery with her wounded by while running for her life, Luna caught a glimpse of Celestia trying something of her own. Visibly pained with the strain of it, the white alicorn’s golden magic enveloped a weathered obelisk. With a grunt of effort, she yanked her head to the side, cracking the ancient stone. With a noise that resembled nothing so much as an agonized wail, the Sith monument toppled over just as the sisters ran beneath it, kicking up a great cloud of red dust as it slammed into the valley floor.

Luna flashed her sister a slight grin, but if Celestia saw it she did not respond. Together, the two continued their frantic flight deeper into the valley. Very soon, a metallic thunk behind them informed the princess that her sister’s maneuver had only bought them a few moment’s head start. Luna pressed herself forward in spite of the agonized protests of her wounds, which begged for nothing more than a moment’s rest. She could not afford that, so Luna was forced to ignore her pain and bone-deep weariness. Further, she divided her attention between looking immediately ahead for obstacles and frenzied checks for an escape route or anything she might turn to her advantage.

All in all, it was placing an enormous strain on her rapidly-diminishing energies.

The dark alicorn heard the sounds of metal clacking against rock growing louder as the minutes passed and the trio began to see the first of the many elaborate tombs built for ancient Sith Lords. Almost imperceptibly, she could sense her pace slowing, her worn legs simply unable to maintain this speed indefinitely. Luna cast her eyes about the valley, desperately searching for-

Intruder.

Luna stumbled, the sheer shock of the moment throwing off her coordination. She only just kept her balance, and she could hear that Grievous was already making good use of her delay. Gritting her teeth, she rallied and, ignoring the sudden voice in her head, forced her aching legs back into a full-out run.

Then the voice spoke again.

Blasphemer.

This time, the princess of the night did not stumble, astonished as she was to hear a hissing whisper inside her mind. Was she, part of her wondered, cracking under it all?

Transgressor.

Was the heat finally getting to her?

Death awaits you, defiler.

Maybe it was blood loss?

Your flesh shall become our plaything.

Or maybe… just maybe… the Inquisitor had been right about the ghosts of this place.

And your soul shall writhe in an eternity of torment.

“Tia!” Luna managed to shout, shutting out the pain, weariness, and voices in her head as well.

“Lulu?! Celestia yelled back over the sounds of hooves and metal clacking against stone.

“Sister…” Luna gasped out. “Fly! Fly… away!”

“What?!” the white alicorn looked aghast.

“Thou canst… still fly. Thou must leave… this place!” she managed.

Luna’s rational side was telling her that she was probably doomed. It only made sense to make sure that her sister did not join her in death – especially if the voice spoke truly about the fate of her soul.

“Lulu, I won’t… leave you!” Celestia cried.

We can sense your terror.

“Shut up!” Luna snapped.

“What?” her sister answered.

“Nothing!” Luna lied. “Tia… thou must… flee! Into the air!”

“Your fate is mine, sister! I will not let you go again!”

“Sister, do not be… a fool! Think… of our ponies!”

Your fear feeds our power.

“I will never abandon you!” Celestia declared.

“Please! See…” Luna panted. “Reason!”

Doom comes for you on swift legs.

“Nothing will make me- ooph!”

But first, another offering.

Luna jerked her head to the side just enough to take in the scene. Celestia had tripped, a hoof caught on an unstable rock formation, and tumbled roughly onto the valley floor. The same instant that the dark alicorn turned herself, determined to help her sibling no matter the cost, she bore witness to a horrible sight.

General Grievous, already almost upon the two alicorn sisters, threw himself into the air. Time seemed to Luna to slow as four blazing blades of blue and green sprang to life in his hands in mid-leap, his legs adjusting themselves once more. She watched in silent, helpless horror as the cyborg descended above the still-prone form of Princess Celestia. Before the alicorn could so much as pull herself to her feet, Grievous landed directly atop her, his lightsabers plunging through her magnificent wings.

Luna saw her sister’s beautiful plumage burned through by the vicious plasma blades, saw Celestia’s wings crudely amputated from her body. At that moment, she could not tell her own anguished scream from her sibling’s tortured, heartrending wail.

Grievous’ sheer weight and the sudden loss of her wings were more than enough to undo whatever progress Celestia had made, forcing her directly back to the ground. The cyborg by contrast easily regained his bipedal footing, towering over her prone form. Shutting down his lightsabers, Grievous reached down and almost casually seized Celestia by the scruff of her neck. He lifted her sobbing, screaming body high off the ground.

An incoherent and mangled cry of mixed outrage and terror bursting from her lips, Luna immediately charged Grievous. Her anger fed her energy, drowning out the pain and soreness. She found the strength to conjure another wave of the Force, flinging another invisible shockwave at the cybernetic monstrosity as she fearlessly charged him. But he once more took it head-on, talons digging deep into the ground to anchor him to the spot. A single kick to the face with one long leg sent Luna flying back the way she came, where she crashed roughly onto the desert ground.

“I burned your nation,” Grievous said in an oddly calm tone.

Luna blinked and shook her head weakly, frantically attempting to clear the dust and blurring from her eyes as well as the daze from her head.

“I killed your servants,” continued the cyborg, reactivating a pair of lightsabers.

Luna tried to rise on shaky legs, only to collapse back to the earth as her weary body at last betrayed her.

“I killed your friends.”

Grievous’ lightsabers made a scissor formation across Celestia’s neck.

“And now,” he said, his yellow, reptilian eyes seeming almost to glow. “I kill your sister.”

The scissors closed.

Princess Luna of Equestria watched in mute, stupefied horror as her sister, Princess Celestia, lost her head. The beautiful face that had inspired countless works of art and poetry froze forever in a death mask, its last expression one of unimaginable agony. Luna’s blue eyes tracked the rainbow-maned alicorn head as it tumbled silently, almost gracefully, to the valley floor below.

For a moment, just a moment, all was silence.

“NOOOOOO!!!” Luna heard herself scream in ineffectual denial. “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!”

“Heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh! Hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah! Ah hah hah hah hah HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH!!!”

11: A Grievous Victory

For neither the first nor the last time, the Valley of the Dark Lords echoed with the sounds of malevolent laughter and screaming. General Grievous was roaring his delight out to the world, while Princess Luna was caught halfway between shrieking and sobbing. For no matter how much she begged or pleaded or tried to deny what she had witnessed, her eyes testified to the continued existence of Celestia’s severed head lying on the valley floor. Tears, hot and fierce, flowed freely down the princess’ furry cheeks.

“Heh heh heh ha ha ha ha ha!” Grievous continued to laugh, hoisting Celestia’s headless corpse above his head and tossing it with one hand. The macabre projectile hit the ground in front of Luna with a heavy thud, stopping just short of her. The princess of the night stared down at the headless, mutilated corpse of her sister, the one pony who had truly always been there for her.

Luna’s mouth opened and closed in a rapid, almost fishlike manner. No words emerged from there, no sounds at all save her heaving sobs. She simply could not find words.

“And now,” Grievous said, taking a step forward and igniting twin sabers. “Your turn.”

Luna’s rational mind had, for all intents and purposes, shut down. Overwhelmed by injury and weariness and grief and terror, the alicorn did not think. Instead, she defaulted to the inbuilt instincts of her species, the natural urges that had served the ponies of Equus since time immemorial. And at that moment, her instincts were telling her to run.

So she did.

Princess Luna bolted away from that spot with all the blind desperation of a mare being pursued by death itself. Adrenaline flooded her veins such that she felt as if her very blood were on fire. It drove away for the moment her grief, shock, and anger, leaving only the overwhelming imperative to get as far from that place as she possibly could, as fast as her legs could manage. Even the pain from her injuries became little more than a dull ache at the moment, something that barely registered to her chemical-fogged brain.

Luna fled through the Valley of the Dark Lords at the speed of the wind. Without consciously knowing it, her fear called out to the Force to bolster her already formidable sprinting abilities. Because of this, her pace was such that an observer standing still would note her not as an alicorn, but simply a dark blue blur. She jumped jagged rocks, weaved through fields of statuary, and ran face-first into the biting winds.

Behind her all the way was Grievous.

Somehow, impossibly, the cyborg was matching her speed. All six limbs once again in their insectile formation, he scuttled through the valley just as easily as he had before. Through sand and stone the nightmare figure pursued Luna, flipping, dodging, climbing, and crawling around any obstacle. His reptilian eyes were alight with inner fire and focused intently on his target. Little by little, the distance between them narrowed.

Death comes for you.

The tone of the voice in her head was hissing, gloating.

Your sister’s soul is with us now.

Luna tried to ignore the sound, but it was audible even over the whipping winds that grew fiercer by the second.

She writhes in torment eternal.

The red sands of Korriban were being stirred from their rests by the wind, bursting skywards in great clouds and dust storms that began to fill the valley.

She cries out your name in her agony.

The sandstorm that came was the most intense that Luna had yet seen on the planet, which was truly saying something. The vast storm covered the Valley of the Dark Lords in its entirety, obscuring vision for miles around. The speed at which it overtook the area was nothing short of astonishing, Luna’s vision going from clear to being forced to squint in less than fifteen seconds.

The winds only picked up speed, throwing sand at the princess to the point that not only was it dirty and disgusting, it was actually painful. The red grit got everywhere, burying itself in her old wounds and burrowing beneath her fur to create new ones. It snuck into her blue eyes, scratching the cornea in an extremely painful manner. Luna blinked frantically, her bloodshot eyes watering badly, desperately trying to get the horrible stinging sensation out.

Blinded by sand and tears, moving at a literally supernatural speed, it was perhaps to be expected that Luna would not be able to maintain her flight. And so it was: the alicorn failed to note a piece of sandstone emerging from the ground and crashed into it with both of her front legs. Luna plowed face-first into the sandy, rocky ground. Small, jagged fragments of rock made thousand small cuts in her flesh as she rolled forward with her own momentum.

You will see her again, very soon.

Luna moaned once more and began forcing herself back onto her hooves. As she did so, the alicorn princess’ ears twitched. Over the howling winds she could just make out the telltale clacking of metal on stone, getting louder by the second. She swallowed. Grievous was near.

The princess’ eyes flicked about desperately. She needed a way to take shelter from the storm, that much was clear, but all around herself she saw naught but blinding wave after wave of red sand, concealing everything. She was only able to see a hooful of feet from herself no matter the direction she looked or how hard she squinted. In the background, the sounds of Grievous’ footsteps were increasing in volume. She could only pray that he was as affected by these sands as she.

With what she could only assume to be certain death closing in on her and her eyes virtually useless, Luna had little choice. Closing her bloodshot, watery blue eyes, she reached out with what meager supernatural senses she could still muster. Her fear and grief empowering her instinctive probe, Luna turned and kept running.

The alicorn’s pace was slow, far slower than before, as she forged head-on into the sandstorm ahead of her. The red grit, whipped into a battering rain of projectiles by the screaming winds, continued to cut into her flesh and draw tiny droplets of blood. But Luna ignored the pain, shut out the howling winds, and attempted to suppress the frantic pounding of her heart, focusing all her attention on finding her blind way forward. She clipped nearby objects several times and nearly stumbled once, and contrary to her hopes the sandstorm did not fade away. Indeed, if anything it grew sharper and more biting as she waded into it.

However, after perhaps half a minute of utterly blind flight through the impossibly thick storm, Luna’s effort was to be rewarded. Without warning the stinging flow of grit ceased as she ran quickly forwards. Peeking open a single wary eye, Luna observed that she had fled into a dark, carved structure of red and brown stone. Worn statues and harsh-looking symbols whose meaning she did not know dotted the chamber. Outside, the sandstorm still raged.

Luna panted heavily, struggling to catch her breath as for the first time in a considerable amount of time, she had a moment to rest. When she did so, the emotions that had flooded her mind upon witnessing her sister’s demise came roaring back. The miserable sorrow and utter rage at everything: Grievous for killing Celestia, Celestia for ignoring her demands to fly away, and most of all at herself for failing to save her. The night princess sunk to her knees, giving voice to wordless cries of despair. She was not allowed long to grieve.

He will know you are here. We will tell him.

Luna ignored the voice in her head, which seemed to have grown stronger and now echoed after every word. She was too focused on her own internal turmoil to care what it said.

For how long she lay there, sobbing, miserable, and alone, Luna could not say. She had no means of measuring time, and no real inclination to try. Her wails of grief echoed throughout the dark chamber and myriad halls branching out from it deeper into the cliffside.

“Tia…” she moaned between choked sobs. “Forgive us, dear Tia. Please… We were not… strong enough to save thee… not strong enough to save anypony…” Luna buried her head in her hooves and cried. “We are a worthless excuse for a princess, and now our failure has cost thee thy very life! Please… wherever thou art… forgive us…”

Your pitiful mewling is as pathetic as your feeble attempts at fighting.

Luna shook her head, once again dismissing what now sounded like a collection of many voices all speaking the same line inside her mind. But then her ears involuntarily shot up, twitching in response to stimuli. She heard the unmistakable clitter-clatter of metal on stone once again.

Death comes for you, weakling.

Acting once more on instinct rather than thought, Luna fled yet again, terrified to face this demonic cyborg that pursued her. Without pause or consideration, she picked one of the many lightless corridors going deeper inside and dashed down it quickly. The sound behind her quickly faded into nothingness, but the voices were not so obliging.

Your attachments betray you. Your cowardice has made you weak.

Luna continued to gallop blindly through the tomb. She heard the sounds of what sounded like swarms of insects scuttling around as she passed, but even her eyes could pick out nothing in the pitch black. Only the Force guided her steps.

You will die here, and become ours body and soul.

Deeper and deeper the alicorn went, drawn by instinct and urged on by terror. Hooves kicked up clouds of dust as they traversed halls not used by the living for millennia.

Submit now to us, and we will make the end swift. Resist and perish in agony.

“Never!” Luna shouted wildly into the confined space. “We will not submit to thee!”

Then Princess Luna will die here.

The alicorn had no chance to consider the odd nature of the phrasing due to what she saw when she passed through an archway she hadn’t known was there. Four crystals set in the walls emitted a dull, faint glow upon her arrival, bathing the chamber in a faint red light. Luna could make out that it was a small, rectangular room carved from red stone. Thousands of unreadable glyphs were carved into the walls, floor, and ceiling. Additionally, there were several scenes of a skull-masked humanoid wielding a lightsaber locked in battle with a diverse array of opponents, from other lightsaber wielders to enormous beasts to armies. All of these were in curiously good condition, as thought someone had carved them yesterday.

The room’s central feature was a shallow rectangular pit, with a series of stairs descending from each side into the lowest position. There, prominently laid out where anyone could see, was a large stone slab covering a container. Encrusted on every available surface with countless thousands of hieroglyphics and decked handsomely in red and purple gems, both the slab and its stone chest were obviously items of great antiquity and value. Moreover, Luna could feel the energies of the dark side oozing slowly from this place, spreading out to plague the universe like some rotten miasma.

All this, Luna absorbed in a single glance. However, her attention was immediately drawn away from such considerations by a bone-chilling realization: there was no other exit. She’d come to a dead end. Turning herself hurriedly around, the alicorn made to run back the way she had come – only to be stopped by a dreadfully familiar sound. Luna’s heart skipped a beat, her chest clenching in fear.

Grievous was here. He had found her.

Luna backed further into the burial chamber as the sound of the cyborg’s approach echoed throughout the confined space, growing louder and louder with each heart-stopping second. The alicorn backed further and further into the Sith tomb, shrinking back down the stairs, not stopping until her rear pressed up against the stone coffin in the room’s center.

Then the dark archway was filled with the looming figure of her bone-white cyborg nemesis. He seemed taller and more invigorated than ever, his yellow eyes seeming to overflow with power and intensity. Grievous stalked into the burial chamber, two lightsabers adding their light to that of the mystic crystals’.

“So,” Grievous said. “A tomb. A very appropriate place for this to end, don’t you think?”

Luna said nothing, experiencing horrible flashbacks of this creature burning Equestria, crippling her, and beheading her sister.

“Heh heh heh,” Grievous took a step down the stairway to the coffin. “I’ve been waiting for this day for a long time. Too long.”

“Rargh!” Luna, swallowing her overwhelming sensation of terror, charged up the stairs, directly at Grievous. He met her with a single foot.

Luna went soaring backwards, smashing into the slab covering the Sith coffin and rolling over it. She fell off the other side, impacting painfully on the glyph-coated stone floor.

“You cannot beat me,” Grievous said, slowly beginning to circle the coffin. “You cannot escape me.”

Luna struggled to get back on her hooves, but she had already pressed her body well past the natural limits of its endurance. And in the face of imminent death, even the power of the Force seemed to abandon her, refusing to lend her muscles its vitality. Her wounded legs trembled briefly, and then collapsed back into the dirt.

Grievous completed the circle, looming tall over Luna. “And you are out of friends to pull you from the fire.”

Luna stared up into the eyes of the cyborg, blue and yellow staring each other down one final time.

Now the voices in Luna’s mind said. You die.

“No…” Luna wheezed. “It cannot end… like this…”

“Oh, but it can,” Grievous laughed. “Heh heh heh ha ha ha ha ha!”

“No…” Luna whispered in her fading voice, more to herself than him. “No….”

Grievous raised one blue blade high over his head. “Any last words?”

Luna only managed to look up at him with defiance and misery in her eyes.

“No? Then die.”

The blade descended.

All of a sudden, time around Luna seemed to freeze up. She could not move, not even her eyes, but neither was Grievous moving. Everything, for just the slightest fraction of second, was held in perfect stasis all around her. Thoughts passed through her head, one after the other, wondering what was happening, wondering if this was somehow death. She wondered if she was now dead, and sentenced by cruel ghosts to spend eternity imprisoned in her own last moment in the mortal realm.

And then an offer was made.

No words were exchanged, for how could that which had no voice speak? There was conversation, no grand bargaining or devious loopholes. There was only simple, primal emotion and currents of thought. The choice was simple, and one that had been given many times before: submit, and gain all ones heart desires, or resist and perish.

It should be remembered that Luna was not the same mare she had once been. The proud princess of the night had seen her nation ruined, her city burned, her people slaughtered, and her very magic stolen from her. She had watched helplessly for years as her world was taken by powers greater than she. She had abducted from her world for daring to talk back to one of her “betters”, had endured cruel training on an ancient nexus of the dark side. She had watched her morals, her mercy, accomplish nothing. She had been unable to save those she loved, including most recently the one mare that was dearer to her heart than any other pony. Under these extreme circumstances, it can perhaps be said that she was not entirely to blame for choosing to submit rather than be martyred.

And yet submit she did.

The slab covering the Sith coffin burst apart, sending showers of stone in all directions. An aged cylinder flew from its resting place, shaking off the dust of the centuries. A blazing blade of crimson fired into life for the first time in lifetimes, interposing itself and catching the descending blue blade in a bright shower of sparks.

“Wha-” Grievous’ yellow eyes went wide. Quickly, he brought down his green blade as well, but the ancient Sith lightsaber moved to intercept, lighting the tomb with their clash. He took one step backwards.

Luna rose from her prone position at the head of coffin, a dark look on her face. Her wounds had faded to nothing in an instant, her countenance restored to its former glory and more. She seemed to stand taller, cast a longer shadow. Her once-static mane and tail flowed again with the glorious image of the night sky. At the edge of vision, faint wisps in the vaguest shapes of beings flitted, seeming to whisper excitedly.

“What in the infinite hel- aargh!”

Before General Grievous could even finish his sentence, Luna attacked him directly. She jerked her head forwards and an overwhelming wave of dark side energy flung the cyborg general backwards, slamming into the glyph-covered wall with a heavy cracking sound. He strained against the pressure, but the invisible fetters Luna had forged held him fast. With a second, almost contemptuous flick of her head, she tore the lightsabers from his grasp, sending them clattering away into the darkness.

Malice radiated from Luna’s yellow eyes, and she grinned broadly.

“General Grievous,” she said, advancing up the steps with the red lightsaber hovering at her side. “Thou art guilty of crimes both manifold and heinous. For thine lies, for thy treachery, for thy murder, for thy genocide…” she paused, enjoying the moment. “We sentence thee to death.”

The crimson lightsaber soared forwards at Luna’s command - impaling Grievous directly through his heart.

The cyborg let loose a tormented death scream as the plasma burned through armor and organs alike without pause or distinction. It emerged from his back seconds later, plunging into the stone wall behind and burning through many of the hieroglyphs there. Luna pressed the sword deeper and deeper inside, giving in to all her outraged hatred and enjoying his screams. Only when the hilt itself threatened to enter his chest did she stop.

For a moment, nothing happened. The cyborg continued to writhe and scream in a most satisfactory manner, and then… he exploded. An enormous wave of red dust and crackling blue energies burst forth from the image of the defeated Grievous, wreaking havoc and ruin on the surrounding chamber. Luna weathered the storm impassively, easily shielding herself from anything that might be truly dangerous.

Then, as suddenly as it had come, the storm was gone. And Princess Luna stood alone, deep in the Sith tomb in the Valley of the Dark Lords.

12: A Dark Future

Princess Twilight Sparkle sat once again in the Harmony’s copilot seat as the vessel emerged from hyperspace. Reluctantly, she had invoked the spell to transform herself back into human form. It was uncomfortable and felt unnatural even after all her practice, and at least once she caught herself trying to walk on all four limbs. Her transformation spell, it seemed, was not accompanied by a set of instincts appropriate to a human body. Her body in the mirror world had been much more accommodating.

Spike sat comfortably in Twilight’s lap as the blue streaks of hyperspace faded into the black void of space. Near Equus’ galactic region she hadn’t wanted him seen, but this far away and into the Outer Rim, he was just another of a dizzying array of small reptilian species kept as pets on tens of thousands of worlds. She had even picked out a species to name if anyone asked: the Sellian Glimmer Lizard, an oft-bipedal species frequently bred for their beautiful scales.

Tens of thousands of miles away, but getting nearer with ever second was the planet Serenno. A pleasant world of lush forests and sparkling blue oceans, the noble families that ruled there had meticulously avoided spoiling their world with over industrialization. More important was the vast wealth and political leverage the planet's nobility controlled, even after backing the losing side in the Clone Wars. Though it had taken somewhat longer than expected to arrive due to a nerve-wrenching run-in with Imperial customs officials, here they were at last.

As a reminder of who this system now served, a Venator-class Star Destroyer hung in stationary orbit over Serenno’s northern pole. Smaller picket ships and fighter squadrons ran patrols around the planet, more as a show of force than any practical ability to cover such a vast amount of space entirely. Traffic along the standard spacelanes was busy, and the Harmony had little difficulty in joining the procession of ships headed for the planet’s surface.

It took a few minutes, but eventually the comm system crackled to life.

“Ship designate Harmony,” a female voice said. “This is Serenno System Control. Identify your destination.”

“Carannia,” replied Twilight, naming the planetary capital.

“Reasons for visitation?”

“Personal pleasure.”

“Acknowledged. Please hold your course and await further instructions,”

Twilight and Spike sat together in silence while their droid pilot maneuvered the freighter through the weave of incoming traffic. For some minutes, the planet grew closer and closer while the comm channel remained quiet. The disguised alicorn glanced nervously at an Imperial patrol ship – a brand-new VT-49 Decimator if she wasn’t mistaken – made its way slowly above the river of ships, almost certainly scanning them as it did so. But the craft flew overhead without incident, carrying onwards out into the black void.

At last, the voice came back.

“Harmony, you are cleared for landing at Carannia’s Nalju Spaceport, docking bay number 347,” the woman informed them. “Follow the designated flight path to the landing pad and remain in your ship to await the arrival of customs inspectors.”

“Yes ma’am,” Twilight answered her.

“Have a pleasant stay. System Control out.”

Serenno grew larger and large in the ship’s transparisteel viewport until at last the blue-green planet encompassed the entire thing. The Harmony dived at a slow, sedate pace through the atmosphere and clouds below it, revealing the planet’s landscape. Lush forests of tall, deep green deciduous trees stretched out for miles in every direction, broken by sparkling lakes and occasional elegant country estate. Tall mountains could be seen, their tips covered with snow at their sides with evergreens. Many played host to soaring palaces of the nobility. As they soared by, Twilight had acknowledge the landscape was beautiful. Though not, she felt, as beautiful as Equestria had been before the war. It was hard to imagine evil taking root in such a tranquil place.

At last, Carannia came into view. The planet’s ancient capital and largest city, its architecture combined a classical sense of elegance with the high-tech lifestyle of the modern era. Sprawling out for many miles in all directions, it was home to millions upon millions of humans and a small number of alien residents or visitors.

Twilight did not have much of a chance to observe the city, however, as very quickly her ship came upon the indicated spaceport. As promised, the skyward doors of landing bay were open, and platform within empty. The Harmony slowly touched down, and Twilight Sparkle arrived on Serenno.

On Korriban, in the Valley of the Dark Lords, Princess Luna was laughing. She had not felt this good in years – if ever! The power of the dark side of the Force flowed freely through her body, rejuvenating it with the stolen essences of the many souls that had perished here. Her muscled legs felt strong and sure, the wings that had atrophied from lack of use stood proud and regal, and her majestic mane once more blew in a wind that only it could feel. Luna could feel the ebb and flow of the Force as it surrounded her, empowering her and drawing strength from her emotions at the same time. She knew, without having to be told, that simply by giving in she had become more powerful than she had been in a long time, and she reveled in it.

Luna rejoiced in her surprise victory, relished the memory of General Grievous screaming his last as she enacted long-overdue justice on his miserable hide. Though she now understood it to have been merely an artificial monstrosity formed from her nightmares, sand, and sorcery, its death had been immensely gratifying. Moreover, she had realized that the “Celestia” she had seen had been nothing more than another trick – her beloved sister was not dead after all. It was a great relief for her.

For some time – she did not bother to count how long – Luna simply stood there and laughed. She rejoiced in the feeling of being powerful again after enduring helplessness for long, the satisfaction of a manner of revenge exacted on Grievous, and of course the increasingly-elaborate fantasies she had of punishment to be enacted on the Empire. At that moment the alicorn was on top of the world, full of the quick and easy power promised by the dark side, and she felt as though there were nothing that she could not do.

Of course, like all things, this too came to an end.

Luna was several minutes into an imagined public execution of Emperor Palpatine when things around her began to change. It started with the glowing red crystals that lighted the place. One by one, they flickered like worn-out bulbs and died into nothingness, plunging the room in pitch-black. Luna activated her looted lightsaber with a characteristic *snap hiss*, once more bathing the room in a red light. The alicorn reached out to the Force, preparing to call upon the powers of the dark side to defend herself against whatever this latest threat was to be.

A faint mist of purple and black began to seep upwards from between the flagstones of the tomb’s floor. Startled, Luna took an experimental swing at it with her crimson blade, but it passed through without ill effect. The attack did, however, allow the princess to notice that the antique weapon was reacting to this new force. For the first time since she had picked it up, Luna looked closely at the lightsaber. Its hilt was an archaic design, hand-crafted from silvery, lightsaber-resistant cortosis, with a golden electrum finish. Twin spiked crossguards flanked the red blade, while every inch of the hilt was coated with engraved sorcerous runes. These runes were now growing faintly with white light, some more so than others. The brightest light came from the rune lovingly carved into the activation stud. To her surprise, Luna found that she recognized the rune from data Inquisitor Cia had shown her.

This was the lightsaber of Darth Nox.

Before the alicorn princess had time to properly process this information, the flow of purple-black mist exploded. Pouring from the walls, floor, and ceiling alike, the thick fog enshrouded the tomb in short order, blocking most everything within from sight. To Luna’s surprise, the gas did not choke her or even attempt to hamper her breathing. For a handful of seconds, it simply hung static in the air.
Then, without warning, the mist flowed together and coalesced above the shattered slab that had covered the sarcophagus. Within seconds a towering figure emerged, formed from the mist. Its face and head concealed by a skull-like mask, its body wrapped tightly in armored robes, its skin covered completely by gloves and boots and thick clothing, it was impossible to make out the figure’s features, sex, or even species. Still, as it folded its arms across its chest, Luna could sense that this thing was angry.

“How dare you?!” a voice that was deep and unquestionably masculine echoed inside Luna’s mind. “How dare you violate this tomb, blasphemer?!”

This reverberating voice, in accompaniment with the man’s dramatic appearance and fearsome visage, was a powerfully frightening effect, but Luna refused to be intimidated. The alicorn stood her ground, fearlessly locking gazes with the empty skull eyes of the man’s mask.

“We do not fear thee, Darth Nox,” she replied. “We had need of thy resting place, and so we made use of it. If thou art wise, thou shalt allow us to leave now unmolested. We have no more business with this place and mean it no harm.”

“No harm?!” Nox’s voice sounded outraged. “You come here, violate my crypt, destroy my slab, damage my hieroglyphs, steal the lightsaber from my very hands, and you have the audacity to tell me that you mean my tomb no harm?!”

“If thou hast a complaint, we suggest that thou takest it up with whoever conjured up General Grievous to attack us,” Luna retorted. “As for us, we have what we came for and have no quarrel with thee. Do not attempt to halt our exit and thou hast our word that no further harm shall come to this place by our hoof.”

“You shall die now, robber of graves,” declared the ghost of Darth Nox, raising one gloved hand. A sphere of inky-black energy took shape between his fingers, noticeably chilling the air in the tomb as it did so.

But Nox was not the only one able to call upon the dark side of the Force, and his time among the living had passed long ago. His power was old and worn as the tombs themselves, while Luna’s was fresh and undiminished by the withering effects of time. She lashed out at the gathering spell instinctually, sheer power breaking apart the delicate matrices and dispersing the energy in a bluish-purple wave. The dust of the tomb was flung about in great clouds, made visible by the lightsaber’s glow.

For a moment, Darth Nox and Princess Luna stared each other down, Luna’s expression cocky, Nox’s invisible beneath his impassive mask.

“Your power is impressive,” he acknowledged. “But your technique is unsophisticated, crude. How the Sith must have fallen to send an acolyte such as you to my resting place.”

“We do not serve the Sith! We are-”

“You dance to the Sith’s tune whether you know it or not,” he paused. “You might have had a great destiny ahead of you, Princess Luna of Equestria.”

“How dost thou know our-”

“But your story ends here.”

Darth Nox uncurled his right hand, reaching it out over the now-open sarcophagus in the room’s center, and made a small gesture. It was a little thing, really, neither long nor particularly dramatic, and for half a second it appeared as though nothing at all had happened. And then came the horrible sound of crunching bone.

Luna watched in disbelief and morbid, unnerving curiosity as a weathered, faded glove reached out of the ancient Sith coffin. The one glove was quickly followed by another, and then the rotten figure within pulled itself free from its tomb. The millennia-old corpse of Darth Nox was a wretched thing to behold, looking for all the world like a smaller, beaten version of the spectra that hovered above. The clothing was recognizably the same, but the fine purple robes decorating the ghost had grown rotten and threadbare in reality. In many places they had grown holes, exposing a yellowed skeleton with just the faintest scraps of black, dried flesh clinging on in a handful of spots. The body’s mask, unlike that of the spirit, sported a great crack down one side, exposing part of the crumbling yellow skull beneath. The thing smelled strongly of age-old rot and incense. Luna grimaced at the disgusting sight of the millennia-old carcass pulling itself from the sarcophagus, but remained undaunted.

“Dost thou truly think,” she said, brandishing the lightsaber at the body. “That we will be intimidated by some cheap necromancer’s trick? Ha! We have seen far too many-”

Suddenly and without warning, Nox’s lightsaber shuddered briefly in her telekinetic grip, runes glowing brightly. Just as Luna registered it, the ancient blade was torn free of her grip by an overwhelming force. It spun through the air to be caught surprisingly dextrously by the gloved hand of the skeleton.

“That is my lightsaber you stole, little thief,” Darth Nox’s voice gloated. “Did you truly think you could use it against me?”

With speed and agility belying its worn and rotten appearance, the body backflipped out of its coffin, flying several yards back to land directly in front of the tomb’s only exit. It spun the lightsaber in a dizzying array of sequences, moving fast enough that even to Luna’s eyesight the blade appeared as little more than a crimson blur.

“H-How?” she managed, taking a step backwards.

“The dark side of the Force is a pathway to many abilities, some considered to be… unnatural.”

“That does not-”

Before Luna could complete her sentence, Darth Nox’s ghost made a two-fingered gesture at her. Instantly she was swept off her feet and directly backwards, smashing headfirst into the stone rear wall of the tomb. Dazed, she barely had time to blink before she saw the lightsaber-wielding corpse in mid-leap, descending on her position. Luna rolled to the side at the very last second, the crimson lightsaber plunging deep into the stone where her chest had just been.

Scrambling to her hooves as the skeleton pulled the blade out of the red-hot hole in the floor, Luna called once more on the power of the dark side. It came freely as it had before, filling her body with its merciless strength.

But before she could do anything else, a second voice, deep, rich, and bass, resounded through the tomb.

“Stop!”

From the way it echoed around the room, it didn’t seem to be in her head.

“Please, my friends,” the voice continued swiftly. “Peace.”

“Peace is a lie!” Darth Nox snapped, speaking aloud for the first time.

“Be that as it may, please lay down your arms.”

“You know as well as I that she became mine and mine alone the moment she set foot in this tomb.”

“We do not belong to thee!” Luna hissed. “Nor anyone else!”

Darth Nox seemed to be ignoring her, his skull mask looking upwards at the ceiling, as if there were something only he could see.

“This whelp belongs to me,” Nox declared. “Body and soul. She will not escape here.”

“I do not deny your rights, Lord Nox,” the voice replied. “However, I do wish to remind you of our bargain.”

“You would invoke that merely to save a lowly tomb robber?” for the first time, Darth Nox sounded surprised.

“She will be of use,” the disembodied voice answered. “If you will release her and grant that which she requires, I will consider your obligation at an end.”

For some time, the tomb was silent save for the low hum of the lightsaber. The spirit of Darth Nox floated impassively over his sarcophagus, his mask making it impossible to read any facial expression. If, that is ghosts had such things. Luna did not know.

At last, Nox crossed his arms once again and gave a very slight nod. “So be it.”

The long-dead corpse tossed the lightsaber it carried to an astonished Princess Luna, who barely caught the ignited blade in her telekinesis. Slowly, at a shambling pace the alicorn thought more befitted a walking carcass, it made its way back into the coffin. One by one the piece of the shattered slab began to flow back, affixing themselves back into place through Sith magic. The ghost, meanwhile, began to dissolve way.

“Our bargain is fulfilled,” declared Darth Nox as his spirit once more faded from the ancient tomb. “Lord Tyranus.”

13: A Dark Bargain

Princess Luna, still surprised at the intervention of the second voice to protect her, watched as the ghost of Darth Nox faded away into whatever place it resided. She hadn’t expected anyone in this horrible place to care about her fate, much less call in a favor to cause a spirit to back down. Still, she wasn’t foolish enough to believe that this Lord Tyranus had done it out of the goodness of his heart – he had even admitted as much.

“So,” Luna said, holding the still-active blade of Darth Nox’s lightsaber close, looking around suspiciously. “What is it that thou desirest of us, Lord Tyranus?”

“Observant and insightful,” the voice responded, still apparently disembodied. “Good.”

Luna snorted. “Hardly. Thou hast said thyself that thou thinkest we are “of use” to thee. Do not expect us to feel indebted to thee merely because thou didst not wish to see a tool destroyed.”

“I would hardly hold such a low opinion of your intelligence, Princess Luna.”

“Thou canst see us, nay?” she asked.

“I can.”

“Then show thyself,” Luna demanded. “If thou wishest to bargain with us, come forth and let it be done face-to-face. Otherwise we leave at once.”

“You are interested in such a bargain, then?”

“Do not take us for a fool. If thou hast sufficient influence to indebt an ancient ghost thee, thou surely hast something of worth. We may have use for it. That thou hast used that debt to call off Darth Nox meaneth that thou must wish something from us. We may be amendable to a trade.”

“You are very perceptive, princess. My compliments.”

“Cease thy flattery and come into the open,” Luna said. “We will hear what it is thou wishest, and what it is thou hast to offer. No more.”

“Very well.”

The red crystals that lit Darth Nox’s tomb flickered back into life, once again lending their light to that coming from the crimson lightsaber. Another cloud of mist began to emerge from the floor, but far faster than before. The thin, silvery substance swirled in the air before coalescing together and manifesting from itself the form of a tall, unmasked human male, arms folded behind his back. Luna had never met this particular individual in person, but she instantly recognized him from the description she had received from Celestia as well as numerous holograms the man had recorded in life.

She hissed and held the lightsaber up pointedly. “Thou art Count Dooku.”

“That was my name, yes,” he nodded politely.

“We heard on the holonet that thou had perished over Coruscant.”

“That is true,” Dooku nodded again, a dark expression coming into his eyes. “I was betrayed. And murdered.”

Luna couldn’t help it. A feeling surged up from her chest, overwhelming any self-control or diplomatic tact, emerging from her mouth in a frenzy of noise that echoed throughout the confined space of the Sith tomb.

She burst out laughing.

“Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!” she roared out, throwing back her head to give full voice to her amusement. “Aha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!”

Dooku’s ghost hovered there, his expression growing steadily darker.

“Are you quite finished?” he said during a lull, as Luna paused to catch her breath.

“No!” she snapped back, before tilting her head again. “Aha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha HA HA HA!”

Dooku glared in undisguised irritation as Luna’s laughter finally subsided to chuckles. Tears streaking down her cheeks, she reached a hoof up to brush some of them away before allowing her last few giggles to escape. When she looked back up again, the alicorn’s mood had considerably improved.

“Was that truly necessary?” asked the count.

“For what thou hast done?” Luna snorted in amusement. “Yes. Thou had more than earned a miserable death, and we sincerely hope it was painful.”

“That is hardly a good way to start a negotiation, princess,” he replied. “And in any case, you needn’t worry about that. I can assure you that my last few moments among the living were most unpleasant.” Dooku rubbed his neck with one hand.

“Thou needest us far more than we need thee, count,” Luna pointed out. “Else thou wouldst not have squandered a limited commodity merely to get the chance to speak with us. As it is, we see little reason to negotiate with the murderer who ravaged our fair Equestria.”

Meaningfully, the princess turned her back on the count, deactivating her new lightsaber and placing it gently in what remained of her side bags. She started towards the tomb’s exit.

“What if I told you,” Dooku’s voice came after her. “That I was not the one ultimately responsible for the destruction unleashed on your world?”

Luna did not even bother turning her head back around to answer. “We would remind thee that thou wast the leader of the Separatists and Grievous’ superior. We also know that thou didst fight our sister Celestia personally in Canterlot, and thus have no reason to believe thy protestations of innocence.”

“I did not claim I was innocent,” Dooku countered. “Merely that the ultimate responsibility did not lie with me. It was Grievous who executed the attack on your planet, and it was I who offered your sister an opportunity to surrender. Surely she told you as much.”

“She did,” Luna acknowledged. “But it means nothing. Thou couldst have called off Grievous if thou had wished to do so.”

“No, I could not have.”

Luna halted on the spot, turning her face slightly to look back on the ghost with one eye. “Thou were the head of the Confederacy of Independent Systems. There was none above thee.”

“In public, that was the truth. But behind the scenes…” Dooku paused. “Tell me, how much do you know of the Sith?”

“Little. Nor do we much care.”

“You should,” Dooku smiled faintly. “I take it you have never heard of Darth Bane, or the Rule of Two?”

“Should we have?”

“On this planet? Yes, if they were bothering to give you any real education,” Dooku took a few steps forward, sounding conversational. “In any case, the Rule of Two states that there may only be two Sith Lords at any one time: a master and an apprentice. One to embody power, the other to crave it.”

“Let us take a guess,” Luna said drily. “Thou wouldst have us believe that thou wast the apprentice, correct?”

“Very perceptive,” Dooku nodded. “I knew I made the right choice. Yes, I was the apprentice, Darth Tyranus. Above me was my master, Darth Sidious. It was he who ordered your planet be wiped out. And it was he,” his face darkened again. “That betrayed me and ordered my death. After the war, he had my remains secreted away to this place, hoping to bury my spirit beyond sight and memory.”

“And why should we believe that this phantom master ever existed, much less ordered thee to do as thou didst?”

“You know Lord Sidious by another name,” Dooku replied. “These days, he calls himself Emperor Palpatine.”

Luna froze on the spot, carefully considering what had just been said. She wasn’t sure whether she believed the spirit’s words, but the idea that Palpatine would be ruthless enough to sanction such an act was hardly outside the realms of plausibility.

“Say we believe thee…” Luna muttered. “What is it that thou wishest us to do about it? We wanted him dead regardless for the enslavement of Equus.”

“You will never defeat him on your own, you know. Darth Sidious possesses a mastery of the dark side that is second to none. He knows many ancient Sith magicks and is a master of all manner of lightsaber combat. He is cunning, and his foresight extends far into the future. If you attempt to destroy him, he will crush you like an insect and wipe out your planet as retribution.”

“Hmph!” Luna looked disdainful. “And thou knowest better? By thine own words, he killed thee and thou never saw it coming. We will become stronger than he, stronger than any other. We defeated Grievous here, and we will defeat this Sidious on our own.” Once again, she turned to leave.

“You defeated a puppet of dust and sorcery, hardly a worthy approximation of Sidious. It was nothing more than a tool pulled from your own psyche.”

“And how wouldst thou know that?”

“Because I made it.”

Luna turned halfway around, teeth clenched into a snarl. One hoof pawed the ground. “Thou didst what?!” she hissed.

“I made it,” Dooku repeated. “As an aide and as a test for you.”

“Thou wast the one who made us go through-”

“You emerged from the other side of this trial far stronger than you were before,” Dooku interrupted. “Do you deny it?”

Surprised, Luna hesitated.

“…No,” she said after a few seconds had passed.

The count smiled. “You see, even when you don’t know you’re being trained, my methods are effective.” The ghost took several long, ethereal steps through the air to stand directly before Luna. “Here is my offer: join me. Learn what I have to teach, and embrace the full power of the dark side. Become what you were always meant to be.”

“…And in return?”

“I ask only that you help me to claim my revenge. Help me to slay Palpatine, who ordered my death. Help me to slay Darth Vader, who killed me. Agree to do this, and I will teach you all I know.”

For some time, all was silence. Luna stared at the floor, contemplating all that she had just heard and considering her options. It was many minutes later when she looked up again, meeting the count’s gaze with her restored blue eyes.

“No.”

Dooku looked genuinely surprised. “What?”

“We said: no,” Luna turned her back on the spirit. “We refuse thy offer. We will shall find our own way to power. We do not believe thy words, for thou art a liar and a murderer of our people. Thou canst rot here for all we care,” she took a step out through the tomb’s archway and back into the darkened hallway. “We will not trust thee.”

“So don’t.”

“Huh?” Luna glanced back at the count’s spirit, which had not move. “What didst thou say?”

“Don’t trust me,” Dooku repeated himself. “Such mundane things as trust hardly matter on the path of the Sith. Simply take what I offer freely and use it to your ends, Princess Luna. I will make no attempt to bind you to any oath or promise,” a smile tugged at one corner of his mouth. “For you will inevitably attempt to slay the Emperor with or without my prompting. I can sense it.”

“We are not some puppet following a preordained path, Dooku,” Luna huffed indignantly.

“Of course not. But search your feelings, you know it to be true.”

“…”

“I’m right, aren’t I?”

“Aye,” Luna admitted with a heavy sigh. “Tis the truth. The Emperor and his Empire must be bested if our ponies are to breathe free again.”

“And I will help you to do it,” Dooku said. “For you know as well as I that you will confront Sidious eventually. Simply agree to hear my instruction,” he spread his hand wide in a magnanimous gesture. “And you will gain the power you need to triumph.”

“We still do not trust thee.”

“It doesn’t matter. Your ends and mine are the same. To help you is to help myself.”

Luna eyed the spirit warily. Dooku simply smiled and waited patiently with his hands behind his back. At last, the princess of the night let out a long sigh and nodded.

“Thou hast a bargain, spirit.”

The count smiled broadly. “I’m glad to hear it. It is my pleasure to formally induct you into the Order of the Sith Lords.”

“We said nothing about that.”

“You are becoming my apprentice, no?”

“In a certain sense,” she admitted.

“Then you must take a new name, in accordance with our traditions. It will represent you rebirth into the power of the dark side.”

“We like our name just fine.”

“Nonetheless, it is unfitting for a Sith Lord to lack a proper title. Henceforth, you shall be known as Darth…” he paused, considering. “Noctis.”

Author's Notes:

And this concludes Act I of Empire and Rebellion! How many acts are there?

Well, you'll just have to keep reading and find out.

14: Fateful Moments

On Serenno, Twilight Sparkle was checking and double-checking her equipment in her characteristically thorough fashion. Fitted body armor? Check. Full-cover black environmental body glove? Check. Face-concealing mask and helmet? Check. Twin DC-17 hand blaster pistols from Clone Wars surplus? Check. Extra tibanna gas cartridges for the guns? Check. Cable gun and matching grappling hook? Check. Smoke grenades? Check. Electrobinoculars? Check. Comlink? Check. Miniaturized wrist computer with her slicing programs installed? Check.

Twilight sighed as she sat down her checklist for the fifth time in the last ten minutes. To all appearances, the shapeshifted alicorn was ready to carry out her first act of true rebellion, to take the first step on the path she hoped would end in her homeworld’s liberation. But on the inside she was supremely nervous and constantly questioning what she was about to do. There were so many things that could go wrong, so many ways that this could end in disaster, not only for her, but for her homeworld.

The information underground had been ablaze with the very recent news of the purge of the planet Lasan for rebellious activities and the virtual extinction of its native Lasat species. Reliable information on the events that had transpired in the past few weeks was hard to come by, but there were almost certainly no more than a few hundred to a few thousand Lasat left in the galaxy, out of a population that had numbered billions. All that simply because the planet had refused to fall quietly into line. If the Empire knew that she was being backed by Celestia… if they even suspected…

Twilight shivered.

For comfort, she picked up the most recent scroll she had received from her mentor. Just the fact that the magical connection between Celestia and Spike was still working was in itself reassuring.

Dear Twilight,

It is good to hear from you again. In answer to your first question, your friends are all doing quite well, and wish you to know that they have not stopped thinking about you since you left. And Pinkie Pie says she hopes that you’re still taking time to smile.

In answer to your second, no, you are not an aunt quite yet. However, Cadence is presently hospitalized and I give the process no more than a few more days at most. She and your brother are still refusing to test for the foal’s sex, by the way.

Now, as to your final question and your proposed plan, I’m afraid my ability to help is limited. From the situation you have described to me I see nothing evidently wrong with what you propose to do. As I’m sure you’re aware, however, unexpected things do happen, and circumstances can change in a heartbeat. As such, I’m afraid that my advice in this situation is limited to urging you to be careful, and to trust your judgement.

I know I do.

Your proud teacher,
-Princess Celestia

With a slight smile on her masked face, Twilight set the letter aside again and mentally reviewed her plan one final time. Serenno, as she had discovered to her dismay over the preceding few weeks, had largely accepted its new overlords. As long as the Empire treated it with a relatively light touch, the aristocratically-dominated planet had little desire to damage its status and wealth with further association with rebellion. It had been a most disheartening discovery for the young princess.

Of course, simply because the majority seemed to accept the Empire didn’t mean that everyone did. It had taken Twilight some time and no small amount of bribery and computer slicing, but she had been able to confirm from both criminal sources and the Empire’s own databanks that a number of rebel cells were active on the planet. Most were small and tended to avoid confronting occupation forces on the planet, but there were a few with off-world connections and, it was said, influential backers. That was precisely the sort of thing Twilight was looking for.

That had left open the question as to how she was to approach these resistance fighters. It wasn’t as though one could simply knock on a door or fill out a rebel application form. There had to be some level of preexisting trust, or at least some need. She hadn’t been sure what exactly the best way to go about it was. Until, that is, she had gotten word of a rather unique opportunity.

Imperial troops had recently arrested a number of rebels, real or suspected, including a few that were said to be members of one of the cells Twilight had her eyes on. Ordinarily, this would be something she could do little about, but Serenno was lightly garrisoned. The guards at the outpost where they were being held were few in number. And the main computer was almost distressingly vulnerable to outside infiltration.

Twilight knew, because she had already sliced it.

The rumor swirling that some bigshot from the Imperial Security Bureau was due to arrive soon to deal with the prisoners had been the icing on the cake. The alicorn princess had an opportunity to advance her cause, prove her worth to potential allies, and hurt the Empire all in one go. With little better idea of what to do beyond trying again on another planet, she had decided the time had come to take a risk.

She was going to rescue them.

In the sun-scorched deserts of Korriban, in the Valley of the Dark Lords, Princess Luna was embroiled in yet another brutal melee. A tuk’ata hound was barreling towards her from the front, while no less than five of its fellows were circling around to attack her rear. Their previous encounters had taught the pack caution.

They had not taught it sense.

Luna sidestepped the charging Sith hound with an easy grace at odds with her haggard, lean appearance. She drove Darth Nox’s crimson lightsaber blade into the back of beast’s skull as it passed, the weapon easily burning straight through to burst forth from its face. The dark side’s power was fed with every death, and Luna grew only stronger from this exercise. But before she had even pulled the lightsaber from the first hound’s corpse, three more had lept at her from behind.

The first she caught in a telekinetic chokehold without even bothering to look at it. Luna squeezed and without mercy broke the creature’s neck. And then she rolled sideways across the sands, again relying on the dark side of the Force to warn her of her opponent’s moves. The two tuk’ata landed roughly where the night princess had just been, claws digging deep furrows into the rocky ground. Before they had a chance to continue, the lightsaber embedded in their fellow’s corpse sprang out and cut low. One prescient hound dodged it by performing its own roll across the valley floor, while the other was not so lucky. That one lost all four of its legs, collapsing into the dirt and rocks, howling in utter agony.

Another tuk’ata made to attack the princess from behind while she was distracted, making a flying leap off its rocky perch. The creature could not have known that Luna was not only expecting this, but eagerly awaiting it. These vicious monsters had attacked and injured her without provocation, and killed gods only knew how many innocents – the Togruta escapee was surely not the first. It was good to see them wiped from the face of the galaxy.

Once again, Luna caught her attacker in a telekinetic grip, but this time she did not simply snap its neck. Instead, she flung it backwards with such supreme force as to dash the hound’s skull against a stone monument to a long-dead Sith Lord. Meanwhile, the tuk’ata that had avoided her earlier sweeping cut was beginning to back off, but she had no intention of leaving survivors. Nox’s lightsaber flew forward once again, impaling it through the chest.

High on the rocks above, the one beast that had not engaged rather sensibly turned and ran, nimbly leaping from rock to rock with all the grace of sleek predatory cat. Luna watched for a second, and then gathered her concentration. A wave of Force energy smashed into the rock outcropping, sending fragments flying in every direction and hurling the tuk’ata off. The beast hit the ground roughly, and before it could recover Luna unleashed Force lightning. The supernatural blue electricity coursed through the ancient Sith beast, briefly rendering its skeleton visible. At last, its twitching corpse hit the ground.

With a self-satisfied smirk, Luna called her looted lightsaber back to her. The ancient weapon hovered over her head like her moon orbited Equus as she approached the final, legless tuk’ata. The beast’s howls had turned to meek whimpers of pain as its body began to shut down in response to the brutal amputation. For a moment, the alicorn simply stood over the downed creature, allowing herself to enjoy the sight of justice done.

“For your murder of the innocent,” Luna decreed. “For your unprovoked attack on my person. Die.”

She plunged the lightsaber into the tuk’ata’s chest, instantly incinerating its heart. The beast spasmed once, and then it lay still. Snorting in a satisfied manner, Luna pulled the blade from the carcass and switched it off.

“Well done,” came the sound of the voice she had become so used to hearing over these past weeks. “Well done indeed, Lord Noctis.”

Luna glanced irritably up at the manifesting spirit of Count Dooku. She didn’t like the name he had assigned her, and it galled her that he refused to call her anything else.

“We – I,” Luna corrected herself. “Did as you asked, Lord Tyranus. I left none alive.”

One of the first things Dooku had demanded she do was abandon her old mode of speaking. It caused her to stick out like a sore thumb, he had said, and must be amended. Privately, Luna regarded it simply as an expression of the aristocrat’s high society mannerisms – he simply didn’t like the way her old dialect had sounded. Many of Canterlot’s deceased nobles had felt the same way. She hadn’t particularly enjoyed forcing herself to ditch centuries of ingrained speech patterns, but the rewards were worth such a minor sacrifice.

“I can see that. Your best time yet,” he smiled. “You are progressing well.”

And there was no mistaking it: Dooku’s training was worth it. The deceased Sith Lord knew much of the ways of the dark side, and was sharing his secrets with Luna. Her focus and grasp over the Force’s power had improved substantially, and she was beginning to learn the art of combat premonition – that is, of using the dark side to predict and react to her opponents’ moves before they could make them. Further, he had been one of the best lightsaber duelists in the galaxy during his life, and now that he had no further use for that skill shared its techniques most freely of all.

“It gives me pleasure to enact righteous judgement on these beasts,” Luna said, truthfully. “What am I to do next?”

Weeks spent in the Valley of the Dark Lords had visibly affected the alicorn princess. Her mane and tail still flowed with the dark side’s power, but the rest of her dark fur was dirty and unkempt. She had had no opportunity to bathe or groom herself for weeks, and consequently was visibly weathered and smelled a bit. There was also neither food nor water once her small ration pack ran out – as a constitutional herbivore, she could not consume the beasts she killed – and so Luna was leaner than before. Her muscles had enlarged and grown taut under the physical demands of the harsh Sith training regime.

“I think,” said Dooku. “That it is perhaps time to return yourself to the Imperial Academy. Sidious’ servants will be wondering if you have died.”

“Let them wonder,” replied Luna.

Dooku frowned. “Remember what I told you,” he said. “You cannot bring down the Emperor from the outside. You will need-”

“To join the Empire’s ranks, I remember,” interjected Luna. She did not particularly like that part of Dooku’s plan, however much sense it made. Getting close to Emperor Palpatine would be neither simple nor easy, and for anyone outside the Empire’s highest tiers would be all but impossible. That didn’t mean she was happy with the idea.

“Yes,” he said, looking slightly irritated. “And do not interrupt me again.”

“Yes, Lord Tyranus,” Luna answered with some reluctance. Some sycophancy was required to placate the Sith Lord’s ego, even in death. “But why now?”

“Because,” Dooku looked up and away from her. “I sense there will soon be an opportunity there,” his eyes narrowed. “A visitor is coming.”

Twilight ran a diagnostics check on the Harmony for the third time. It was absolutely imperative that if something went wrong – or worse, if she were captured or killed – that the ship be ready to make an immediate and hasty exit. Spike, despite his protests, had been ordered to remain on the ship and make a break for it if she did not return within a certain period. Whatever happened, she did not intend to take her dragon friend down with her.

“But Twilight,” Spike objected once again. “I can-”

“No buts,” she answered firmly. “You’re staying with the ship, and that’s final!”

“But I can help!” he protested. “Like back in the Crystal Empire! Or in that other dimension! I can be a part of this, I know it. If you’ll just give me-”

“Spike,” Twilight knelt down, her transformed blue eyes meeting his. “It’s not that I don’t have faith in your abilities. Celestia knows that nopony knows better than I how capable you are.”

“Then why can’t I come with you?!”

“Because we can’t afford it,” she said. “If something happens to me, somepony needs to tell Princess Celestia about it,” she paused. “And somepony needs to carry on our mission.”

Spike swallowed a little. “You mean that?”

Twilight gave him a small smile. “Of course I do. You’re the bravest, smartest, kindest dragon I’ve ever known. There’s nopony better for this.”

“I…” Spike sighed. “Alright.”

Twilight hugged him. “Thank you, Spike.”

The two held the embrace for a few seconds before Twilight broke off to finish dressing. A rather baggy flight suit concealed the black environmental body glove she wore, while her pieces of armor, helmet, mask, and weapons were packed into a rather innocuous travel bag beneath a number of perfectly ordinary pieces of clothing and hygienic supplies. All of this had not been cheap, particularly on the black market, but the anonymity they offered was worth the price.

Breathing carefully to contain her continued nervous twitching, the polymorphed alicorn walked nonchalantly out of the docking bay, left the spaceport, and strode down one of Carannia’s many boulevards for distance. Eventually she reached the forested edge of Serenno’s capital city. A good distance into the beautifully-preserved deciduous forest in the height of its summer greenery was a mid-sized speeder. Stolen, Twilight remembered with a slight twinge of guilt. Any vehicle she used couldn’t be registered to her - she wasn’t prepared to risk even a false identity of hers being connected with rebellion. Not yet anyway.

As Twilight shed her flight suit and affixed her armor plates, helmet, and mask, she failed to notice a certain small purple dragon secreting himself underneath one of the speeder’s rear seats.

Twilight peered through her electrobinoculars at Imperial Outpost FS-523. Located a good distance into one of the Serenno’s many forests, where “polite” society wouldn’t have to bear witness such things as the torture and murder of dissidents, it was little more than a series of connected prefabricated buildings. Prisoners were usually held here in interim, far from anywhere they could hope to run to. Guards here at present were limited to two dozen troopers from the Imperial Army, plus around half that many support staff.

Sensibly, the forest around the complex had been cleared of all cover to a distance of fifty meters, meaning any attempted escapees or stealthy approachers would have to run a gauntlet of fire with absolutely no protection. It would be little more than a turkey shoot. But fortunately, it wouldn’t come to that.

Twilight’s masked face turned to her wrist-mounted computer. The facility’s main computer was an older model without any serious modifications, and had consequently proven easy to slice. One armored glove fingered a button that had been set to trigger the base’s emergency lockdown – and ignore all internal override attempts. The bulk of the Imperials would be sealed behind their own blast doors in an instant. They would need at least a few minutes to cut through the durasteel or purge the computer of her little additions. More than enough time to get the people she had come for.

Twilight hesitated. This was it. Her first real act of defiance against the Galactic Empire. From then on, there would be no going back, whatever happened. She didn’t have to do this. She could call off the mission and abandon the prisoners to their fate. She could leave this planet and wander the galaxy, or even go home. All she had to do was turn around right now and live the rest of her life knowing that she could have fought back, but chose not to.

She pushed the button.

15: The Rescue (I)

The moment Twilight heard the reverberating clangs of blast doors throughout the Imperial facility slamming themselves shut, she moved. There was no time to waste, and so she sprinted out of the forest and across the cleared land as quickly as her two legs would take her. The Imperials had been considerate enough to virtually level the ground around their base, which helped quite a bit. Before she had even made it halfway there, a man in the green-grey uniform of an Imperial Army trooper ran into a space between one of the two buildings, only to catch sight of her and abruptly stop himself.

“You there!” the man called, leveling his blaster rifle at her. “Halt!”

Twilight didn’t bother to reply, instead reaching immediately for one of her holstered pistols. She had hoped to get a little closer, but one couldn’t have everything.

The man saw what she was doing in an instant and pulled the trigger of his own weapon. Two red blaster shots flew through the air towards the alicorn, who threw herself to the ground and rolled forwards. The two shots sailed overhead, hitting the ground behind her and kicking up clouds of dirt. She managed to get a grip on one of her blaster pistols as she moved. Just as the roll came to an abrupt end, she jerked it upwards and returned fire. Once. Twice. Three times.

Twilight was no grand marksman – indeed, in her practice sessions she’d proved an average shot at best – but she had a secret weapon. She wouldn’t use any visible magic save in the direst of circumstances, for fear of in any way implicating her homeworld, but there were other ways to take advantage of her training. Long ago the Royal Guard had developed an enchantment for use on their weapons, considerably increasing their odds of striking the intended target. While it wasn’t perfect and two of her three shots went wide, it did mean that the final shot struck the Imperial in the throat. The man went down, killed immediately.

As she ran, Twilight tried hard to repress the sudden feelings of guilt and nausea that threatened to rise up and overwhelm her. She had just killed another thinking being! Sure, he was an enemy, and had tried to shoot her, but did that make it alright? He had parents, surely. Did he have brothers? Sisters? A wife? Sons or daughters? Had she just orphaned someone, somewhere? She remembered the loss of her own parents – not something she wished even on an Imperial.

She shook her head and grimaced, trying her best to put those thoughts under wraps for the moment. She had a mission to fulfil, and moping about would not help anyone, least of all the dead man. Twilight pushed herself back to her feet and continued her mad dash for the compound. She had just made it to one of the gaps between buildings when she spotted another pair of Imperial troopers rushing across the courtyard/landing pad in the compound’s center, no doubt running towards the sound of blaster fire.

Unfortunately for the alicorn, it seemed that the two humans had spotted her at around the same moment. Both raised blaster rifles and snapped off shots without hesitation. Twilight hurriedly backpedaled and ducked behind a building corner. She winced as the blaster bolts impacted on its durasteel frame in showers of sparks. She stuck her head and hand around the corner to return fire, but her aim was poor and all her shots missed.

Twilight ducked back behind the building to avoid the Imperial’s own shots. She had cover and they didn’t, but they were trained soldiers and she was an amateur with enchanted weaponry. They had the advantage. She fired several more shots around the corner without even bothering to look, and from a painful grunt it sounded as though she’d managed to at least wing one.

“All units!” she heard a trooper shouting above the blasterfire, presumably into a comlink. “There’s an intruder in the south quadrant! An armored female in-”

While he talking, Twilight seized the advantage and shot the man dead in the face. He crumpled, but she had no time to rest. A return shot from his partner blew off a substantial chunk of her armored right shoulder pad. The alicorn crouched back down, wincing at the residual heat she could feel from the glancing hit. She kept a low profile while several more blaster bolts slammed into the building, scorching the durasteel and raining sparks down on her head.

The moment the fire let up, Twilight stuck her head and gun out again, only to pause. The remaining trooper of the Imperial Army had turned tail and was retreating in the opposite direction. She hesitated, not wanting to shoot a man in the back. Who knew how much choice he even had about being here? Wasn’t two deaths on her conscience enough for one day?

The man raced into another space between buildings, and Twilight let him go.

After a few seconds had passed without anything else happening, she got back to her feet. There were still prisoners to be freed, and the princess knew exactly where they were supposed to be. She had, naturally, memorized the floorplan of this place before coming her. Still clutching her pistol in one hand, Twilight resumed her run, racing across the courtyard towards-

“Urgh!”

There was a flash, and then it felt as though someone had swung a wrecking ball directly into her sternum. Twilight hit the ground hard on her back, the world spinning around her. She lay there sprawled out, dazed, and blinking, trying to clear her head. It took the alicorn a few seconds to realize from the faint smoke trailing up from her armored chest plate that she’d been shot.

Thank the gods the armor had done its job.

Twilight lay still, eyes darting from here to there underneath her mask, seeking the source. She did not dare try her luck again. It took her a moment, but her eyes settled on the form of an Imperial Army trooper stepping cautiously from his refuge. She grimaced as she identified the same man she had so shortly before allowed to live. So much for mercy.

The trooper walked cautiously across the courtyard and towards her prone form, his blaster rifle carefully trained on her. His head frequently darted from side to side, wary of allowing himself to fall victim to the same trap that had just claimed Twilight. For her part, the princess simply played dead, waiting for the man to come within optimal distance. Closer… Closer… Closer…

*blam*

Twilight jumped involuntarily as another blaster shot rang through the base. She winced, expecting to find a great hole inside herself. But it was the Imperial who toppled over forwards, a smoking wound in his back.

“Huh?” Twilight pushed herself into a seating position, her arms trembling with the effort. Blearily, she looked around for the source of the shot.

“Twilight!” a very familiar voice called out to her.

“…Spike?” she managed, her voice weaker than she had expected.

“Are you alright?!” the baby dragon came rushing out from the same gap she herself had so recently been in. A blaster rifle, looking comically outsized next to him, was clutched in his claws. “I thought you were dead!”

“What are you… doing here?” Twilight asked, shakily resuming her feet. “I told you to wait back with the ship.”

“And I said you could use my help,” Spike said. “And I was right!”

“I had it… under control.”

Spike just looked meaningfully at the scorched hole in the chest plate over Twilight’s heart.

“Sorta…”

The baby dragon folded his arms and raised an eyebrow.

“…Where did you even get that thing?” she indicated the blaster rifle.

“I pried it off the first bad guy you took down,” he explained.

“…Nice shooting,” Twilight admitted, before shaking her head. “But you still shouldn’t be here! It’s too dangerous!”

“I am here,” Spike argued. “And I’m going to stay here until we do this thing!”

“No, you are not!” Twilight put her hands on her hips. “Go and wait in the speeder, at the very least!”

“Yes, I am!”

“No, you’re not!”

“Yes, I am!”

“No, you are most certainly not!”

There was a pause.

“Hey,” Spike said. “You do remember that the longer we spend arguing, the better the chances are of the Imperials breaking out?”

“…” Twilight froze. It was a good argument.

Spike’s grin told her he realized it as well.

“Fine,” she grumbled. “But mark my words, mister, when we’re through I’ll make sure that you regret coming here.” Twilight turned and began to sprint towards the building where the prisoners she was after were being held. Already, she was beginning to give the sliced computer instructions to open its blast doors.

“I’d have regretted it a lot more if I hadn’t,” Spike said quietly, before hurrying after her.

Considering the action outside, getting inside the small prison had proved surprisingly simple. The five-man squad of troopers assigned to guard the place had been on patrol in some of the building’s outer corridors when Twilight had triggered the emergency lockdown, and had consequently been sealed apart from the actual occupied cell block. The banging of their fists and shouts for help could be heard echoing throughout the building, along with the occasional blaster shot. Twilight paid them no mind.

The alicorn went up and down the cramped hallway lined with cells, opening each one and moving onwards to the next without pause. Slowly but surely the prison’s occupants trickled out of their cells when they realized that no Imperial was coming in for them. Fourteen in total, they were humans all, mostly men with a handful of women in the mix. The majority bore the hard, aristocratic features common to Serenno, though at least two appeared at first glance to be off-worlders.

One of the men grasped Twilight’s shoulder firmly from behind. “Who are you?” he asked.

“Your rescuer,” she said, voice distorted by her mask.

“I mean, what’s your name? Who sent you?” he looked at Spike. “And what’s that?”

“He’s a friend,” Twilight bristled, shoving his hand from her shoulder. “And none of the rest matters right now. We need to get out, and quickly.”

“Fair enough,” the man nodded. “I’m Jason Sylkes, by the way.”

Twilight looked around at the other humans, who if they weren’t already making a break for the exit seemed to be looking at them. “You’re the leader of this group?”

“You could say that.”

“Then get everyone together and follow me. We need to get moving.”

“You heard the lady!” Sylkes raised his so it echoed prominently in the confined corridor. “Let’s move! Hustle!”

Twilight easily forced her way to the fore of the little group by virtue of being both their rescuer and one of the only two carrying a gun. The return trip back through the building proved as simple as the entrance had been, and by the time they reached the open exit the alicorn was beginning to feel somewhat upbeat about this whole thing.

Which, naturally, could only portend disaster.

A red-faced man rang back into the prison building, huffing and sweating. “We,” he pointed backwards. “Have a problem.”

“What is-” Twilight started to ask, only to have her question preemptively answered by a strafing of laserfire along the courtyard and beyond. The explosions shook the ground under her feet, and she stumbled briefly. She was not alone.

“He’s here early,” Twilight said, looking up. “Damn.”

Agent Kallus of the Imperial Security Bureau was not a stupid man. He knew, from the moment that Outpost FS-523 failed to promptly respond to his shuttle’s hails, that something was amiss. Though he had arrived for the prisoners early, as was often his habit, the small garrison should still have been able to rouse itself to respond.

“Take us in slowly,” he ordered the Lambda-class shuttle’s pilots. “Shift into a circular descent pattern. I want a scan of the outpost before we touch down,” Kallus said. “And increase power to our shields,” he added as an afterthought.

The tri-winged shuttle slowed its descent through Serenno’s atmosphere, taking time to focus its keen sensors on the Imperial facility below. Data came streaming in rapidly, neither durasteel nor forest able to offer significant barrier at such short range.

“Sir, we’re picking up numerous lifeforms within, but…” one of the uniformed pilots paused. “Power throughout much of the outpost appears to be shut down. Its communications are operational but silenced.”

“Hmmm…” the ISB Agent stroked his chin lightly. “Are there any vehicles outside of the outpost’s bay?”

The pilot checked the sensor feed again. “Yes sir,” he reported a second later. “There is a speeder not far into the surrounding forest. Further, visual scopes are picking up what appear to be several corpses in the uniforms of the Imperial Army, as well as more than one being outside in prisoner jumpsuits.”

“A rebel prison break,” Kallus declared, his brow creasing deeply. “Lieutenant, commence a strafing run at once. Target that speeder and any escapees in the open.”

“At once, Agent,” the man answered.

The shuttle’s crew went to work immediately to implement their superior’s orders. The Lambda embarked on a steep dive from its spiraling orbit, directly at the facility below. The two forward double laser cannons spat deadly red energy as soon as they came into a safe range. Fiery explosions blossomed beneath them, consuming at least one fleeing prisoner and gouging blackened holes into the permacrete of the landing pad and durasteel of the nearby buildings. Continuing its run, the shuttle fired into the lush forest, reducing centuries-old trees to splinters and setting the area ablaze. The rebels’ speeder, to Kallus’ satisfaction, caught a direct hit from the shuttle’s cannons and exploded at once into a spectacular fireball.

“Signal the Stormbreaker for reinforcements,” he said, affixing his ISB-issued helmet on over his light brown hair. He referred to the Venator-class Star Destroyer in orbit. “Inform them of what is happening here. And then set us down on whatever’s left of the landing pad.”

With that, Agent Kallus left the shuttle’s cockpit behind, returning to the passenger compartment in the rear. It had been prepared by the ISB to receive criminals and traitors, but at moment it also housed four of the Empire’s elite: the white-armored Stormtroopers. They sat up straight at attention as he entered.

“Grab your weapons and follow me,” Kallus commanded, reaching for his back to grab hold of his own weapon. A slight tremor indicated that the Lambda had touched down as he spoke. The hiss of the landing ramp opening behind him confirmed that impression.

“We have rebels to crush.”

16: The Rescue (II)

“Celestia’s bloody arse!” Twilight swore as she saw an Imperial shuttle easing itself onto the damaged central landing pad.

“What?” a man looked at her.

“Nothing!” she said hastily, regretting her unguarded moment. Quickly, she gathered herself. “Get back!” she ordered the escapees. “Retreat!”

Many of the humans were already doing so, running back the way they had come. Some were taking cover throughout the entrance hall, others were rushing about looking for some sort of weapon. The difference between those that were experienced fighters and the civilian sympathizers was immediately obvious. Their leader, thankfully, seemed to fall into the former category.

“Everyone grab whatever you can find!” Sylkes was yelling over the whine of the shuttle’s engines and general pandemonium. “Henman, Yules, raid the lockers down the secondary access corridor and see if you can find any blasters! Raider, Ectra, head back down the detention block and get the shivs! Everyone else stay low and don’t give them a target!”

Twilight grabbed his shoulder. “Can you shoot?” she asked the man.

“You insulting me or something? Of course I can!”

The alicorn took her spare DC-17 pistol from its holster and pressed it into his hands. “Then take this.”

“Thanks,” he tested the thing’s weight. “There any more of you around here?”

“No,” Twilight shook her head. “Just me and my little friend.”

Sylkes blinked. “You mean you’re trying to mount a prison break from an Imperial facility with just you and a little lizard?!”

“He’s not a lizard!”

“Whatever,” he shook his head. “It doesn’t matter now. Look: what is your plan for getting us out of here?”

“Well I had a speeder parked in the south forest…” Twilight trailed off, remembering which way the strafing gunship had turned its guns. “Emphasis on “had”.”

“You didn’t have any other means of escape?” he looked aghast.

“Well… no,” she admitted.

Sylkes sized her up. “You’re a civvy, aren’t you?”

“You mean civilian?”

“You’re a civvy,” he declared. “Figures. Only the romantic idiots go in without backup.”

“Hey!” she bristled. “In case you’ve forgotten, I got you out of your prison.”

“And right into Imperial guns!” he shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. Win or lose, I’m not going back to that cell.”

“Well, I think-”

“Rebel scum!” a loud, powerful voice interrupted the alicron.

Peering carefully through the still-open door, Twilight could see a quartet of Imperial Stormtroopers in their signature white armor. They clutched their standard E-11 blaster rifles, aimed carefully into the open prison entrance. Standing in their center was another man in a dark uniform, with armor fixed over his chest and an open-faced helmet atop his head. That man held a strange weapon that Twilight couldn’t identify, though from his general appearance and demeanor she guessed that he was the Imperial Security Bureau man she had been expecting.

“You are trapped!” the ISB Agent continued loudly. “Your vehicle is already destroyed, your escape plan in ashes! Even now there are hundreds of troopers and starfighters on their way to crush your attempted insurrection! Surrender yourselves now, and perhaps it will go better for you!”

“Not happening, Imperial!” one man stuck his head out and shouted back. “You and your bucketheads can take your mercy and shove it up your-”

There was loud blast, and the man toppled backwards, the blackened hole in his head mercifully obscured from Twilight, who still covered her mask’s mouthpiece as though she might vomit. Outside, the ISB man lowered his strange, still-smoking gun.

“So be it,” he said, making an almost lazy gesture with two fingers. “Take them.”

As one, the four Stormtroopers charged, firing wildly as they did. Red blaster bolts exploded throughout the prison’s entranceway, showering those who remained there in wild rains of painful sparks. Twilight even saw one man hastily patting his jumpsuit sleeve down to put out the fire that had ignited. She stuck her arm around the corner and fired her remaining pistol, but missed badly and ducked back to avoid their retaliation. At that moment, Twilight found herself wishing she had purchased some thermal detonators, even if they were really expensive. The powerful grenades would have come in handy right about then.

Then the Stormtroopers flooded through the entranceway and all thought was forgotten.

Twilight shot nearly point-blank at the first man to cross the threshold, but her aim was off and it was only a glancing hit on the back of his armor. The Stormtrooper fell forwards, losing his grip on his weapon as he did so. Twilight leveled her pistol at him, but the man twisted nimbly on the ground and caught her legs with his own. He shoved, and the alicorn came crashing down hard onto the durasteel floor.

Her cushioned armor absorbed the worst of it, but the impact rattled Twilight long enough for the Stormtrooper to draw a knife from his belt and throw himself on top of her. She caught his arms in her own, though her pistol clattered to the floor in the process. It became a contest of strength, with the Imperial struggling to push the point of his knife down onto her heart and alicorn trying to throw him off. He was bigger than her, but she did have the benefits of magic boosting her strength. For some seconds it was a stalemate, the combatants appearing to almost be still as their locked arms quivered and strained against one another.

In the end, the contest was never decided. A man in a jumpsuit jammed an improvised shiv into the weak spot near the rear of the trooper’s knee. He cried out in pain, and Twilight took advantage of the moment to throw him off. Seizing her pistol in one hand, she fired a blaze of shots directly into the Stormtrooper’s chest at point-blank range. His breastplate blackened and full of smoking holes, the Imperial slumped back against the wall.

Panting from the effort, Twilight forced herself to sit up. The combat had mostly moved beyond the entrance hall, but she did see another Stormtrooper wrestling with one of the rebel women across the room. The man who had intervened to help the princess was already running across the room to join the fray, shiv in hand. Before he could arrive, the Imperial threw the woman to the ground and followed with two quick shots to her chest. The Stormtrooper had no chance to relish his victory, with the snarling escapee throwing himself onto the trooper’s side. He drove his shiv into the gap in the trooper’s shoulder joint, drawing blood and a brief grunt of pain.

The Stormtrooper Corps were not known for accepting weaklings, however, and he immediately rallied. A white-armored fist swung around to punch the escapee about the face, audibly breaking the man’s nose. As the rebel staggered back, clutching his bleeding face, the Imperial brought up his blaster rifle with one hand. With characteristic precision, the Stormtrooper executed the former prisoner with three shots to the abdomen. The trooper made to aim his gun at Twilight as well, but before he had the chance she’d drawn a bead on him and fired. Five blaster shots took the man in the head and chest, and he too collapsed to the floor in a heap.

Now sweating and flush with adrenaline, Twilight pushed her way back to her feet. The room around her was littered with corpses of rebel and Imperial alike, with nothing moving. Frantically she scanned the bodies, but to her immense relief she saw that Spike was not among them. Just the thought made her feel a little guilty, but she reasoned that it wasn’t a bad thing to value the lives of your friends especially. Further in, she could hear the sounds of blasterfire and muffled shouts, so she gripped her pistol tightly and moved to head back and support-

“Hello there.”

The alicorn jerked her head back around. Striding into the prison facility as casually as if it were a simple stroll through the park was the man in the ISB uniform. The strange rifle he carried had transformed somehow, becoming an elongated electrostraff. Yellow charge crackled on both ends, and he brandished it in front of himself with a confident smile.

“You’re the one responsible for this, I take it?” he asked her.

Twilight didn’t bother wasting time by responding. She brought up her DC-17 pistol in both hands and opened fire immediately. Blue blaster bolts soared through the air at the Imperial, promising death. But the man was fast: the moment she had begun to raise her weapon, he had moved. Crouched low as he ran, the blasterfire passed harmlessly over his helmeted head. He swung the staff at her, and though Twilight was backpedaling a section of its pole crashed into her pistol. The force of it tore the weapon from her grasp and sent it skittering across the floor. He followed up with a powerful kick to the alicorn’s chest that toppled her over backwards.

“Yes, you’re a bold little pest to come here alone. Who are you beneath that mask, I wonder?” he held his staff out again and smirked. “We’ll find out soon enough, won’t we?”

While he was blathering, Twilight took the opportunity to seize a smoke grenade from belt. While once again mourning her decision not to purchase expensive thermal detonators, she cast the small ovoid directly at her own feet. An enormous cloud of grey smoke seemed to spring into being all at once, obscuring everything. In less than a second even the ISB agent looming over here faded into nothing.

Twilight immediately rolled backwards as best she could. She registered the sound of metal striking metal and the crackle of electricity the half a second later. In the haze she couldn’t see where her pistol had gone, but she vaguely remembered the location of one of Stormtroopers she had shot. She tried to rise, but stumbled almost immediately over one the corpses littering the ground and hit the floor with a pained grunt. The sound of footsteps became louder.

Scrambling and crawling as best she could in the grey cloud – she swore that she would get a better helmet if she survived this, one with a full-spectrum visor in the eyepieces – Twilight made her way towards where she best recalled the trooper being. She could already see the smoke around her beginning to fade, swept away out the door or into the ventilation system. At last, she reached the white-armored corpse. The man’s E-11 blaster rifle was clutched firmly in his right hand in a literal death grip. Twilight grabbed it and pulled with all her strength. The dead trooper’s fingers made some very unpleasant crunching noises that the alicorn would have found quite nauseating had she the time to consider then.

Instead, she brought the blaster rifle up to her chest, aimed, and fired at the vague silhouette that was becoming visible through the fog. The weapon felt oversized and clunky in her relatively small hands, being sized for a male human of larger build. Further, it lacked the enchantments that granted her own pistols an edge in accuracy. The three shots she fired went wide, with only one even slightly clipping the armor on the Imperial’s chest. That didn’t slow him down in the slightest.

The ISB man was on her the moment she gave away her location, jabbing with one electrified end of his staff weapon. It scraped along the armor of Twilight’s right forearm, releasing thousands of volts into the limb. Her nerves went wild and her grip went slack, the E-11 going as easily as it had. Not one to be deterred so easily, the princess slugged him in the gut as hard as she could with her left hand, eliciting a pained groan. Almost simultaneously, she headbutted the agent with her armored skull. Two helmeted heads meet with a painful-sounding crack, and both combatants stumbled backwards in a daze.

The trained military man recovered first.

The Imperial slammed the blunt center section of his staff into Twilight face with enough force to crack her mask and smash a good deal of the cartilage in her nose. Before she had any chance to recover, he lashed out with a low, sweeping kick that took the alicorn’s legs out from under her. He didn’t even wait for her to hit the ground before following up, jamming one crackling end of the staff hard into her abdomen. Tens of thousands of volts of electricity flowed freely throughout the princess’ body. Her limbs and body went into wild spasms as her nervous system was overloaded.

Twilight could neither move nor even think properly. Her body was going haywire around her, and she hadn’t even the concentration to summon up some magic that might save her. No coherent thought could take shape in her mind during those few seconds, but her grey matter was functional enough to flood her fuddled brain with one disturbing concept: failure.

And then there was a loud noise, a red flash overhead, and the flow electricity halted as suddenly as it had begun.

The princess, addled and limp as she was, had enough left in her that her eyes could follow the ISB man as he abruptly ceased his attack on her and ducked low. Red blasts of energy passed over him. Twilight could hear noises from both the Imperial and the direction the blaster bolts were coming from, but in her semi-conscious state could not make any sense of them. The Imperial quickly rolled backwards and was soon after lost to her sight.

Spike, breathing heavily from unaccustomed exertion that came with piling onto a pair of Imperial Stormtroopers with little more than his own claws and teeth for weapons, rushed forward as quickly as he could manage. Twilight was laying there, sprawled out on the floor and visibly smoking in some spaces, and the dragon feared the worst. Mouthing a silent prayer to all the gods and spirits he could think of, he placed two clawed fingers across her neck. To his infinite relief, he almost immediately felt a wild and powerful pulse surging through his friend’s body.

“Hey!” he called back to the humans who had chased away the ISB agent with their stolen blasters. “She’s still alive!”

There were only five humans left now of the original fourteen escapees. Imperial Stormtroopers, even outnumbered and in close confines, were quite deadly. Four were men and one, clinging to a partner with blaster wound through her thigh, was a woman.

“Give her here,” said the man called Sylkes. He slipped one arm underneath Twilight’s gut and, with a heave, managed to throw the princess’ limp form over his shoulders.

“Careful with her!” Spike protested as the human stumbled slightly under her weight.

“Just move!” he practically shouted back. “We take that shuttle now or we’re all dead!”

That, Spike decided as he and all the other burst out into the courtyard at a breakneck pace, was a very good point.

The whine of the Lambda’s engines grew louder almost as soon as the rebel escapees emerged from the prison building. With an energy born of desperation and adrenaline, the six raced headlong across the damaged landing pad towards the ship. Spike was even on all fours, deeply ingrained dragon instincts driving him to this desperate measure. The still-open boarding ramp tempting them with the prospect of escape, they neglected to pay as much attention to their surroundings as perhaps might have been prudent.

There was yet another loud noise, and the man at the rear of their party screamed and fell, a hole burned through his back. A quick glance told Spike the Imperial was now crouched behind the corner of one building, his strange weapon a rifle again. He fired another shot, but it went wide this time and exploded against the permacrete behind them. The four remaining humans returned fire with stolen Stormtrooper rifles and the pistol Twilight had given Sylkes. Their shots were clumsy and ill-aimed, but they did force the man to put his head back down for the moment.

The first of the rebels reached shuttle’s boarding ramp just as it was beginning to retract. That man was lucky and unburdened by the weight of others, racing up the closing thing easily enough. For Sylkes and the other man supporting an injured comrade, their entrance was a much closer thing. Spike, the smallest and slowest of the survivors, had to make a flying leap. He just barely caught the ramp’s edge, his claws alone saving him from falling right back off. Adrenaline-fueled saw him hoisted up and inside at the very last second.

For a moment, Spike simply sat there, panting. He could see Twilight, rather carelessly depositing on the passenger bay’s floor, being inexpertly tended to by the other injured woman. The three remaining men could not be seen, but the sound of a blaster shot and a body hitting the floor from the direction of the cockpit answered that question.

“If you want to live, you’ll drive this shuttle and drive it right the kriffing hell now!’

Very shortly thereafter, Spike felt the spacecraft lift off underneath him.

17: Escape and Return

On Korriban, within the durasteel walls of the Imperial Academy, Inquistor Cia was deep in meditation. The dark side of the Force flowed easily through her, focusing her mind and empowering her light physique with the strength of a man three times her size. More than that, though, it guided her actions, showing her the potential future and giving her the power to change it. For many years it had guided her, ever since the fateful day she unknowingly called on it in a moment of anger and struck down an irritant. Throughout her trial and exile from the Chiss Ascendency for murder it had guided her. Through the miserable weeks she had spent on the wild, unnamed jungle planet she had been left on it had guided her. To her it had brought salvation in the form of a ship from the newly-formed Galactic Empire and an Inquisitor aboard it. Since that day, she had never looked back.

All around her were other beings immersing themselves in the dark side. The students she taught – those that had survived this long, at any rate – were following her example, concentrating on the Force around them. Through her efforts, the flow I this room was even stronger, bolstering the apprentices’ abilities. For said apprentices, this was a decisive moment. Around each and every one of them floated a dizzying array of mechanical parts that the Inquisitor had provided. Each piece was the potential component of lightsaber, though there were far too many in front of each pupil to fit into one weapon. A proper lightsaber must customized and built by the user, with the Force itself to guide them. Only them would the weapon be appropriately attuned to its master and function at its full potential. A standardized machine-built sword could never compare.

The construction was difficult and lengthy, for there were no instructions. Everyone had to make the weapons precisely to their own specifications, with hundreds of different styles and configurations to choose from. The blades would all be red, naturally – the synthetic crystals the Empire had provided would see to that – but otherwise there would be no uniformity. Beyond that, it behooved every being in the school to take special care when aligning the components. Should certain systems not be perfectly in place, with a margin of error best described as infinitesimal, the lightsaber might not function at all. Or it might simply explode the moment it was turned on.

For precisely how long she knelt there on the floor, deep in the Force’s embrace, Cia did not know. Nor did it matter to her. A day, a week, an hour… what did any of it matter? So long as progress was being made, so long as the dark side was there to ease her body’s requirements, she could sit there as long as her pupils needed her.

It was some time into her meditation that Cia was abruptly torn from her half-trance by the feeling of a powerful new presence on the scene. The currents of the dark side shifted, temporarily breaking the Chiss’ orderly flow. It took her but a moment to reassert herself and restore the flow of power throughout the building. Scrunching her eyes tightly, Cia reached out to get a sense of who it was…

Cia got to her feet.

The Inquisitor strode confidently through the miniature living maze between herself and the room’s exit, taking care to avoid disrupting the students’ working. She walked through the double doors and down several sets of hallways, arms behind her back. As she went, Chiss could feel the dark side crashing around her like an angry sea against cliff. The feeling she could sense radiating from the newcomer was exhilarating, enough to put a very slight smile on even her face. It seemed her idea had worked after all. At last she came to the academy’s exit, guarded by a pair of ever-vigilant MagnaGuards.

Or, rather, it had been.

What Cia found when she emerged from the Imperial Academy’s front door were two piles of smoking scrap. The two former Separatist droids had been cut and ripped apart in a manner that looked to have been supremely vicious. Limbs, heads, and mechanical guts were scattered widely across the red sands. To Cia’s experienced eye for murder, it looked as though their attacker hadn’t bothered to stop when the bodyguard droids had gone down, instead abusing their corpses for some time before taking up her current position.

The dark-colored equine she had sent away, Princess Luna, stood before her. Looking tall and proud, though lean and somewhat sunken, her blue eyes met the red of Cia’s head on. Power, the Inquisitor noticed, was flowing through her body freely now, causing her mane and tail to sway in a breeze that only they could feel. Through the Force, Cia could sense the psychic scars on the equine, feel the bitterness and hatred that seemed to seep from her every pore despite the stony indifference of her facial expression.

“So,” Cia said. “I trust you have my artifact?”

“Here is your trinket,” Luna answered, and a small metal cylinder flung itself from the ruins of her saddle-bag.

Cia caught it easily in one hand, giving the lightsaber a cursory examination before returning her attention to Luna. “You did well to bring it to me,” she admitted. “I trust you now know what the true power of the dark side is.”

“I learned much in the Valley, Inquisitor,” replied Luna.

“Then I trust we shall have no more incidents?”

“Of course not.”

“Good,” Cia paused, glancing down briefly at the scrap near her feet. When their eyes met again, the Chiss raised a single black eyebrow.

“They got in my way.”

Cia smiled.

Far away, on Serenno, an Imperial Lambda-class shuttle was touching itself down into one of the countless small clearing spread throughout the forested world. The rebel hijackers had, of course, sabotaged the ship’s communications and homing beacon virtually as soon as they had taken off, but all knew it was only a matter of time before the Empire located its stolen ship. They needed to be as far away from it as possible by the time that happened.

Inside the ship’s hold sat Twilight Sparkle, still making an effort to restore full sensation to her electrified limbs without resorting to visible magic. Alongside her were Spike, the wounded female rebel called Kylee, and an exhausted-looking man by the name of Harkon. Sylkes and one other man – Twilight had learned his name was Yules – had remained in ship’s cockpit to ensure its three remaining pilots didn’t try anything. After their Lieutenant had been shot trying to fight back, they had proven quite cooperative.

As the boarding ramp slowly descended onto the forest floor with a drawn-out hiss, three men in Imperial uniforms walked slowly out of the shuttle’s cockpit, hands on the backs of their heads. Behind them came Sylkes and Yules, each brandishing a gun. The three of them sank to their knees in the center of a rough circle of rebels, eyes darting nervously from one to the other. None, Twilight observed, looked as though they had been carrying any weapons.

“So,” Sylkes began without delay. “We need to get out here before there are a hundred TIE fighters over our heads. But first: what do we do with these three?” He looked around. “I’m open to suggestions.”

“I say we kill them,” said Harkon. “No one to tell the Empire anything more about us.”

“I’m with him,” Kylee added her voice. “No sense risking them seeing which way we went.”

There were vague murmurs between the former prisoners that Twilight couldn’t quite make out, but to her horror she saw the other two beginning to nod. With a pained groan she forced herself to her still-stiff feet.

“No!” she managed, her voice sounding distorted with the wrap around her broken nose. “I know they’re our enemies, but they still gave up! You can’t just shoot them!”

“Why not?” countered Harkon. “They’re dogs of the Emperor. They don’t deserve to live. And they pose a risk to us, however slight.”

“And,” Kylee put in. “Do you think they’d show us any mercy?”

Even with all the culture shock she had experienced over the past few years, Twilight still found it difficult to hear such sentiments from the mouths of those she considered the good guys. Briefly the princess had to remind herself that not everyone shared her cultural background and biological imperatives. The death penalty had long been abolished in Equestria – since shortly after Nightmare Moon’s banishment – and was regarded as an archaic relic of a barbaric time. But those rules didn’t apply here.

“And do you want to be like the Empire?” Twilight asked. “Are you going to kill everyone who’s against you, no matter the circumstances?”

“You’re overdramatizing this,” Sylkes joined the debate. “And besides, what else would we do with them? We don’t exactly have a jail, and if we let them go we might very well end up fighting them in the future,” he gestured at the shuttle. “This is a military ship, you know. What’s your alternative?”

Twilight bit her lip. She really didn’t know what else could be done besides binding the men and leaving them on the ship. But the others had a point: these were Imperial Navy pilots, and virtually certain to rejoin the Empire’s fight to control the galaxy if they were allowed to escape. Still, her gut feelings told her that executing them on the spot was wrong, and she didn’t want to simply dismiss morality for expediency.

“Look, this taking too long,” Yules piped up, looking pointedly at the open ramp. “The Empire will have dozens of fighters sweeping the skies for this ship right now, and maybe even orbital scans. We need to not be here when they arrive.”

“You’re right,” said Sylkes with a heavy sigh. “Alright, enough dawdling, we need to shoot them n-”

“NO!” Twilight virtually shouted, holding her hands up as if to stop what was coming “Tie them up and leave them here! Blindfold them if you like! But don’t shoot helpless prisoners!” she looked around, eyes pleading. “Please, be better than the Empire.”

“We are,” Harkon’s face hardened, and he leveled a stolen E-11 blaster rifle at the back of one man’s head. “We’re giving them a quick death.”

“It’s more than the Empire would give us,” Yules agreed.

“NO!” Twilight waved her hands and shook her head with frantic energy.

Harkon’s finger hovered over the trigger.

Desperately, Twilight pulled her trump card. “You owe me!”

The former prisoner paused, looking up at the shapeshifted alicorn. He frowned deeply. “We owe you, do we?”

She nodded hurriedly.

“We owe you,” Harkon repeated, narrowing his eyes. “What do you think we owe you for?”

“Well, I did kinda break you out of-”

“And you got most of us killed!” the mustachioed man snarled openly. “Because of your bungling “rescue”, my brother is dead!”

Twilight’s eyes widened. “I’m sorry, I didn’t-”

“Think? You didn’t realize that the people we left behind were people too?” he chuckled bitterly. “My brother wasn’t the first member of my family to die fighting Palpatine and his flunkies, you know…” Harkon’s eyes were briefly downcast. “But he was the last family I had.” He glared at Twilight.

She shrank back a little under his piercing gaze. “I’m sorry…”

“Yeah, well you can take your apologies and shove them where the sun don’t shine, you incompetent piece of bantha sh-”

“Harkon!” Sylkes cut the man off, and attention returned to the small group’s leader. “You know that she’s right: we do owe her. You we were all dead anyway. If not for her you, me, your brother, and everyone else would be aboard some floating ISB torture dungeon by now, and that’s a fact.”

Harkon said nothing.

“It’s not her fault your brother died,” Sylkes pressed. “She didn’t kill him, the Imperials did. If anything, it’s my fault for getting careless and letting us get captured in the first place. At least this way he died fighting and not in some execution chamber,” he put a hand on the other man’s shoulder. “And we can carry on his work.”

There was silence in the captured shuttle for some time.

“Fine,” Harkon spoke up at last. “We owe her.”

“Then, please,” Twilight said. “Don’t kill these men. Not like this.”

“And what do you propose we do?” asked Kylee.

“Bind them. Blindfold them. Leave them with their shuttle.”

Everyone looked, consciously or not, to Sylkes for his reply. It took a few seconds before the bearded man decided on a course.

“Alright,” he said with a sigh. “If you want to leave them alive that badly, we’ll do it. This time.”

The freed prisoners hurried to tie and bind the Imperials as best they could. Fortunately, this was a prisoner shuttle and as such possessed plenty of restraining devices to be used. The rather relieved-looking officers of the Galactic Empire were slapped in their own handcuffs and seated on the shuttle’s transport seats. After a good blindfolding and a secondary pair of cuffs binding the men’s feet, the surviving rebels fled down the shuttle’s ramp in a rather hasty manner. They proceeded at once out into one of Serenno’s countless forests, stolen emergency ration packs atop their backs. Kylee, still bearing a blaster wound through her leg, had to be half-carried by Harkon. Spike, for his part, could keep up with the humans because of the slowed pace this necessitated.

“I know we’re going to regret sparing them,” Harkon muttered to Twilight as the shuttle faded into the distance.

The alicorn glanced backwards, briefly. “I don’t think so.”

“We’ll see.”

Back at Imperial Outpost FS-523, Agent Kallus stood waiting impatiently as a pair of Sentinel-class shuttles touched down on the facility’s damaged landing platform. Both troop transport shuttles opened their ramps to unveil nearly one hundred Imperial Stormtroopers. They filed off with characteristic precision and unity, moving quickly to surround and secure the perimeter. Kallus watched, arms folded across his chest and disdain evident on his face.

The Stormbreaker had been slow to respond to his calls for reinforcements. Its captain was an old hand from the Republic Navy, and evidently felt slighted to be answerable to some young upstart from the ISB, especially on his own turf. He had dispatched shuttles and fighters yes, but only at the most leisurely pace he could manage without looking a traitor. It was political maneuvering at its most petty, risking the escape of rebel prisoners simply to make the Imperial Security Bureau look incompetent. Kallus scowled even as he watched older Clone Wars era fightercraft zip overhead. Of course Captain August hadn’t dispatched any of his TIE squadrons. Of course.

The ISB agent shook his head in frustration before barking orders to few squads of Stormtroopers. The base’s main computer had proven frustratingly obstinate, and a few blast doors would simply have to be cut open by fusion torches or even shaped explosive charges. The outpost would need some time to return to full working order, and even more time to actually be dubbed secure.

The reminder of what had happened to the base’s computer brought the day’s most puzzling mystery back into the forefront of the agent’s mind. Who had that woman been? How had she been able to subvert what should have been a well-protected Imperial computer by herself? Kallus had no doubt it had been her – security recordings showed that she had indisputably come alone, save for a small, strange purple reptile of a species he couldn’t identify. If she had had backup, that would have been the time to bring them along. Her escape attempt had nearly ended in disaster, after all, with the majority of the rebel filth killed before they could flee.

Still, the woman had proven dangerous, and competent enough to shut down the entire base, kill several troopers, and break the prisoners from their cells almost unaided. Moreover, she was an unknown variable. The Empire knew a good deal about the rebel prisoners it had held, however briefly, but absolutely nothing was on file about the mystery woman. And nothing vexed the Imperial Security Bureau like an unsolved mystery.

Who was this woman? Where had she come from? Why did she rescue the rebels? What was that strange reptilian that had accompanied her? And what would she do now? Agent Kallus needed answers.

And, he reflected with a slight smirk, holding up the small DC-17 blaster pistol he had knocked from the woman’s hand, he knew just where to start looking.

18: Arrival

It was just past nightfall, five days after the hectic escape from the Imperial prison, when Twilight and the small band of rebels reached the edge of one of Serenno’s many forests. They had trekked a considerable distance through the wilderness, weaving a winding, confusing trail along the way in hopes of throwing off pursuers. Twilight had even thrown in a little magic to obscure their tracks when no one was looking. It was harder to pull off in human form, of course, but certain hand gestures appeared to make a barely-tolerable substitute for a horn.

Now the disheveled former prisoners found themselves near the western edge of Carannia, overlooking a large palatial estate. Surrounded by a plasma fence and patrolled by numerous hovering droids and armed security personnel alike, it looked to Twilight like the exact opposite of where they should be going.

“Don’t you think the Imperials will be locking down the capital?” she had asked. “Won’t they have spies inside all the noble estates?”

But Jason Sylkes had argued in favor of it.

“We need somewhere to rest, get some supplies, and then beat it off the planet. After the raid on our HQ, we have to assume that our cell and all its assets are fatally compromised. But here, blood counts for a lot. It’s a bit of a risk going to a distant cousin, but it’s better than the alternatives.”

Naturally enough, the leader of the group had been more trusted than an outsider. So this way they had come. Twilight watched from the tree-line, Spike safely secured in her pack, as Kylee limped painfully towards the estate’s front gate. A pair of armored guards marched out to meet her, and words were exchanged. The princess couldn’t hear precisely what was said, but some minutes in Kylee turned around and beckoned towards her hidden fellows. Slowly and cautiously, the rebels walked down to meet the estate’s guardians.

Not so far away, in an anonymous cell in one of the Empire’s outposts on Serenno, Agent Kallus stared down at a durasteel interrogation table. A spherical IT-O Interrogation Droid hovered menacingly over his shoulder, fresh from injecting another round of its chemical cocktail into the prisoner. That man was currently in the process of screaming his lungs out and writhing futilely against his restraints as the droid’s chemicals simultaneously activated hundreds of pain receptors throughout his body. Kallus watched nonchalantly, arms folded across his chest and face carefully neutral.

“I repeat,” said the IT-O droid in its mechanical monotone once the man’s shrieks had died down to a series of dull whimpers. “To whom did you sell contraband blaster pistols classed DC-17?”

“I told you,” the unfortunate prisoner managed, sweat pouring down his face. “I only deal in replacement parts for airspeeders. I’ve never sold-”

“You are lying,” the droid cut him off. “You are Titus Kalen, known dealer in black-market weaponry and supplies. You are guilty of receiving stolen Imperial surplus including DC-17 serial number KDY-3912723. We have been watching you for longer than you know. Imperial Security Bureau file SN-47859 contains a full list of your crimes against the Empire. Denial is futile. Falsehood will be met with pain.” It extended another of its many unpleasant-looking needles.

“No! No please!” Kalen tried to beg. The pitiless machine ignored him, hovering closer with injector at the ready. His brown eyes flicked to Kallus, pleading. “Please! Call that thing off!”

“I’m afraid I can only do that if you cooperate,” said the ISB agent, injecting just the slightest hint of sorrow into his voice. “If you persist in lying to the Empire, there’s nothing I can do to stop the droid.”

“Please! PLEASE!!!” Kalen shrieked, but neither man nor droid heeded him. The IT-O droid’s needle plunged into a vein on his neck, and once again he was quickly overwhelmed by the chemicals surging through his bloodstream. This time the thrashing went on for nearly a solid minute. Kallus noted the distinctive sound of bone snapping as Kalen’s left wrist strained against his restraint, and resolved to tighten it if there was a next session. At least, the torment subsided, but Kalen had no chance to rest. The droid saw to that.

“I repeat,” it said again, its monotone unchanged. “To whom did you sell contraband blaster pistols classed DC-17?” When all the prisoner did was breathe heavily for a few seconds, it prodded him with an electrically-charged rod. “Answer or suffer.”

“But…” he half-whispered, voice hoarse from screaming. “I don’t know…”

“You are lying,” the IT-O stuck its needle out again.

“No! NO! NO!” Kalen thrashed again, ignoring his broken wrist. “Call it off!” he pleaded with Kallus. “Call it off!”

“Are you prepared to talk?” Kallus asked him, not doing a thing. “Are you prepared to answer the Empire’s questions honestly?”

Eyeing the approaching needle with naked terror, Kalen still hesitated. “Please… they’ll kill me…”

He still thought that he was getting out of here. That was almost cute. But it would hardly do to allow a man who had so flagrantly violated the Emperor’s laws to go free once he had been taken in. Order had to be maintained, and for that examples must be made of those who went against the Empire. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to lead him on a bit.

“The Empire can protect you,” said Kallus. He raised one hand, and the droid stopped where it was, needle inches from Kalen’s neck. “But it can only do so if you will tell us what we want to know. Otherwise…” Kallus let that word hang in the air. “Please,” he said, long practice giving his voice a faint undertone of sympathy. “Help me to help you.”

The sweating, shivering, panting man looked back and forth from Kallus to the IT-O, then back to Kallus again. He said nothing for some seconds. Just as Kallus was getting ready to give the droid the signal to proceed with the injection, Kalen answered him.

“Alright…” he said. “I’ll talk. I’ll talk. Just call that… thing off.”

Kallus smiled and nodded at the droid. “Give him some truth serum and then some distance.”

The IT-O stuck a different needle into the prisoner’s neck, then obediently backed off to float behind Kallus.

“Now,” Kallus continued after the chemicals had had a chance to take effect. “You sold a DC-17 blaster pistol with the serial number KDY-3912723 to someone in the month since it was stolen from Imperial surplus. I want to know who, and when.”

“Only… two weeks ago…” Kalen was still breathing heavily. “To a woman... Didn’t look like… she was from around here…”

“Oh really?” Kallus stroked his chin. “Tell me more about this woman.”

In the Imperial Academy of Korriban, Princess Luna was admiring her freshly-constructed lightsaber. Deactivated, it was a slim, silvery cylinder with an elegant design lacking in any clunky or obvious mechanical parts. Even its activation stud was little more than a circle cut into the hilt, difficult to spot at first glance. Lacking any need to fit the weapon to any particular set of hands, Luna had made the hilt as small as she possibly could, to minimize target profile. Small, thin, refined, and deadly, it was a weapon the princess could be proud of.

“Pay attention,” said a deep voice in her head. “Observe your fellows in action.”

“Oh, fie on thee!” Luna’s thoughts snapped back irritably. Having a ghost whisper to her randomly was far from enjoyable.

Nonetheless, she did look up from her lightsaber and at the training ring. Encircled by the bulk of the class and presided over by Inquisitor Cia, the indoor sparring ring was the proving ground for the Inquisitorial initiates and their new weapons. The lightsaber-wielding men and women of the class were pitted against the IG-100 MagnaGuards and their electrostaffs without the benefit of Force powers, to test both their own personal competence and the quality of their weaponry. So far it had gone relatively well. Only one Gran woman had sliced her arm off with her own weapon.

At that moment, one of the former Separatist bodyguard droids was engaged in a heated bout with a tan-skinned human male of above average height. Luna watched as the red-eyed droid spun its wrist, double-ended electrostaff and all, around fast enough to create a blurry storm of images as it advanced. The man was focused on the staff, but with Dooku’s instruction Luna recognized it for the distraction that it was. Sure enough, the instant the man lunged for a perceived gap in the machine’s defenses, the droid kicked nimbly out with its right foot. It connected with his shin, and duranium armor shattered bone.

The acolyte fell flat on his face, but did not cry out. Instead, he swept his crimson lightsaber along the floor, trying to cut the droid down by its ankles. The MagnaGuard caught the blow with one electrified phrik end of its staff, then stamped down brutally on the man’s wrist. Once again, the machine’s strength was easily enough to break bone. His lightsaber deactivated almost as soon as it tumbled from his grip, and the droid kicked it out of the ring. Then it spun its electrostaff once before bringing it down on the acolyte’s back. He finally screamed as thousands of volts flooded through his system, sending his body into spasms.

“Enough!” Inquisitor Cia called out after handful of seconds, holding up her hand.

Obediently, the MagnaGuard ceased its attack and backed away from the man’s twitching, smoking form.

“You, droid!” Cia clicked her fingers at a waiting medical droid. “See that he’s stabilized and get him to the infirmary!”

“Yes mistress,” it said, hovering forward and injecting something into the downed acolyte. A few seconds later, the twitching stopped and his body began to visibly relax.

“Now she cares what happens to her students,” Luna thought bitterly.

“Before you were merely untested adepts, numerous and disposable,” Dooku’s voice answered her. “Now that she has invested considerable time and effort into your training, she is not so cavalier about losing an acolyte.”

“We didn’t- I didn’t ask your opinion.”

“But you would do well to listen regardless.”

“Next, we’ll have…” Cia called out, interrupting their conversation. She pointed at Luna with a slight smile. “Why don’t you take your turn?” She jerked a thumb towards the MagnaGuard.

Luna nodded, keeping her face neutral, and took a few steps into the ring, carefully avoiding the medical droids extracting the limp form of the last acolyte. She had taken on two MagnaGuards before, but without the ability to use Force lightning against their vulnerable circuits this one would be more of a challenge. Now she would be purely testing her blade-work against a machine built to face and kill Jedi.

Luna’s lightsaber erupted into life, vicious crimson blade at the ready. She welcomed the challenge.

As soon as the unconscious human was removed from the ring, the MagnaGuard went into action. It began, as its type were wont to do, by spinning its electrostaff in a dizzying array of patterns – a display meant to confuse, distract, and intimidate foes. Luna was too knowledgeable to fall for the ruse, held her ground, lightsaber perched defensively above her head. When the machine’s processor realized that psychological warfare wasn’t going to do the job, it switched to offensive mode and the duel began.

The MagnaGuard surged forward without warning, jabbing one end of its electrostaff at Luna’s face. She caught it on her lightsaber, but almost simultaneously the droid’s right performed a sweeping kick. The alicorn reared up onto her hind legs to avoid the low sweep, and then kicked the droid in the chest. The MagnaGuard staggered backwards, but its duranium plating was more than enough to prevent any serious damage. Luna immediately fell on it with a series of slashes and stabs, her lightsaber almost a blur of red. Still, it caught or batted aside each blow, then pushed Luna’s saber back with a particularly powerful swing of its staff. She retreated a few steps.

The two opponents circled one another warily, evaluating as best they could the other’s fighting style. Luna had some experience with droids of this type, but each one was equipped with a heuristic processor that enabled it to learn from experience and develop its own unique fighting style. The MagnaGuard, for its part, had considerable experience against both Jedi and Inquisitorial acolytes alike, but had never encountered a creature like Luna before.

This time, it was Luna who made the first move. She burst into motion with a powerful overhand blow aimed at the MagnaGuard’s chest. The droid caught the strike in non-electrified center of its staff – just as the princess had hoped. Luna pressed down as hard as she could manage, making it a contest of strength. And, she knew, the phrik of the droid’s electrostaff could withstand contact with a lightsaber for some time, but not forever. She pressed her advantage, and the MagnaGuard pressed back.

It was during that moment that Luna felt a new presence.

One moment, all her focus was on the duel and crushing the droid publicly. The next, she felt the currents of the Force shifting around her. The tides of the dark side receded briefly, as if being drawn into something, and then surged outwards tsunami-like and stronger than before. Luna could feel more darkness emanating from the newcomer than she ever before sensed in one being. Even the ghosts of the Valley of the Dark Lords paled in comparison to the sheer weight and overpowering intensity of this new presence.

Luna reeled back, some part of her instinctively seeking to cower and hide herself away somewhere in the face of overwhelming darkness. All around her, she could see and feel acolytes doing exactly that. Inquisitor Cia, for the first time since Luna had set eyes on her, looked surprised and more than a little fearful. Even the presence of the ghost that seemed to hang perpetually over her shoulder was gone, as if the dead themselves were intimidated.

The MagnaGuard alone of the room’s occupants was blissfully oblivious, having no connection to the Force. It took advantage of Luna’s slackening grip to shove her lightsaber back and launch into a twirling series of offensive sequences of its own. She blocked or dodged them with her own weapon, but the princess’ mind was only halfway there. She felt more than watched as Inquisitor Cia turned and hurriedly shoved her way through the acolytes towards the entry hall, muttering to herself as she went. Above the humming plasma of her blade and the crackling staff of the droid, Luna could only catch a few words.

“…shouldn’t be here… too soon…”

The painful impact of electrostaff against skin brought Luna fully back into the moment. Thousands of volts blossomed out from the spot on her wing where the droid had jabbed her. Luna retreated, batting wildly at the MagnaGuard and struggling to surpass the spasms wracking her wings and chest. Taking one of Dooku’s lessons to heart, she grabbed hold of her pain and allowed herself to fully experience every mite of it, slowly. The sensation fed her anger at machine, and the anger fed her power.

With a sound that was half-snarl, half-roar Luna burst into her own offensive frenzy. Quickened by the surging darkness, her lightsaber became nothing more than a crimson blur in the air. It struck at the MagnaGuard from every conceivable angle without pause or hesitation. The agile machine’s quick reflexes blocked the first few attacks, but then it was a fraction of a second too slow and the blade nicked its right shoulder. It shifted easily to a one-handed fighting style of compensate, but the damage was done. Luna was on it, and she rained blow after blow with lightsaber and hooves alike.

She ignored the pain when the droid thrust the staff into her stomach, wrapping her Force-empowered forelegs around the weapon and simply wrenching it from the machine’s hands in a display of overwhelming strength. Luna hurled the electrostaff aside and mercilessly cut the MagnaGuard to pieces.

As the princess stood victorious over the smoking ruin of her opponents, her ears perked up. Over the sounds of the still-active weapons, the frantic beating of her heart, and the chatter of her fellow students, Luna could hear another sound. It was echoing easily, seeming almost unnaturally loud even in the relatively confined space. Though she knew not why, the sound of it instantly made her fur stand on end.

Deep, rhythmic, mechanical breathing.

19: Teacher and Student

Inquisitor Cia came running back into the room half a minute later, sweating visibly and intermittently shaking with slight tremors.

“Line up!” she snapped in her most commanding voice. “Line up for Lord Vader’s inspection, you idiots!”

All around Luna, students of many species were scrambling over each other to do as bid. They were so eager, in fact, that more than one of them got tripped up over one another. Luna herself, moved half-consciously by the powerful will she could feel, was hit by a human woman and tumbled to the ground in a heap.

“Move!” Cia snarled, hands grasping Darth Nox’s lightsaber as well as her own. “Get up and put your best foot forward! Now!”

Luna pushed herself back upright and, with a little wiggling, some shoving, and more than a little cursing, managed to assume her place in the impromptu lineup. Everyone was standing at attention as best they were able, with only occasional fighting and jostling for position of one sort or another. It was a paradox: everyone wanted to be noticed, but at the same time everyone wanted to cower in a dark corner somewhere. All throughout the steady sound of mechanical breathing drew closer and closer.

And then the door slid open, and Darth Vader stepped into the room.

The cybernetic Dark Lord of the Sith was an enormous figure in more ways than one. Most obviously, he was nearly seven feet and covered from head to toe in a black, armored bodysuit. His chest and shoulders were broader, his limbs thick, and his jet-black caped flared. In the ethereal realm, the Sith Lord’s Force presence was an overwhelming shadow that swept over all who were near him. He felt even larger than he looked, and he was already the largest being in the room. All shrank back almost involuntarily, even the Inquisitor looking small and meek before the towering cyborg.

“So,” said Vader, his tone a deep synthetic bass. “This is what you have to show.”

“Y-Yes, my lord,” Cia stuttered slightly. “I a-assure you that they are quite advanced in their studies considering-”

“I” Vader cut her off. “Will be the judge of that.” Without further ado, he began to walk toward the lineup, long strides eating up distance very rapidly.

“Of course, m-my lord,” Cia bowed her head and followed him.

Vader started on one end of the line and began simply walking slowly down it, pausing every once in a while to stare longer at one acolyte or the other. To a man, they all shrank back and tried to look small when faced with the Sith’s full attention. Luna herself was sweating beneath her fur, ears flicking from place to place in agitation. She swallowed and licked her suddenly-dry lips, eyes stealing glimpses as often as they dared as the sound of heavy boots and mechanical breathing came nearer and nearer.

After several long, nerve-wracking minutes, Darth Vader loomed large over Princes Luna. She was large for her kind, but Vader towered over her easily in both physical and metaphysical realms. Darkness seemed to reach out to clutch at Luna’s soul, urging her to bow her head and keep her eyes on Vader’s boots. To look up at him, something suggested, would be a sure path to death. But Luna had surrendered enough to the Empire already, and the tenacity that had seen her through the vicious beating from General Grievous and the near-destruction of her world reasserted itself. Luna looked Vader in the eye.

Or, at least, she thought she did. The black lenses on his mask where the eyes should have been made it impossible to tell. And indeed, physically, Luna could not see the eyes of whatever the man behind the armor. Still, as she stared up at him, she got the distinct impression of sulfuric yellow eyes staring back out at her from within that pitch-black realm. Whether that was good or bad, the alicorn could not say.

And then the moment passed, and Darth Vader moved on.

The black-armored cyborg continued his examination of the Inquisitorial acolytes for some time to come. All stood there in silence as the Sith scrutinized each and every one of them step by step. Not once did Vader give his opinion or even speak aloud, merely staring at one student or another for varying amounts of time, as if peering into their souls. Inquisitor Cia followed him at a careful distance, hands fidgeting behind her back.

At last, once he had examined the very last of the acolytes in line, a blonde human man, Darth Vader turned to face the Chiss woman.

“Is this it?” he asked.

“My lord?”

“Is this all the progress you have to show, Inquisitor?”

“Lord Vader, you h-have only seen a brief glimpse of them. I can put together some exercises that will better showcase their-”

“No,” Vader again interrupted her. He turned and began walking back down the line, cape swishing behind him. “That will be necessary. Your progress has been substandard. These acolytes are weak.”

“My lord I have consistently-”

“Failed to match the pace of your fellows, despite the auspicious nature of this world,” Vader wasn’t even bothering to look at Cia. “I came to determine the quality of these acolytes, and now I find no wheat among the chaff. Every one of them is insufficiently advanced for my purposes.”

“Surely you-”

“Save one.”

Darth Vader stopped dead in front of Princess Luna and turned to face her, arms folded across his chest. She again felt very small before his gaze, ears folding back onto her head even as she barely managed to meet his eyes.

“This one is different,” said Vader, after a moment.

“H-How so, my lord?” Cia managed. “She was weak and restrained, so I sent her into the valley… She returned far stronger…. Do you believe she has become p-possessed?”

“No.”

Vader did elaborate, and Cia did not attempt to press the point. There were long, drawn-out moments of silence as everyone nervously awaited the Dark Lord’s verdict. Then, out of the blue, Vader spoke up again.

“Duel her,” he commanded.

“My lord?” Cia looked confused.

“What is he doing?” Luna thought, but no answer was forthcoming from Dooku’s spirit.

“Duel her,” Vader repeated. “I wish to see you and this acolyte duel one another, Inquisitor. Right now.”

The Chiss blinked, looking puzzled, but quickly rallied. “As you wish, my lord,” she bowed at the waist.

Not knowing what else to do, Luna dipped her own head and replied. “Yes, Lord Vader.”

“Clear away,” Vader instructed the remainder of the class. “Make way to the dueling ring.”

Everyone hurried to do as bid, simultaneously relieved to be alive, excited to watch another combat, and somewhat disappointed not to be the one to have caught Vader’s eye. Vader himself made a casual gesture with two fingers, and the remains of the scrapped MagnaGuard were hurled unceremoniously from the ring. Luna and Cia both stepped down towards it, Vader close behind, and the remainder of the students following at a very careful distance. The Chiss and the alicorn duly filed into the small ring, taking up positions on either side.

“On your guard!” Cia drew her curve-hilted lightsaber and activated the blade in a single, theatrical flourish. Back in her element, a small smile was beginning to creep up one side of her mouth. “Lord Vader wants a show, acolyte! So don’t go down too quickly.”

“I’m not the one who is going down,” Luna retorted, telekinetically holding her lightsaber hilt in front of her head. She flared her wings and activated its crimson blade.

Cia folded her left arm behind her back and assumed the Makashi opening stance. “We shall see.”

“So we shall.”

Darth Vader’s voice boomed out. “Begin!”

Neither Luna nor Cia moved to attack immediately. Instead, they began to circle the ring, lightsabers brandished at one another, probing for some weakness or deficiency. Luna had seen Cia’s style of swordsmanship in her tutoring of students. Moreover, Makashi had been Count Dooku’s style of choice in life, and he had told her much of its strengths and weaknesses. Still, she was wary of simply rushing in.

The Chiss ultimately made the first move, crossing the ring in three deft steps and taking a stab at Luna’s face. She blocked with her own blade, and then Cia forced the locked swords downward in a surprising display of strength. The Inquisitor swiped upwards and sideways, aiming for the hilt of Luna’s weapon. She jerked it downwards to avoid the strike, the counterattacked with an underhanded power blow. Cia’s saber barely nicked the blade of Liuna’s, but it did so just enough to redirect the slash to cleave nothing but air.

The princess backed off a few steps. With telekinesis instead of arms, she had a longer reach and fully intended to exploit it. Luna directed her lightsaber forwards in series of quick jabs and slashes from wildly varied angles, meant to overwhelm Cia’s defenses with sheer speed. But despite being limited by her arm’s speed and range of motion, the Chiss ably deflected, caught, or dodged every blow. The exchange went on for some seconds, Cia apparently perfectly content to stand there and duel with a floated lightsaber. As the smile on her opponent’s face grew more and more self-satisfied, Luna began to get frustrated. Calling on the Force, she sped up her strikes and increased the power behind them. Inquisitor Cia sidestepped a particularly vigorous forward stab… and then snatched Luna’s lightsaber hilt right out of the air with her free hand.

The alicorn princess swallowed. She hadn’t considered that.

Dual blades in hand, Cia made a gesture with her right hand. A wave of dark side energy blasted Luna backwards and off her hooves. She extended two fingers from her left hand and mimed pressing it downwards onto something. Luna felt a corresponding pressure come down on her own back, pinning her to the ground as effectively as a thousand pounds of rock. To her credit, the Inquisitor didn’t stop to gloat. Instead, she brandished both lightsabers and rushed forwards, clearly intending to end the fight then and there. To her detriment, she had neglected to consider the third lightsaber still attached to her belt.

Luna reached out with the Force and jammed down hard on that lightsaber’s activation stud. Darth Nox’s crimson-bladed saber flared to life on Cia’s hip. The burning plasma blade just nicked the edge of the Inquisitor’s knee, burning through grey pants and blue skin alike. Cia cried out, but before Luna could angle the lightsaber to cut off her leg altogether she lashed out instinctively with the dark side, tearing it from her belt and sending it flying wildly away from her. Still, the pressure on Luna was gone and she regained her hooves, calling Nox’s weapon over to her.

“You shouldn’t have sent me after this,” said Luna with a slight smirk of her own.

Cia growled, delicately rubbing the skin-deep, cauterized lightsaber wound. “You’ll pay for that.”

“I don’t think so.”

The Inquisitor snarled incoherently and charged the princess, bringing both lightsabers to bear. Her pain fueled her anger, which in turn bolstered her strength with that of the dark side. Abandoning the elegant precision of Makashi, Cia came at Luna with both blades flashing wildly. Having never seen the Chiss dual-wield, the princess was quickly forced onto the defensive. She backed up several steps, keeping Nox’s lightsaber close, doing her best to parry or dodge the frantic stream of blows that Cia was raining down on her.

It took Luna a handful of moments to analyze her opponent’s technique properly. Cia was favoring her own lightsaber and attacking with it more frequently, which was no surprise. The Chiss was almost certainly right-handed, more familiar with her weapon, and of course the miniscule hilt of Luna’s saber barely fit in even Cia’s relatively small hands. She was fast, and her strikes were powerful, but not so fast or powerful as General Grievous had been all those years ago.

Armed with knowledge, Luna commenced her counterattack. She caught a double overhand blow on her saber and, with a surge of strength, forced both of Cia’s blades to the side. She swiped upwards, but the Inquisitor leapt backwards to avoid the strike. Luna charged, delivering a series of rapid Makashi-style strikes to try and off-balance the Chiss. Cia stumbled a few steps backwards, and Luna pressed the offensive with and upwards power strike aimed at her chest. Cia caught the strike with both blades, and for an instant it was a contest of strength.

Then, with astounding flexibility, Cia bent dramatically over backwards, releasing her hold and allowing Nox’s saber to pass above her head. Quickly she darted in and under the swing, taking a swipe at Luna’s face with her own saber. The princess dodged, but cried out as she felt a burning sensation cross her left cheek. Luna’s saber came from behind at the Inquisitor, but she leaped over the alicorn herself to dodge it, taking the split second to deliver a boot to the back of Luna’s skull.

The princess toppled over forwards, hitting the floor with a painful thud. Luna immediately rolled to avoid an attempted coup-de-grace – Cia’s saber plunged deep into the floor instead. Luna continued rolling for a good distance before she resumed standing in one smooth, practiced motion. The two opponents regarded one another warily, each breathing heavily and sporting painful but minor wounds.

“Enough of this!” Inquisitor Cia snarled, and clenched three fingers of her right hand.

Immediately Luna’s throat felt as though it were caught in the grip of durasteel clamps. Her trachea seized up and sealed itself shut, denying her hungry lungs any air. Her lightsaber clattered to the ground, deactivated and forgotten, as the alicorn clutched at her windpipe on the physical and mystical levels alike. Luna called on the Force to try and break Cia’s invisible grip, but for once it betrayed her. The dark side was a weapon, not a shield. Killing one’s enemy with it was far easier than using it to defend oneself. The Inquisitor’s clamps remained in place.

Luna fell to her knees as the effects of oxygen deprivation began to ravage her body. Her lungs were screaming futilely for air, her vision beginning to go black around the edges. Her mouth repeatedly gaped like a fish out of water, to no avail. In her mind, the princess felt the burning sensation of shame. After everything she had done, everything she had endured and sacrificed, she had failed. And now she was going to die here ignominiously, having never even set eyes on Emperor Palpatine…

No! No, she would not die here! She could not! Too many were depending on their princess for her to just give up and kill over now! Her eyes cast about desperately, looking for something, anything that they could use even as blackness threatened to consume her sight altogether. Then, at the last second, she spotted something.

Desperation lending her strength, Luna reached out through the Force and seized the still-active lightsabers clutched in Cia’s hands. With what might have been the last of her strength, she tore the weapons from the Chiss’ blue fingers and spun the blades around on the spot.

Slicing off both of Inquisitor Cia’s hands.

The effect was immediate, the pressure disappearing from the alicorn’s throat just as quickly as it had appeared. Luna only half heard the Chiss wail in agony, too busy gasping for sweet, sweet oxygen to be bothered with it. Her lungs drew it in at a prodigious rate, very swiftly beginning to banish the worst of the effects of deprivation. After almost half a minute, Luna’s frantic heartbeat had calmed down and she pushed herself back to her hooves.

Luna beheld Inquisitor Cia sunken to her knees, charred stumps wrapped around one another across her stomach. The Chiss woman was moaning softly and weeping openly, rocking back and forth on her knees. The dark side was abandoning her, as it did all those who lost, and her presence seemed to be shrinking in an almost visible manner. Gone was the aura of fearsome instructor and cold-blooded murderer. She appeared… honestly, rather pathetic.

“As I thought,” Darth Vader’s voice cut into Luna’s thoughts. She looked up at the Sith Lord, who stared impassively down at her. “Kill her,” he ordered.

“W-W-What?” Cia managed, her voice weak and shaky. She managed to raise her face somewhat, tear-staining red eyes looking fearfully up at the cyborg’s expressionless mask. “P-Please, Lord V-V-Vader! I c-can do m-”

“Kill her now,” Vader commanded pitilessly.

Luna took a few steps forward, calling two lightsabers to her. One was her own, small, regal, and familiar. The other was the curve-hilted lightsaber that Cia had used for herself. As she ignited both into a pair of crimson scissors about the Inquisitor’s neck, Luna saw what Grievous had seen in collecting the weapons of his foes. It was more than a trophy of victory; it was an expression of absolute superiority and simultaneously one of total contempt for one’s defeated enemies.

It felt… good.

Luna peered into the eyes of her tormentor, remembering that behind those sobbing red orbs lay the mind and soul of a sadist and murderer. She remembered the acolyte Cia had beheaded, remembered the prisoner she had tortured to death. She remembered the pain and humiliation of her abduction. And, as Luna and Cia stared into one another’s eyes, the princess could honestly say she would not regret this.

“Do it!” Vader demanded.

“P-Please,” Cia begged. “P-P-Please…”

The scissors closed.

“Well done.”

20: Mistake

Princess Luna watched the headless body of Inquisitor Cia topple unceremoniously to the ground at her hooves. At once she felt stronger, the darkness inside her feeding on the death of another and restoring a measure of her vitality in turn. Inside, she felt a sense of deep personal satisfaction: insult and indignity had been repaid, cruelties and murders avenged. By killing this woman, she had made the galaxy a better place.

“Someday,” she vowed silently. “The Emperor shall stand in her place, and suffer her fate. Equus will be free of him!”

Luna allowed herself a few moments of silent gloating, of basking in the awe and transparent fear with which the other acolytes were regarding her. Just a glance in their direction sent more than one scurrying backwards, terrified to be the next to draw her ire. She could see that it was beneficial to strike fear into the hearts of the aliens. Equestria could never hope to escape the galaxy’s brutalities now that it had been discovered and connected – unless all were too afraid to dare touch it.

Eventually, her gaze returned to Darth Vader, who had stayed silent since his slight compliment. He had called Darth Nox’s lightsaber to himself, and was examining the archaic weapon in one gloved hand. For some time he simply stood there in silence, no one daring to interrupt or otherwise disturb him. At length, the towering cyborg affixed the ancient Sith’s lightsaber to his own belt without a word. Not even Luna, flush with victory, felt like trying to stop him taking it.

“The failure of your Inquisitor,” Vader said in his booming bass tone, his gaze sweeping over the class. “Is not yours. You are weak, but it is not your doing. The Empire still has use for you. A new instructor will be dispatched shortly to oversee your training. You will remain here and await their arrival,” his mask shifted to look down at Luna. “Except you.”

“Me?” Luna put on her best surprised expression. “Lord Vader, what-”

“You will come with me,” Vader declared, sweeping past her without a word of explanation. He made no effort to see if the alicorn was following him, apparently simply taking it as a given. His long, steady strides took him quickly across the room and out the still-open portal to the hallway beyond.

Luna supposed she should be used to being treated with abject disrespect unbefitting millennia-old royalty by then, but she still found it galling. At least, she reflected, it beat being strangled unconscious and awakened via electroshock in a cell. Plus, Vader was the Emperor’s henchman, wasn’t he? Apprentice too, if Dooku had been honest with her, which she was still dubious about. Regardless, getting near him would undoubtedly bring her closer to Palpatine. Not seeing any other real alternative, Luna half-galloped after Vader.

The walk through Korriban’s red desert was long, painful, and tedious. With the adrenaline rush and dark side boost of combat dying away, Luna was feeling the lightsaber wound on her left cheek. It wasn’t deep, but it was long and it burned like all hell. She felt certain it would leave a scar. She had a pounding headache that corresponded roughly to where Cia had kicked her in the skull, and absolutely no restoration abilities in her repertoire of powers. The dark side did not naturally heal any more than it naturally protected. And Korriban’s burning sun and harsh winds, of course, continued to irk and pain the princess.

To add to her frustration, Vader had proven completely impervious to questioning. He offered her neither explanation nor any answers at all, remaining utterly silent save for his breathing. She had no idea how he had determined that she was different, nor what he intended for her now. Luna assumed that he didn’t want her dead right away, but beyond that had nothing but guesswork. Dooku was no help either, his spirit having apparently deserted her or gone into hiding in Vader’s presence. She didn’t know if he had abandoned her forever, or even if he was capable of following her off-planet in any event. But irrespective of the answer to that, no one was telling her anything, and it galled her.

So by the time the Dark Lord and princess reached the landing pad deep in the desert, Luna’s mood had gone fully sour. There was a Lambda-class shuttle parked atop the oasis of durasteel and permacrete in the red dune sea, its ramp lowered for them. Vader strode up and into the ship as unhesitatingly as he did everything else, and Luna followed. Very shortly thereafter the boarding ramp retracted and Luna could feel the craft lifting off.

The journey through the planet’s atmosphere was bumpy and uncomfortable, the shuttle’s hard seats having not been built with comfort in mind. Or quadrupedal races, for that matter. Vader himself apparently saw no need for them, simply standing still as a statue even during the worst of the atmospheric turbulence. His continued breathing was the only sign that he was still alive.

Having long since given up on getting any answers out of Vader until he was ready to give them, Luna instead opted to fiddle with one of the computers in the passenger compartment. To her delight, she quickly discovered that the shuttle had been equipped with holonet capability. Somewhat less happily, Luna soon found that that day was Empire Day, the fourth anniversary of the day when Palpatine had destroyed the Jedi Order, dissolved the Galactic Republic, and declared the birth of the Galactic Empire. Every channel and broadcast was filled with nothing but sycophantic praises for the Emperor and tales of Imperial glory. Many displayed clips of a vast military parade on Coruscant, set to rousing martial music. Hundreds of walkers and thousands of troops from the Imperial Army and Stormtrooper Corps marched in sync before cheering crowds, while overhead TIE fighters zoomed in parade formation beneath looming Star Destroyers of all types.

Luna soon shut it off. It made her sick to watch.

The shuttle’s landing onboard an Imperial-class Star Destroyer proved smoother than its takeoff. The moment the boarding ramp was down, Vader walked down and out without a word. Luna was beginning to get used to it, though she found his habit disrespectful and annoying. Still, she wasn’t about to go challenging Darth Vader.

Not yet, anyway.

Luna had to trot briskly to keep up with Vader as he walked through one of the Star Destroyer’s many landing bays, paying little attention to the troops lined up to greet him. The Sith exited the one bay, weaved through a series of unadorned grey and white corridors, and entered another, larger bay. All without speaking one word. Almost the entirety of the second bay was occupied by a large, wedge-shaped vessel Luna eventually recognized as an Arquitens-class light cruiser from the Clone Wars era. Lined up in front of it were a number of very nervous-looking men in the uniforms of the Imperial Navy.

“Lord Vader,” said one man near the front of the group. “We a-are honored that you came to see us… in person.”

“You may dispense with the pleasantries, Captain Oro,” Vader said. “Since you have deigned to grace us with your presence at last, I assume you have my shipment.”

The pale, already visibly sweating, paled slightly. “Yes… um… about that…”

“What is it?”

“We…” Oro’s hands fidgeted. “Might have run into a spot of… difficulty.”

“Difficulty,” repeated Vader.

“Of the… piratical nature, my lord. Our ship was attacked and b-boarded near the Ord Radama system and…” he swallowed. “Some of our cargo was t-taken. Including yours, my lord. B-But we did take a few prisoners,” he hastened to add. “We believe we might be able to – ghk!”

Midway through the officer’s sentence, Vader lifted his right hand and clenched it into a fist.

“You have failed me for the last time, Captain.”

Luna watched, half in disgust and half in fascination, as the Imperial officer’s body was lifted from the ground, the man desperately clutching at his neck and gaping his mouth. It was an uncomfortably familiar situation, but this time there was no one to save the man. Within a few seconds his neck audibly snapped, and his body went limp. Vader tossed it aside casually.

“Lieutenant Hayes.”

“Yes, my lord?” an understandably frightened-looking young man in a navy uniform stepped forward.

“Bring me these prisoners. I will make them talk.”

Captain Tyo Recast of Recast’s Raiders sat comfortably in a lounge chair aboard the Shadow’s Spirit. The CR90 Corellian Corvette served as the flagship of his small fleet, which consisted of two more corvettes, nine extensively modified freighters, and no less than three full squadrons of Z-95 Headhunter and Y-wing starfighters. Parked in orbit over an unnamed world in an equally unnamed system in the Outer Rim, the pirates were celebrating their latest success.

Attacking the Empire was always a bit risky, especially compared to preying on the usual near-helpless civilian freighters that trawled the galaxy. With Palpatine’s military buildup, Star Destroyers and the like were becoming more and more common further and further from the Core Worlds. And they rarely showed the scruples that had hampered the Republic’s own anti-piracy efforts. Still, the Empire was the biggest and richest force in the galaxy, and so the risk was sometimes worth taking. A little tip passed through an underworld associate on Coruscant had pinpointed one particular ship as carrying a very nice prize, and a hefty bounty to go with it.

They’d hit the ship and seized the cargo, and… well, honestly, Tyo had had no idea what it was. Just a box full of dusty old relics with strange hieroglyphs, some ancient-looking armor plates, and a few small black pyramids. He had no idea why anyone in the Empire or underworld would care very much for archeological finds, but then again didn’t really care. They’d already dispatched a ship to meet the buyer with the prize, and even gotten the half the credits transferred to an anonymous Muunilinst bank account ahead of time. Now they were celebrating a job well-done in traditional pirate style: drinking their collective arse off.

The ship’s crew had been engaged in their assorted forms of gambling, indulgence, and general debauchery for some time before one of the R2 droids rolled up to spoil. Beeping and warbling in an urgent tone, the small droid stuck a grasping tool out of its chassis and tugged on Tyo’s trousers.

“Wha’ is it?” the pirate captain said, irritated at being distracted from his game of sabacc. “Can ya see when a body’s busy, R2-P9?”

The droid beeped and whistled at him again, more insistently this time.

“Fine… Fine…” Tyo laid his cards face down on the table, certain that the others would look at them anyway. “I’m comin’.”

The droid wheeled around and led the captain back to ship’s bridge, where several more of the vessel’s mechanical crewmembers had congregated. Most had taken up stations that their organic masters had deserted during their celebrations, keeping a loyal watch on the instruments. It was one of these instrument panels that R2 tapped with its claw, beeping urgently.

“Wha’s tha problem?” Tyo slurred slightly as he bent over to examine the ship’s feed. “Tha’s it?’ he said after a quick glance. “Jus’ send a few a the boys in their ships out to rough it up. And don’t bother me again.”

With that, he turned and, after a slight stumble, exited the bridge. The situation was hardly anything to worry about. Just one fighter had blundered into the system, without any backup at all.

What could it possibly do?

21: In Pursuit

Princess Luna stood on the bridge of the Imperial-class Star Destroyer Devastator as it flew through hyperspace. This was her first chance to witness with her own eyes faster than light travel, as the one such trip she’d made before had been spent entirely in a cell. Naturally, she availed herself of the opportunity, staring out through the bridge’s transparisteel viewport. The void of space and white light of distant stars merged to become an endless, streaking blue tunnel. Minutes ticked by and all Luna did was stare outside. The alicorn found the sight strangely soothing, a relief from her duties, her stress, and the anger that she now felt so regularly.

“Captain Orion, sir?” an officer’s voice snapped her out of her semi-trance.

“What is it, Lieutenant Montferrat?” the aristocratic accent of the Devastator’s captain was very thick.

“We’re coming up on Lord Vader’s coordinates, sir.”

Luna had had no idea why the Sith Lord had chosen to board his personal fighter and go into hyperspace almost immediately after his interrogation of the pirates. From the way the ship’s crew acted, however, it wasn’t abnormal for the Dark Lord to take a hands-on approach.

“Very good. Order all gunnery crews to their stations and prepare fighters for launch,” Captain Orion directed. “Prepare to activate our shields as soon as we emerge. If Lord Vader requires assistance, we shall be ready to provide it.”

“Not much chance of that,” Luna thought.

“I would agree,” another voice said in her head.

Luna half-jumped, eyes flicking from side to side. “Dooku?!”

“Lord Tyranus. And who else?”

“Where have you been?!” Luna snapped mentally. “We haven’t heard anything from you since Vader arrived!”

“I left and hid when I felt him draw near,” Dooku’s voice answered. “Even in this state, he might sense me. And we had a rather… strained relationship when I was alive.”

“You said he killed you, did he not?”

“He murdered me,” his tone grew darker. “Cleaved my hands off and then beheaded me when I was helpless. At Sidious’ prompting.”

“I had heard that it was a Jedi who killed you.”

“I found what I saw of your duel with the Inquisitor uncomfortably familiar,” Dooku mused, ignoring Luna’s implied question.

“So are you just going to hide every time Vader is close by?”

“Of course. He might well kill you if he found out. He never did bear a grudge well.”

“Can I ask what grudge?”

“A history lesson for another time, I think, Darth Noctis. I am afraid I will need to depart shortly.”

“Because we’re nearing Vader?”

“Partially. It has also been rather taxing on my limited energies to manifest all that I have over these past few weeks. And the further you go from Korriban the more difficult it becomes. I will soon need to return to my tomb for rejuvenation.”

“So you’re deserting me?”

“I shall aid you as much as I am able,” Dooku corrected, sounding stern. “I wish the Emperor dead as much as you. However, being dead myself makes this extremely difficult – my ability to interfere in the physical world is all but gone. I will manifest to assist and teach you when I can. If you wish to make the process easier, seek out a nexus of dark side energies. I would be less strained there.”

“I suppose this is farewell then, Lord Tyranus?”

“For the time being, Lord Noctis. Remember what I have taught you. Trust your feelings. And may the Force be with you.”

The Devastator emerged from hyperspace in a barren, lifeless system designated only by a number. With sixteen planets and countless asteroids orbiting a red giant star in the far reaches of the Outer Rim, it epitomized the middle of nowhere. And therefore made for a perfect place for any of the galaxy’s many thieves, brigands, and pirates to hide. The mile-long Imperial warship immediately surged forward, swarms of TIE fighters pouring from its bays and turbolasers at the ready. It was therefore somewhat anticlimactic when absolutely nothing seemed to react.

“Get me a fix on Lord Vader’s homing beacon,” Captain Orion ordered.

“Yes sir,” said one of the uniformed bridge crew members, though Luna did not know her name. “Approximately fifteen thousand kilometers distance. Thirty five degrees port.”

“Initiate course correction,” the captain said. “Take us in full speed ahead. And send our fighter squadrons in immediately. Lord Vader doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”

“Right away, sir!”

Luna watched with interest as the vast behemoth of a starship came around. With the star to mark the ship’s position, she noted that the Star Destroyer’s own bulk and momentum made it difficult to turn swiftly. The TIE fighters suffered no such limitations, and she watched dozens of them disappear into the black void.

A minute later, another bridge crewmen spoke up. “Sir, we’re receiving transmitions from our lead fighter squadron. They have located Lord Vader’s homing beacon.”

“Where is it?” the captain demanded, somewhat too hastily. “What have they found?’

“Wreckage, sir. All of it fresh. Quite a few ships were scrapped out there. Fighters, freighters, corvettes…”

“And Lord Vader’s ship?”

“It appears to be…” the man frowned.

“Yes, what is it?”

“It’s attached to the only remaining intact ship, sir. A CR90 corvette.”

“Do those have docking tubes for fighters?”

“This one? No.”

“I see. Order our fighters to take up patrol formation and ensure that nothing disturbs-”

“Sir!” yet another bridge officer whose name Luna didn’t know interrupted the captain.

“What is it, Ensign?”

“We’re receiving a transmition from the corvette, sir. Bearing Lord Vader’s communication codes.”

“Well then for gods’ sake put it through!” Captain Orion half-yelled, fidgeting slightly as he did.

Very shortly, a small hologram of Darth Vader sprouted from one of the bridge’s many control panels. The ship’s captain hovered over it, Luna watching carefully from a distance.

“Captain,” Vader said without ceremony, looking none the worse for the wear despite his recent combat. “This ship’s computer contains valuable data. You will bring the ship into our docking bay with your tractor beams and have a scanning crew brought aboard. You will also prepare the brig to receive several additional prisoners.”

“At once, my lord,” replied the captain with a stiff nod.

“Very good,” Vader’s image vanished.

It was some minutes later that Luna found herself in the Star Destroyer’s primary hanger bay, watching the disabled corvette being towed inside by invisible tractor beams. The ship showed obvious signs of combat, from the charred ruins of laser cannons to the way half its engines were melted slag. Darth Vader’s personal fighter had managed a landing directly atop the pirate ship, near its prow. From the emergency sealant covering the shattered transparisteel viewport Luna guessed he had simply smashed his way inside.

When the docking tube connected, the instant the doors opened a handful of beings practically rushed the Stormtrooper boarding party from point blank range. The surprised Imperials only had time to shoot two with stun blasts before the rest were on them. The pirates promptly… cowered behind the Stormtroopers or feel to their knees before them. Looking past them, Luna could see why. Just in the small section of corridor she could see from the other end of the tube, there was a Twi’lek male with his head twisted so far as to be completely backwards and Zygerrian female that had been outright cleaved in two at the waist.

Only a few seconds passed before the enormous black cyborg himself appeared from the ship’s hallway and began making his way down the docking tube. Vader was personally dragging the limp form of a human man in his right hand, showing no difficultly in doing so. He outright threw the unconscious man at the Stormtroopers, who caught him with a practiced ease that suggested this was not the first time it had happened.

“Sergeant Crest,” Vader addressed the Stormtroopers’ leader. “See to it that this ship is thoroughly checked. Download all databanks and secure prisoners in the Devastator’s brig. Prepare the interrogation droids. We will rip out every last piece of information on what they have done with my cargo. Then we will track down all their conspirators and-”

“Lord Vader!” a man dressed in an officer’s uniform was making his hurried way down the docking tube, brushing right past Luna to snap to attention directly in front of Vader.

The black-armored cyborg looked down at the man with the temerity to interrupt him, and though she couldn’t see his face the princess could feel anger and annoyance rolling off of him. Luna wondered if Vader was going to kill the man outright.

“What is so important that you feel the need to interrupt me, Lieutenant?”

“Apologies, m-my lord,” the man bowed at the waist. “But it’s t-the Emperor.”

“The Emperor,” Vader repeated.

“Yes, my lord. He commands you to make immediate contact with him.”

“Then inform the Emperor that I am on my way.”

The man bowed again, looking relieved. “At once, my lord.”

The officer turned and half-walked, half-ran out of the docking tube and back into the Star Destroyer. Vader folded his arms and held his silence for some seconds, looking from one thing to another, as if considering. Luna felt his gaze more than once, as did Sergeant Crest, the Stormtroopers, and the still-cowering pirates. Eventually, his masked face shifted fully to Luna.

“It seems,” Vader said to her. “As if I am to be occupied for some time. The Emperor invariably has an assignment when he chooses to contact me. But I do not wish my prize to slip away. Consider this your first assignment.”

“W-What?” Luna blinked. “But I haven’t had any training or experience in-”

“You have shown great potential considering your circumstances. And I can sense that you are more than just a set of hands attached to a lightsaber. This assignment will be a way to confirm your abilities in my eyes. You will track down my missing artifacts and discover who was behind their theft. Eliminate the perpetrators and bring the treasures to me. Succeed, and you will be well rewarded. Fail, and you will answer to me.”

Captain Oro’s fate left no doubt as to what Vader meant by that.

“With what resources? You haven’t given me anything to work with!” Luna protested, suppressing her urge to cower meekly.

“The pirates’ corvette and all of the prisoners are in your custody,” Vader said. “You are free to use any methods necessary to gain the required information. When you have your heading, Sergeant Crest and his men will accompany you. And Captain’s Oro’s ship is need of a new overseer.” He began walking back towards the Star Destroyer. “Consider it a promotion.”

Princess Twilight Sparkle, still wearing human form, sat in the cockpit of the Harmony as it soared through the black depths of space. Spike was seated in her lap, and her pilot droid continued to handle flying the ship. Kylee’s relatives had been accommodating, if not exactly friendly. Sylkes and his band had managed to reach some of their off-world contacts in the larger rebel network. These had helped arrange for the former prisoners to be smuggled off-world, and even pulled some strings to get them into the CR90 corvette affiliated with them. It was around this particular ship that the Harmony was now orbiting.

“So, Ms. Anya,” Sylkes was saying over the communications, using the name Twilight had given him. “I can’t really offer you much in the way of material reward, but you did say you were interested in joining our cause and fighting the galaxy’s freedom. Does that still apply?”

“Absolutely,” Twilight said. “I’m eager to do my part.”

“Great. You saved our lives, and that’s why I’m going to offer you a spot on our team. That good with you?”

“It is,” she affirmed.

“We got something that might be big from one of our higher-ups. A chance to strike a blow against the highest levels of the Empire. You in?”

“You can count on me.”

“And me,” added Spike.

“Good to hear. Now, what we have is just a thin bit of intelligence, but it’s juicy. Something about stolen Sith artifacts of personal interest to none other than Darth Vader...”

22: Summons

Luna strode boldly into one of the Devastator’s holding cells, not even bothering to glance inside first. With two lightsabers and the power of the dark side at her command, she would not have feared the alien wretch inside even if he weren’t already so broken. As it was, the pirate looked up at her and released a tight breath, his nervous grip slackening slightly.

“You were expecting someone else?” Luna asked him as the automatic door sealed shut behind her.

“Might have been,” he sat back on the cell’s hard bunk, its only furniture.

“Mmmm,” Luna murmured, eying him. Stretching out with the Force, she could sense his cautious relief, mixed with an undercurrent of anxiety. “Darth Vader, I assume?”

The look on his face would have told her everything even if the spike in his emotions didn’t.

“So,” Luna continued a moment later. “I shall make this very simple for you. Lord Vader is most displeased that you stole from him. He wishes to reclaim his property, and is prepared to express that desire… vigorously,” she paused to let the human ruminate on his own horrible memories. “Fortunately for you, he has chosen to send me in before coming himself. So you face the choice of telling me what I want to know now, without further pain, or else explaining to Darth Vader why you refused to be reasonable.” She couldn’t actually summon the Sith Lord like that, but it didn’t hurt for him to think that she could. “Understand?”

He swallowed. “Yes.”

“Good,” Luna nodded. “On the other hand, if you cooperate with me I will see to it that you don’t suffer any further. Would you like that?”

The man hesitated. Luna could feel a lifetime’s worth of accumulated cynicism battling inside the human’s head with the longshot hope that she would be true to her word. His criminal instincts told him not to trust the strange equine creature, while his self-preservation urged him to take the chance. Not feeling particularly patient, Luna gently unfurled her right wing and reached out with the Force to touch his mind.

“You know,” she said softly, waving her wing. “I think that you should trust me.”

“I think that… I should trust you.”

She waved it again. “I think you should tell me what I want to know.”

He stared somewhat vacantly. “I think I should tell you what you want to know.”

“I am your friend.”

“You are my friend.”

Luna nodded and folded her wing back up. It wouldn’t last long, but the mind trick she’d employed should be enough, in conjunction with his own feelings, to loosen his tongue.

“Perhaps you’d like to tell me your name,” the princess suggested.

“I’m Captain Tyo Recast,” he answered.

“Why did you attack an Imperial ship?”

“We were tipped off that it was carrying something valuable. Someone was offering a lot of money for that cargo.”

“Really? How much?”

“Ten million credits. Half in advance of delivery.”

“That sounds like a lot.”

“It is.”

“You must have been proud to capture such a prize.”

“I was.”

“You sold the cargo, I take it?”

“We did.”

“I appreciate your cooperation,” Luna said, waving her wing again. “You’re helping yourself by helping me.”

“I’m helping myself by helping you.”

“Now,” Luna said smoothly. “Perhaps you could tell me about whoever it was that you sold those artifacts to…”

Inside the CR90 corvette Idealist, Twilight Sparkle stood around a circular holoprojector table. There were a dozen others around it, mostly human with a solitary Mirialan and Twi’lek to round out the group. A few she knew, most she did not. For security reasons, most would not know the identities of other teams being inserted. At present, the table was projecting an image of a heavily hooded and cloaked figure, giving last-minute instructions.

“Slipping past Coruscant security is always a risk,” the figure was saying in a synthesized, androgynous voice. “The Empire maintains a sector-sized battlefleet in orbit at all times, and strictly monitors all traffic in and out.”

The image of the figure disappeared, replacing itself with one of the galactic capital. Twilight could see small red dots scattered across the space surrounding the world. Representing Imperial ships and orbital battle stations. There were hundreds of them.

“Fortunately,” the voice continued. “Coruscant, aka. Imperial Center, is completely dependent on outside sources for any non-recycled resources. With a population of over a trillion beings to keep sated, even the Empire can’t afford to seriously impede incoming space traffic. And therein lies our opportunity.”

The holographic image again shifted, this time to a specific building on the vast-city world, a red dot indicating one floor of it.

“This is the rendezvous point,” the voice said. “You will return to your respective ships and slip past Coruscant’s fleet disguised as simple cargo haulers. Those of you who are able to reach the surface within one galactic standard week are to meet up at this location on the eighth day. If you have any reason to believe that the Empire suspects you, or that you are being followed, abort mission and extract your team as best you are able. Those of you who make it that far will receive the remainder of your mission details from our contacts at that point.”

The hologram changed again, resuming the image of the cloaked figure.

“I won’t lie to you,” it said. “This is a high-risk operation. These things belong to Vader, and there’s no doubt he’ll have someone searching as well. Coruscant is the center of Imperial power in the galaxy, and the headquarters of the Imperial Security Bureau. If any of you are captured, and they have any idea what you are up to….” The figure shook its head. “You’ll need to be smart and keep a low profile. But if we pull this off, we strike a blow directly at Darth Vader, and for the freedom of the galaxy. Good luck to you all, and may the Force be with you.”

There were nods of assent from around the table.

“Fulcrum out.”

Princess Celestia was seated behind her desk in the Imperial Hub, attending to her usual duties as Imperial Governor. There were always long lists of tasks that needed doing, or delegating. The work was hard, the hours long, and her assistants subpar. She missed Kibitz even more than usual during these times. Sadly, the reliable old stallion had been one of the many butchered senselessly during the Separatist attack on Canterlot.

Shaking her head to clear away the painful memories, Celestia returned her attention to the task at hoof. Today she was being called upon to address continuing problems with refugee resettlement. With so many ponies in need of homes and so few sizable communities left standing, overcrowding in the cities was starting to become an issue. As more and more ponies left the camps to settle in whatever cities they could reach, the local increasingly resented their presence. It wasn’t hard to see why. With food and shelter at a premium, jobs scarce, and space limited, those who recognized their own fragile position were anxious to protect themselves from foreign competition. Fellow ponies or no, every building, job, or bite of food the refugees took for themselves was one more thing the locals couldn’t give to their own families. Even the legendary Equestrian altruism had its limits. Protests had broken out in every major city, Los Pegasus included. According to this latest report from the Equestrian Army, they were increasing in size and beginning to show signs of violence.

Celestia was doing what she could, offering some small compensation to those towns and cities hosting refugees and working as quickly as possible to build new communities for her ponies to live in, but it wasn’t enough to quell the tensions. The nation’s budget was stretched as far as she could make it go already. International trade was virtually nonexistent, Equestria’s industries were only partially recovered so raising taxes was not an option, and most of her personal wealth had been spent. She’d long ago trimmed the budget of any scrap of fat that she could find. There was little she could do to make the new towns rise faster, and nothing more she could offer Equestria’s cities to offset the cost of refugee migration.

The princess shook her head wearily. She had only one real option. Ask the Empire for help. Again. She was certain there would be a heavy price for doing so, but the only alternative was just to hope that tensions didn’t degenerate into mob violence. And that was unacceptable. The government’s position was fragile enough as it was; any major disruptions could result in a full-blown civil war. And that would undoubtedly bring the wrath of the Imperial military down on her world’s head, and…

Celestia didn’t like to think about it.

Gloomily, the alicorn logged her requests for additional building materials and construction droids with the local branch of the Imperial Department of Logistics. If granted, Celestia knew that pressure on existing cities to accept the homeless would ease immensely. Of course, she would also have to repay the Empire somehow. Likely by increasing the flow of mineral wealth squeezed from other nations. The inhabitants of those lands would hate her for that, and understandably so. But her own subjects had to come first. Still, she would drift off that night with a heavy heart.

As usual.

It was as Celestia was just starting to read over her next item on the agenda that the holoprojector built into her desk began to beep. Wearily, she sat her datapad down and magically pressed a button, accepting the transmition. Her eyes widened slightly when she saw who it was.

“Governor Celestia.”

“Grand Vizier Mas Amedda,” Celestia bowed her head to the blue-skinned, horned Chagrian male. “This is unexpected.”

“Clearly,” he replied.

The princess brushed her desk clear and sat up a little straighter. “What may I do for you, Vizier?”

The head of the Imperial Ruling Council looked down at her in a faintly condescending manner. “The Emperor has received your petition.”

“With regard to my sister?” asked Celestia, slightly more eagerly than intended.

“Indeed,” Amedda nodded. “He has decided that he will hear you.”

Against all odds, the alicorn felt a slight spark of hope kindling in her breast. “Then, by all means, put his majesty through at his convenience!” she urged.

Amedda frowned. “You misunderstand me, Governor,” he said. “Your presence is required on Imperial Center. The Emperor will hear your petition in person.”

23: To The Core

An Imperial-class Star Destroyer was a titan of the deep void. Measuring 1600 meters from stem to stern, the dagger-shaped warships were an exemplary display of awe-inspiring Imperial might. Each came equipped with 72 top of the line TIE fighters and 9700 fully-equipped Stormtroopers, complete with all manner of ground attack vehicles. Additionally, each of the mile-long warships packed enough firepower to level an entire unshielded continent on its own. Most planets chose to surrender before daring to face the wrath of even one of these supremely lethal juggernauts.

Coruscant’s defense fleet had fifty of them.

This was in addition to more than a hundred Victory and Venator-class Star Destroyers, dozens of Dreadnaught-class heavy cruisers, hundreds of Carrack-class light cruisers, orbital Golan battle stations, and of course more patrolling starfighters than the Harmony’s scanners could properly count. The Empire’s message was as simple as it was unmistakable: this our turf. Touch it and die.

Still, for all the thoroughly intimidating symbolism of the fleet, Twilight’s rational mind understood that its practical effect on their mission was not as great as it seemed. Millions of civilian starships entered and left the planet each and every day. The city that covered the entire planet required an endless flow of outside resources to maintain itself, and beings immigrated or emigrated by the tens of thousands. As it had been in the days of the Republic, the traffic control barely had the time and staff to identify each incoming ship and clear it for landing. Inspecting anything but a small portion of them in any serious detail would have been all but impossible.

That was what Twilight told herself, as the small freighter zipped underneath the massive silhouette of a Star Destroyer. Just one among a hundred thousand ships in one narrow stream of traffic, the Harmony did not noticeably stand out from the crowd. The princess could even see a trio of ships from the same model on her scanners within a few miles of her position. Nothing about she, her ship, or the other beings safely stowed away within should attract any undue attention. To the Empire’s eyes, she was just one of a million freighters carrying foodstuffs from distant Taanab.

Behind the front lines of the Imperial Navy’s patrol, Twilight spotted a Secutor-class Star Destroyer hanging in high orbit, presumably acting as a command ship. At 2200 meters in length, these behemoths dwarfed even their Imperial-class brethren. In spite of her thorough academic study of the galaxy’s modern warships, it still boggled the princess’ mind that anyone would want to build a warship that large. The weapons, material, and crew required made each one a major resource sink. As she stared awestruck out at the craft, Twilight concluded that it must be intended as the Imperial Navy’s ultimate battleship. Surely the Empire couldn’t require a starship bigger than that.

Aboard the Gladiator-class Star Destroyer Justice, Agent Kallus was in a sour mood. Fresh off his role in the Empire’s triumph at Lasan, he had been humiliated by the debacle on Serenno. The public execution of the black market arms dealer had put the fear of the Empire into the planet’s criminal elements, but in truth the man simply hadn’t known anything terribly substantive. The most he had been able to get out of his physical description of the woman and the presumable alias she had given was a tentative connection to a similar-looking human female who had arrived on the planet some weeks before the breakout. Yes, she looked similar, had no clear past, and had left the planet for parts unknown days afterwards, but that was all. He had no proof, and more pertinently no idea where she had gone. The most he had been able to do was flag her ship in an ISB database as one of interest, and leave a request to alert him should it show itself in an Imperial port any time in the future.

Reporting the breakout and his failure to contain it to his superiors in the Imperial Security Bureau had been a humiliating experience. Compounded by the rebels’ subsequent evasion of recapture, they had been most disappointed. His star, on the rise after the Fall of Lasan, had been slapped back to earth. He still had his status as Senior Field Agent and all the many benefits it entailed, but how long would the recent promotion last after Serenno? Ominously, he had yet to even receive a new assignment from ISB headquarters on Imperial Center. For a man who harbored ambitions to rise much higher in the Empire’s ranks, that was a very bad sign.

Kallus shook his head. He needed to deliver something, and soon.

Countless light-years distant, on Equus, Princess Celestia was seated at the same circular oak table where Twilight had laid out her plan. With her were Princess Cadence and Prince Shining Armor, soon to be the very last of Equestria’s royalty left on the planet. Celestia’s niece looked physically weaker than usual, but in much better spirits. The reason was very simple: the recent birth of the couple’s firstborn son. In happier times, that event would have been cause for celebration. Then again, in happier times Celestia wouldn’t have needed to call this little meeting in the first place.

“Auntie…” Cadence looked hesitant. “I’m not sure if I can manage that.”

“You can and you must,” Celestia declared firmly. “When I am gone, you will be only alicorn princess left on our world. Without Luna, Discord, Twilight, or myself on Equus, you are the only one with the magic required to make the sun and moon move. And,” her voice softened. “I know you, Cadence. You are a strong, talented, brave mare. I have faith in you.”

“I still don’t know,” Cadence’s eyes wandered towards her hooves. “Leaving all of Equestria in my hooves like that…” she shivered, her ears folding back. As she thought of it, the princess of love seemed to shrink. Her husband gave Celestia a worried glance, then put a comforting leg around her shoulder. She nuzzled close to him, still looking small. “The last time… the Crystal Empire…”

Celestia grimaced. Her niece still blamed herself, as if there was anything more she could have done. “What happened there was not your fault,” she said, gently but with a firm undertone. “The empire was a victim of the cruelty of General Grievous. If anything, its destruction is my responsibility. If I had only been less quick to give in Admiral Tarkin…”

“That’s not true and you know it,” Cadence countered. “I was the ruler of the Crystal Empire when the attack came! I should have been able to defend it! I… I…” she buried her head in her husband’s chest. “I failed.” Tears trickled down her soft pink cheeks. Shining Armor nuzzled her softly, and began whispering gently in one of her ears.

The solar princess looked glum. She wasn’t sure what she could say to make Cadence feel better. And in truth, in retrospect she didn’t really know what she could have done differently all those years ago. Even if she hadn’t turned over Grievous, even if Master Kenobi had stopped Admiral Tarkin from executing his own bombardment, even if they had returned Grievous to the Confederacy, it would almost certainly have been just as bad for them. After the Clone Wars had ended with the Separatists’ collapse and the Empire’s rise, the latter had exacted swift and brutal vengeance on many of the former Confederacy’s allies. The Jedi were destroyed and Tarkin had become a Moff, a governor of an entire sector. He would certainly have remembered the slight, and with no Kenobi to stop him, and no one to help… Equestria probably wouldn’t exist. Period.

As husband and wife held each other close, the latter’s tears began to dry up. Shining Armor glanced at Celestia.

“Why do you even have to go?” he asked. “Can’t you just say you’re too busy?”

“Too busy for Emperor Palpatine?” Celestia raised an eyebrow. “How realistic do you suppose that is? What are the chances of anypony even believing that for a moment?"

The unicorn avoided answering. “I still think it’s a trick,” he said. “A plan to get you away from here, out of sight of-”

“Why bother?” she cut off his theorizing. “They could kill me at any time. It’s not as though I have any means of detecting an orbital turbolaser battery targeting my office. And they’ve already shown that they can steal my sister in broad daylight with impunity. There’s no reason to suspect a trap, simply because there’s no reason for them not to just barge in and take whatever they want,” she paused. “I think the Emperor really will hear me.”

“You think Palpatine has suddenly grown a heart?” Shining sounded… less than convinced.

Celestia frowned. “I don’t think he’s quite so bad a man as some say,” she said, finally. “To me he seems a sincere old man who has been through a lot and is surrounded by a variety of opportunists, vicious cutthroats, and other less than savory types.”

“Uh huh.”

“I’m the only one here who’s actually spoken with the man. And to me, his sorry at our suffering seemed sincere. He did help us when we were of no use to him or the Republic. Millions more ponies would be dead without his intervention. And he just agreed to listen to me when no one else did.”

“You call what the Empire has done to us help?”

“We have suffered, yes, but at the hands of a vast and impersonal bureaucracy shaped by vicious galactic war. Not once by the Emperor’s own orders.”

“You really think that he doesn’t know what’s happening here?”

“This is a very big galaxy, Shining Armor,” Celestia said. “I doubt Palpatine so much as knows the names of a quarter of the planets in the Empire. Much less the details of their present condition. And I seriously doubt the bureaucracy is going to paint him an accurate picture.”

“You seem dead-set on defending the character of a man you barely know.”

“What can I say?” she shrugged slightly. “I am very familiar with the goings-on in government. There are far more layers of it than just the ruler and the men on the ground, implementing his every order to the letter. One does not necessarily have to be a corrupt leader to head up a corrupted system.”

“Why are you so eager to take up his case?”

“Because I like to think the best of everyone.”

And, of course, because she wished for it to be so.

Luna stood on the bridge of the Arquitens-class light cruiser Starry Night as it fired up its engines and lifted out of the Devastator’s hanger bay. The small ship swiftly soared through the void and away from the massive Star Destroyer. Darth Vader remained aboard the vast warship, leading it on whatever mission it was that the Emperor had given him. Idly, the dark alicorn speculated briefly on what it might be.

“Heading, sir?” a young man in a Lieutenant’s uniform interrupted her thoughts.

“Imperial Center, Lieutenant Hayes,” Luna said, sounding authoritative.

“Yes sir,” Hayes saluted, and crew members began imputing coordinates to the navicomputer with admirable efficiency. Their captain’s recent and gruesome demise seemed to be motivating them quite well.

“What’s our estimated time to arrival on that?”

A crew member glanced down at a terminal. “Computer says four days. Three if we push her a bit.”

“Push her,” Luna commanded.

“If we do, we’ll probably need some repairs once we get there,” Hayes cautioned.

“Push her,” she repeated, totally unconcerned with damage to Imperial property.

“As you wish.”

Men hurried to do as she said, no doubt remembering whatever Darth Vader had said when informing them of their new overseer. Watching them work, Luna found the sensation of being obeyed once again, even if at the word of another, very pleasing.

“Computer’s calculated our route.”

“Then make the jump to hyperspace at once!”

“Aye, sir!”

There was a loud whine, and then the stars and void dissolved into a swirling, endless tunnel of blue streaks as the Starry Night shot into hyperspace. Again, Luna found the sight pleasant, almost comforting in its own way.

Not that she needed comfort. She had a ship, she had a squad of Stormtroopers, and she had a target. But more than anything else, she had the dark side of the Force. That poor fool and anyone who stood between them didn’t stand a chance.

24: The Princess and the Emperor

Sometime later, Princess Celestia watched the boarding ramp of the Theta-class shuttle Emperor’s Benevolence descend with an apprehensive look on her face. The last few days had been a nerve-wracking, claustrophobic journey through hyperspace to Imperial Center. With only two ceremonial guards and the silent, cloned human crew of the shuttle for company, it had also been lonely. More than anything Celestia had thought of Luna, of what she could say to the Emperor, of how best to persuade him to see her sister safely returned.

The two armored, blaster-wielding unicorns stepped down the boarding ramp first in perfect sync, then neatly filed to either side and offered the princess salutes. Celestia followed them down, and in so doing got her first look at Coruscant. Only her many years of practiced decorum prevented her from gaping openly.

Intellectually, she had long known that the entire planet was one enormous city. But knowing it one’s head and seeing it for oneself were two very different concepts. Skyscrapers punching up into the atmosphere and simultaneously descending into the black depths further than the eye could see stretched from horizon to horizon. Tens of thousands of flying transports zoomed this way and that in ordered lanes, while the vast shadow of a Star Destroyer loomed over them all. Celestia knew at once that the population of just the area that she could make out was larger than the whole of Equestria, and could not entirely suppress her awe.

At the bottom of the ramp waited a pair of the Emperor’s red-robed Royal Guards, and half as many again Stormtroopers. None of them said a word, but the Stormtroopers snapped to attention in her presence, while the Royal Guards seemed to flow aside to make room for her. Her shuttle had touched down on a great landing pad in front of the Imperial Palace, large enough to host a Star Destroyer by itself. For the moment it was covered in other shuttles and transports, visiting dignitaries being led this way and that. Some had Royal Guards among their escorts, but most did not. Celestia wasn’t sure whether to be honored or nervous.

The princess’ pony guards stood beside her, while the Stormtroopers fell into step behind them. The Royal Guards took the lead, still saying nothing at all. The Imperial Palace, once the Jedi Temple, loomed ahead of them. The boxy, five-towered structure was easily larger than any palace she had ever seen, with equally gigantic Imperial banners hanging from all sides. Celestia wasn’t sure what to make of the Emperor’s choice of residences. Living inside the temple of one’s defeated enemies was certainly a powerful statement, but for whom was the message intended?

Celestia shook her head as the group marched along. It wasn’t her business anyway.

The next several hours were a monotonous haze of inactivity, boredom, and nervous pacing. Celestia was placed into a glorified waiting room and told that her turn would come soon enough, and to be thankful for it. Emperor Palpatine had a waiting list of appointments months long with generals and dignitaries from all across the galaxy. The princess could relate to that easily enough – though for once the shoe was on the other hoof. The experience was made worse by her nerves, her inability to think about anything but her precious sister and what she would have to do to get her back.

Where in the galaxy was Lulu? What had she endured? What was she undergoing? Did Palpatine know? Would he be able to help? Would he be willing to help? What price might he ask of her? Or… what if Shining Armor had been right? What if this was all just a cruel joke or pointlessly elaborate trap? What would she do then? What would become of Equestria? Of Luna? Of Twilight? Of herself, even?

Celestia closed her eyes and breathed deeply in and out, slowly but surely calming her racing heart and allowing her frantic mind some rest. It would do nopony any good if she started to panic, least of all Lulu. This audience would be a delicate matter requiring the utmost of diplomacy, grace, and control on her part. Every action had to be calculated, every word chosen carefully. Her family and planet were at stake.

Once she had regained her poise, the princess opened her eyes again. Her wings twitched only slightly at her sides. She carefully preened the feathers back into their proper place, and then resume her pacing regimen.

By the time someone finally came for her, it was almost a relief.

Celestia stood before an ornate pair of double doors, artfully decorated in some alien style that came off as rather severe to her eyes. Beside her, two more of silent Royal Guard dutifully waited, expressions invisible behind their red masks. The trio stood before the portal in silence for some few minutes, the alicorn still working to keep her nerves down. She flicked an ear once or twice, wondering how long she would be kept waiting and how much of it was just for show.

At last, without warning, the twin doors slid smoothly open without making the faintest noise. The Royal Guard immediately stepped inside in a perfect synchronized march. Celestia followed with all the matchless grace that millennia of rulership could bestow. The area within was surprisingly small, almost homey, and rather modest as far as audience chambers for the ruler of the galaxy went. There was plush red carpeting and a few statues of uncertain origin laid out on plinths, but other than that few decorations at all.

“Ah yes,” a voice cut into her observations. “Come in, come in.”

Celestia’s eyes were drawn towards the long transparisteel window on the opposite side of the room. There, with a beautiful view of the Coruscant skyline at sunset, were a pair of chairs and a simple wooden table laid out between them. One of those the chairs was turning around, revealing the very man she’d come to meet.

Emperor Palpatine was… somewhat disappointing. For the absolute ruler of a healthy majority of the galaxy, the old man sitting before her was rather plain. Clothed in a simple hooded black robe and still bearing the brutal facial scars of the supposed Jedi attack, the Emperor lacked the ethereal majesty of Equestria’s rulers or even the awe-inspiring darkness of Sombra or Tirek. Celestia had seen holograms of the man, of course, but on some level she realized that she had still expected to find his presence a bit more overwhelming.

“You would be… Governor Celestia of Equus, would you not?” Palpatine said in a polite tone.

“Yes, your Majesty,” Celestia bowed her head, perhaps a little lower than protocol dictated. The doors behind her sealed shut, the Royal Guard standing off to either side.

“You may rise,” said the Emperor, and the princess did so. “I received your petition some time ago. I regret that it has taken me so long to find time to address it.”

“Think nothing of it, your highness. This is a very large galaxy, and we are but one small planet in it. So soon after the war, it is hardly surprising that many urgent matters should find their way to your attention.”

“Quite,” he replied. “Come, sit, I would speak with you briefly.”

Celestia blinked. “Of course.” She walked gingerly towards the empty chair, reluctant to believe her own eyes. This struck her as the type of audience she might try to give.

Palpatine watched quietly as the alicorn struggled a little to adjust to a chair designed for humanoids, seemingly unperturbed by the quadruped’s difficulty. After she managed to take a seat, he began speaking again.

“The last we spoke, I believe, was during the war?”

“Correct, your highness,” Celestia answered.

“Right after General Grievous’ terrible attack on your planet, was it not?”

“Indeed,” she nodded, impressed with his memory.

“Your people suffered terribly for their attempts to aid the Republic,” Palpatine sounded a little sad. “And in the aftermath you were admitted to the Republic on an emergency basis, subsequently reorganized into a full system of the Galactic Empire. That, until not so long ago, was the last I had heard of your planet.”

Celestia remained quiet but nodded along respectfully. It was just as she had suspected.

“When I reviewed your situation some few days ago, it struck me that it seems that you are being treated unfairly.”

The princess barely managed to keep her jaw from dropping.

“Oh yes,” Palpatine nodded sympathetically, “I read the reports. Your planet in ruins, your people on the brink of starvation, strife and discontent abounding on your world. And in the midst of all of that the Empire demands extortionate taxes without giving any assistance in their collection.”

Celestia was struggling not to say anything or to smile. This was by far the most sympathetic and least imperious hearing she’d been given in all the years she’d been Governor! She opted just to continue nodding.

“While I am afraid our ability to immediately increase our aid in the rebuilding of your world is very limited, I can make one firm commitment to you as a loyal subject of the Empire. As of one and half standard hours ago, the quotas on your planet’s resources have been reduced to half of what they were.”

“I…” Celestia felt her eyes watering a little as she struggled to find words. “T-Thank you.”

This was good news on a level she had never expected. To see the burdens on the backs of her poor little ponies reduced at all would have been a blessing, to see them cut in half was a veritable miracle. There was so much good that could be done for Equestria with the freed resources, so many troops that could be brought home to their families without delay.

“Your people have given so much of their blood to our cause already. It was the least I could do.”

Celestia couldn’t quite stop a teardrop from trickling down her cheek. Palpatine smiled.

“Now then,” he continued. “Time is short, and we must move on to the matter at hand. This sister of yours. Tell me everything.”

25: A Royal Meeting

“My sister is Princess Luna of Equestria,” Celestia began in an even tone after blinking a few more tears from her eyes. “My co-ruler and current deputy in my capacity as Imperial Governor. Several months ago, she was taken from Equus by force by the Inquisitor Indra’Ciasuera’Nethelan without warning or explanation. When I attempted to reason with her, I was directed to Darth Vader as the source of her orders. When I contacted him I was strangled almost to death as a “warning” and told to let the matter drop. I instead opted to petition your majesty for assistance. I came here in the hopes you might be willing to have my sister returned to me.”

Palpatine was sitting back in his chair, hands on the armrests and face neutral but interested.

“One of Lord Vader’s men took her away?” the Emperor repeated, frowning a little. “Well, that does complicate matters somewhat. In any case, it was quite brave of you to even attempt to speak with him. Not many have such courage.”

“I love my sister dearly.”

“Even more dearly than your own life, it would seem.”

Celestia nodded somberly.

“An… admirable quality in a sibling,” Palpatine smiled faintly. “But I’m afraid you must understand that this puts me in a somewhat difficult position.”

Celestia frowned. “How so, your highness? Is Lord Vader not subordinate to you?”

“In name, yes,” he conceded. “But as any experienced political leader knows, the formal chains of command do not quite always reflect all the subtle realities of the situation. Darth Vader is something of a necessity to the Empire.”

The princess held her tongue, waiting for him to continue.

“You see, in these troubled times a firm hand is necessary to keep the peace on more levels than one. Lord Vader is important to projecting a firm image of the Empire’s iron will to many of the more unruly sectors of the galaxy. It is vital that we make it clear that the likes of the Secession Crisis leading to the Clone Wars will never again be allowed to happen. Hence the need for some of the more exaggerated rumors concerning the man.”

Celestia could certainly understand that line of reasoning, though from what she had seen she would not call the rumors around Darth Vader exaggerated.

“I am, for obvious reasons, somewhat limited in my ability to personally project such strength.” Palpatine smiled in a slightly self-deprecating manner.

The alicorn continued to hold her tongue, though she certainly got the meaning. She was personally much more powerful than a scarred elderly man. Certainly Vader’s presence was considerably more overwhelming on an instinctive level.

“But not only that,” Palpatine continued. “There is also another reason for the unpleasant necessity of Vader. With the treachery of the Jedi and their scattering across the galaxy, we have disposed of an open foe for a thousand tiny foes in hiding. They possess mysterious powers comparable to your own and far greater experience in underhanded dealing. They can move about, unseen and unnoticeable, plotting and undermining the stability of the Empire. Even our most competent men can struggle against the supernatural trails they can weave. And I can personally attest to their ability to assassinate their foes.”

The Emperor gestured to his scarred face. Celestia nodded sympathetically.

“To ensure that any such plots against the Empire or myself come to naught, it is necessary to employ beings with similar abilities in a limited capacity. That is where Vader and his Inquisitors come in. They have been key to the location and capture of several prominent Jedi fugitives from justice, far more so than any other branch of Imperial law enforcement. For the good of the Empire, I cannot spare them.”

“But, must my sister be involved?” Celestia asked. “She is crippled, and needed back on Equus. She is no Jedi, nor is she a sympathizer. I swear to you on my life and honor, Luna is innocent of any wrongdoing.”

“And I believe you.” Palpatine nodded, sympathy evident on his face. “But the problem is: Vader is completely aware of everything I just told you. He knows that he is a necessity, and is an able enough leader to use that to his advantage. His Inquisitors do have certain privileges when it comes to recruitment practices that are… less than savory. Technically, he does have the right to do as he did in drafting her. What talent he saw I cannot guess, not being sensitive to such matters myself. Whatever the case, in these trying times I quite frankly do not wish to embroil myself in a crude turf struggle with Lord Vader over the fate of one when the futures of countless billions are at stake.”

Celestia’s heart fell. Had the Emperor really called her all this way just to deny her and with gentle words try to soothe away the loss of her sister? Would he simply end it here and send her home empty-hooved?

“I understand that these words must be hard for you to hear. Believe me, as a man who lost his own family at a young age, I sincerely sympathize.” Palpatine looked down slightly. “But can I truly in good conscience create serious friction between myself and a key element of the Empire’s stability during such a trying period? What if I do order Vader to hand over your sister, and he simply refuses? What then? He has substantial followings among the military, and the Stormtrooper Corps in particular. It could be the makings of a major political crisis, one that the Empire can scarcely afford.”

Celestia felt a lump rising in her throat. Was he saying Lulu was truly gone forever, and nothing she could say would change that? “There is nothing we could do to change your mind?” she asked. “Nothing at all? I know your scientists were interested in our magical traditions. I have firsthand knowledge of these stretching back for millennia. I would be more than happy to share what I know in exchange for sister. Surely our arts would be more valuable to your Empire than one additional Inquisitor.”

“I am uncertain of the precise applicability of this magic of yours to the practical politics of the galaxy. I hate to bring up memories that must surely be traumatic for you, but your arts proved insufficient to deal with a modern army when General Grievous attacked- wait…” Palpatine cut himself off, looking dead into Celestia’s eyes. “You said you had firsthand knowledge of magic stretching back millennia. You do mean in galactic standard years, correct?”

“I do, your majesty,” Celestia confirmed, managing with effort to keep her tone level and eyes dry.

“How is that possible?” asked the Emperor. “How old are you?”

“In galactic standard years I am thirty-six thousand eight hundred and seventy-four years old as of thirteen days ago.”

Palpatine blinked, seeming stunned. He sat back in chair, hand on his chin, and for a moment was silent. Celestia resisted the urge to interrupt his thought processes, feeling a surge of hope again.

“How long does your species live, exactly?” he asked after the brief pause.

“As far as has ever been discovered there are no natural limitations on alicorn lifespan,” Celestia answered, completely honestly. “There has never been recorded case of an alicorn dying of sickness or old age.”

“Complete biological immortality…” Palpatine mused in a subdued tone. “The holy grail of modern medicine, sought after for ages by more doctors and sorcerers and madmen than can be counted. A fairy tale believed only by the desperate and the delusional. To think that all the time it was real, sitting undiscovered on an obscure planet in the depths of the Unknown Regions…”

“I’m not certain how relevant it is, your highness. Immortality is restricted to the alicorn race – ordinary ponies are born, live, and die as any other species does.”

“Still… I suppose in your long life you’ve seen your share of succession crises?”

“Correct,” Celestia answered.

“I’m sure that it has crossed your mind that I am old and feeble, well past the prime of my life.”

The alicorn said nothing, merely continued to listen.

“Don’t be shy about it, Governor. You and I can both see that I’m an old man ruling over a vast Empire with no children or other clear heir. I’ve dedicated my life to ensuring the peace and stability of the galaxy. Nothing would sadden me more than to see my untimely death throw it all back into the chaos we’ve just emerged from.”

Palpatine sat back into his chair, folding his hands together and clasping the fingers in a thoughtful pose. He stared out the window at the last embers of the dying sunlight as countless speeders zipped by through the air. Celestia simply stared at him.

“Perhaps I can help you, Governor,” said the Emperor after a long silence. “If, that is, you might help me.”

26: Decision Points

“Your majesty?” Celestia spoke up again, softly intruding on his musing.

“Yes, Governor?” Palpatine continued staring out the window as the Coruscant night came into its full bloom. “What is it?”

This part was tricky. It wasn’t as though Celestia wouldn’t trade the secret of immortality for the safety of her sister and her planet. It was that she honestly didn’t have one. She and her sister were simply born the way. And the ascension to alicorn was an extremely rare and special thing, requiring a unique conflux of destiny, magic, force of personality, and the power of harmony itself. She couldn’t trigger such a change at will in a pony. What the effect of a comparable event on a human would be, she honestly did not know.

But exactly to make that clear? To offer what she couldn’t give would only lead to disaster, but on the other hoof this might well be the only opportunity she had to get Lulu back.

“My abilities in this matter are rather limited.” She chose her words carefully. “It is certainly true that to the best of my knowledge I am immortal. I would be more than happy to share with you all I know of the longevity of my subspecies, but I am afraid I must disclose that I cannot trigger this state in other beings at will.”

Palpatine, to her surprise, simply chuckled.

“Well, I should think not,” the Emperor said. “If you had such power over life and death, would you not have used it when General Grievous attacked? Would you not have restored your sister from this “crippling” you spoke of? If you could simply bestow immortality at will, could you not in some senses be called a god? I do not that think a god would require my aid to deal with Lord Vader.”

Celestia kept her face neutral.

“No, Governor,” Palpatine shook his head. “I do not expect that you can simply wave some magic wand and create endless life. The universe is seldom so generous.”

“In that case, what did your majesty have in mind when you requested my assistance?”

“First, tell me this: what do you know of yourself? Your unprecedented lifespan has surely offered you many opportunities for self-examination.”

“Of body, or of soul?” Celestia asked.

“The soul’s existence is considered by some to be an open question,” the Emperor mused. “But we will say both.”

“Well, as I mentioned previously I am presently thirty-six thousand eight hundred and seventy-four galactic standard years old. I was born as an alicorn those many millennia ago.”

“Simply born ageless and undying,” Palpatine muttered. “What would Plagueis think?”

“Who, your highness?”

“An old acquaintance, since passed. Please, do continue.”

“Of course. While I was born with my wings and horn, for the first two decades of my life I aged much as ordinary ponies do. It was in my twenty-second year of life that my aging process diverged sharply. From that year onwards rather than continue the ordinary metabolic processes of young adulthood I simply began to grow infinitesimally taller every years for the next several decades, my magical power growing likewise. When I was one hundred and sixty-six my mane changed from a light pink to the rainbow you see before you, and over the course of the next year it started to flow. During this time I continued to grow taller and taller by miniscule amounts, until I was three hundred and twelve years of age whereupon I fully became the physical pony your majesty sees. From that day forth my body effectively entered stasis. Insofar as any test medical or magical has ever been able to determine, not a single piece of my body has experienced any manner of change in form or efficiency. I was then as I am now.”

“What if you are injured?”

“On those rare occasions my body simply regenerates to the exact same state it was prior in a short time. No scarring, no blemishes, no drop in productivity. The apparent exception is the loss of the horn, the source and focus for the magic of unicorns and alicorns. I have never experienced it, but my sister lost hers to Grievous years ago and it has yet to regenerate.”

“Has she then begun to age once more?”

“No,” Celestia shook her head. “There has been no apparent effect on her immortality.”

“Then perhaps it shall return to her in due time. But that does answer some questions and raise more." Palpatine paused. "Now, tell me of your soul.”

“That… is a rather vague topic, your majesty. What do you wish me to tell?”

“For the sake of time, let us be immediately relevant. Do you believe that the state of your soul to be related to your aging process?”

“No,” Celestia shook her head. “My sister once fell under darker influences that even warped her body, but her immortality was unaffected. She did not age, though a thousand years passed.”

Palpatine raised an eyebrow.

“She went mad for a time. Anger and jealousy and my own neglect drove her towards darker sources of magic. She abandoned her station and her own name out of hatred, but she remained as unaged and eternal as she ever was.”

“Interesting,” the Emperor said. “Very interesting. I think that will do for now.”

“Yes, your majesty.”

“Now then, I believe that you wished to know the terms of this… mutual agreement I am proposing?”

Celestia nodded.

“Very well. I propose the following: I will do everything in my power to see that your sister, Princess Luna of Equestria, is discharged from the Inquisition and Lord Vader’s employ as swiftly as possible and returned to your planet immediately. In return, you will remain here in the company of my personal medical staff and researchers. We will do a comprehensive study of our own, and see whether we might discover the origins of this spark of immortality you possess.”

“Many on my world have tried.”

“On your world, Governor. Not here. You will stay until such time as we have either found what we seek or else are satisfied that we shall not find it. Do find this arrangement agreeable?”

The way he had slipped so easily into this topic made Celestia uneasy. But to get Lulu back safe and sound?

“I do.”

Meanwhile, on a another part of Coruscant hundreds of miles away and hundreds of levels down the vast cityscape, Twilight stood on a balcony, silently overlooking the speeder traffic zooming by.

It really was incredible. Billions upon billions of beings from countless worlds packed into skyscrapers running from the planet’s crust to its upper atmosphere. In just the few minutes she had been watching the comparatively light traffic, the number of beings that had zoomed by in their flyers dwarfed Ponyville’s pre-war population by orders of magnitude. Feeding this world must be a nightmare. Finding a single being who wished to be anonymous here? Even more daunting. But someone, somewhere knew where the precious Sith treasures had gone. Twilight didn’t know much about them, but if the likes of Darth Vader wanted these things that was reason enough to keep them from him.

“Hey,” a voice from the balcony’s worn door cut into her thoughts. “We’ve got a fix. You ready to do your job, slicer?”

“You know it.”

Far away, on a landing pad in a restricted section of the cityscape, a light shop was touching down atop a great skyscraper. Almost the moment the Starry Night’s ramp touched the ground Luna’s hooves were on it, followed closely by the lockstep march of Imperial Stormtroopers. The alicorn looked at blazing cityscape through slit eyes, ruffling her wings irritably. The cold wind whipped past her, sending her mane and tail flying wildly about, but she did not react. Her eyes drifted in the direction of the Imperial Palace. They flared.

“Come,” she said to the men filing off behind her. “There is work to be done.”

27: A New Situation

By the time Princess Celestia left her audience with the Emperor several minutes later, she felt more hopefully optimistic than she had in quite some time. Yes, her stay on Coruscant would have to be prolonged, but in exchange she would bring much-needed relief to her ponies and Lulu could go home again. It was well worth the price whether she had to spend a week or a decade, in her opinion. It was a benefit of having all the time in the world, she supposed.

The red-robed Royal Guard did not lead her back to the room she had waited in, nor to the ship that she had arrived on. Instead, the Emperor’s silent protectors ferried her down a number of twisting passages to a speeder bay, and from there to a waiting airspeeder with a pilot in the helmeted uniform of the Imperial Pilot Corps.

“What of the honor guard I brought with me?” Celestia asked before stepping in. “I haven’t seen them in some time.”

“They will be taken care of,” one of the Royal Guard answered. “They will be joining you in your new accommodations once your preliminary medical examination is complete.”

“I see. Please convey my thanks to his majesty for his hospitality.”

The faceless guard nodded slightly, and Celestia stepped into the airspeeder. It took off without delay, zooming quickly through the Coruscanti night via exclusive airlanes that cut through some of the most restricted territory on the entire planet. Celestia at first attempted to make conversation, but when he proved unresponsive opted to spend her time composing a brief message to her niece and nephew informing them of the planet’s much-reduced burden, as well as her prolonged absence. A full holo-call to explain the whole thing in more detail would simply have to wait until later. Until she or Luna returned home, they were in charge.

The airspeeder ride was brief enough, giving the alicorn only a short look at the galactic capital’s nightlife. Even so, she could see endless gaudy lights and advertisements for every possible destination or service interspersed with proclamations of Imperial glory and military recruitment drives. Thousands upon thousands of speeders zipped along in every direction in tightly organized lanes. The crowds along the many walkways spanning the skyscrapers could best be described as an endless river, reminding Celestia of swarms of millions of blind ants searching for food.

It didn’t take long for the speeder’s destination to come into view: a tall, dark spire towering over even the surrounding cityscape. Seeming cordoned off from the surrounding traffic, there were no other vehicles in the sky as they made their approach to one of the several landing pads jutting out near the spire’s peak. As the airspeeder began its landing approach, Celestia noted that the landing pad was not very wide and lacked any form of railing – this would be exceedingly dangerous if she didn’t have wings.

The alicorn had little time to muse on hazardous architecture, because the airspeeder’s land was as quick and efficient as the rest of the trip. When the door at her side slid smoothly open, the princess was mildly surprised to find as her welcoming party not scientists or armored guards, but a single grey, bipedal droid bristling with strange attachment arms. A blank metal face broken only by a half-dozen glowing, sterile blue photorecptors of varying sizing stared unblinkingly at her.

“Greetings, Governor Celestia,” said the droid in a mild, polite tone. “I am 11-4D, medical assistant to his majesty Emperor Palpatine. I welcome you to the Emperor Palpatine Surgical Reconstruction Center.”

Celestia resisted the urge to raise an eyebrow at the name. The Emperor had been the one official in the Empire to treat her as anything more than a lackey or a resource to be exploited. She could afford to allow him a bit of egotism.

“I am pleased to make your acquaintance,” she said.

“I will be performing your preliminary medical examination this evening,” 11-4D continued. “This is simply an opportunity to examine your body structure and take a few samples for analysis before you adjourn to your quarters elsewhere on Imperial Center.”

Celestia had been through more medical exams than even she could remember. What was one more?

“If you please, Governor, follow me.”

Despite the whipping winds, the droid guided the alicorn smoothly to an entrance that opened up at their approach. As they entered, Celestia sized up the interior and decided that she didn’t much like what she saw. It was too dark, in the solar alicorn’s opinion, and what light existed was white and sterile, unpleasantly devoid of warmth. The walls were gray and angled, making it feel more like a prison in some senses than a place of healing. Unsurprisingly, the only other inhabitants they passed were grey and black medical droids of varying models. This place was too lifeless – in more ways than one – for her liking,

11-4D led Celestia down a corridor and into a smaller, rounded chamber much brighter than the others. The blisteringly white room was filled with databanks and control panels surrounding a circular raised platform in the center, which itself was surrounded by a veritable army of strange devices dangling from arms attached to the ceiling.

“Stand in the center of the platform, if you please.”

Celestia complied, eying the dizzying array of instruments slowly beginning to dancing around her as she did so.

“Be still and silent for a few moments while I take readings of your physiology,” 11-4D instructed.

The alicorn all but froze in place as the strangely rhythmic dance intensified around her. With the only movement coming from the slight rise and fall of her chest, she watched as one arm after another slowly circled her, probing in and out seemingly at random but never quite so much as the brushing the tips of her fur. The droid remained silent behind a control panel, occasionally reaching one of its more normal arms down to adjust something but never taking its gaze from the princess. It took several minutes before it spoke again.

“It seems that there is a problem with our sensors.”

“How so?” Celestia glanced up at the array. “They look to be in fine working order from here.”

“The readings we are receiving in this are so far outside the biological norm as to be effectively impossible. For instance, at present the data received indicate that there literally zero cells in your body undergoing mitosis or cytokinesis – that is, out of trillions, there are no cells dividing inside of you at all.”

“I know what those terms mean. I was there when they were first developed. And I do not believe that is abnormal in my case.”

“With due respect, Governor, that is clearly impossible. No biological organism can long survive without adequate levels of cell reproduction.”

“Unless of course their cells do not die.” Celestia pointed out. “My body has maintained itself in this exact shape and size since millennia before the very foundation of the Galactic Republic. While I have never possessed the means to do an exact cell count, it would be logical to assume that the number has remained consistent the entire time.”

11-4D’s photorecptors lacked eyelids with which to blink, but the way the droid cocked its head served the same purpose.

“What of injury? How would your body heal itself without the production of new cells?”

“As I explained to his majesty, my injuries always regenerate to the exact original state, without any scarring. I expect that my cells simply divide until they have replaced the exact number lost.”

“Eternal stasis, inside and out. What possible biological mechanism could result in such a thing?” the droid looked down at the collected data again. “Governor, I believe that we are almost finished for the night. But first, I wish to take samples of your blood, your tissue, and your DNA for further analysis.”

“Feel free,” said Celestia.

“Your cooperation is appreciated, Governor.”

Many thousands of miles from where Celestia underwent her testing, Twilight was taking a deep breath. Hundreds of levels beneath the surface, wrapped tightly in an armored jumpsuit, it wasn’t an easy or pleasant thing to do. The air down here had been recycled more times than could be counted and smelled of rust and rot and waste and unamenable contagion. Even her helmet’s filters could only do so much for it. The full-spectrum visor in the eyepiece was nice though.

Eight beings, dressed identically in black jumpsuits reinforced with grey armor plating, were moving into position. Helmets shielded their faces, not a trace of skin showed. Everything was anonymous and generic, purchased in cash off the grid in one of the city-world’s countless black markets. No symbols or calling cards, no identification or personal effects. They didn’t even have names in their comm chatter – Twilight was number Seven. Nothing to say where they came or who they worked for. Anonymous and utterly untraceable in the vast Coruscanti underworld.

At least, that was the hope.

Their target was the base of a Gotal black marketer by the name of Argon Urr. He specialized in dealing with sensitive objects for people who wished to remain anonymous. According to intelligence, Vader’s stolen Sith relics had passed through him not days ago to unknown buyer. He wasn’t supposed to have records of his clients and certainly claimed that he didn’t. But Twilight was good with computer systems. Very good – they were pleasingly logical. Good enough to have cracked his security system. Good enough to have seen that the meticulous businessman kept quite extensive records in old-fashioned writing, right where no slicer could get at them.

The mission was as simple as one could hope for: disable the guards, disable security, get in, grab what they needed, and get out. No one seriously hurt, nothing to trace them buy. And Ur could hardly warn the client without admitting to betraying their trust. Twilight tapped the small computer in her hand, bringing up the sliced feed from Ur’s building.

“One, Two, and Three, you in position?” she muttered into her comlink.

“Affirmative.”

“Four, Five, and Six?”

“We’re here.”

“Eight, we all clear?”

“Nothing but the usual scum so far as I can see.”

Twilight was easily the best slicer in the group and – without openly using magic – just an average combatant. With the video feed stolen from inside Ur’s hideout, she could see just about anyone inside or in the immediate vicinity. Her hanging back and directing the others made the most sense. There were only three bored, unsuspecting guards right now in any case.

“Alright Three, outer patrol’s coming up on your location.”

“Copy that.”

Twilight watched with a combination of nervous excitement and a curious sense of detachment as the one guard patrolling outside the building wandered right into the first team’s field of fire. Three bright blue rings sprung from outside the camera’s range, with only one miss. Two stun shots from secondhand E-11 blaster rifles were more than enough to lay the guard out for the next couple of hours.

Twilight switched the feed immediately. Inside, the other guard on patrol continued on, completely oblivious. But the third guard, the one actually monitoring the video feed, sat up with a start. He immediately went for the silent alarm on his desk that would send for a backup security team – or would have, if Twilight hadn’t already set it to continuously send the all clear signal no matter how many times the button was pressed. Completely unaware of this, the man went for his comlink and gun. The guard patrolling the hallways immediately stiffened.

“Alright, they’re riled up. Both teams move in, main entrances. Nice and slow.”

Almost as soon as six armed and armored figures showed up on the computer, the guard behind the video monitors started hastily snapping into his comlink. Just as predicted, he was panicking about being outnumbered three to one and calling the other active guard to the safest place he could think of – his blast door equipped office. It seemed like the other fellow agreed with him, because he did a pretty good jog back that way. Both of them took up firing positions behind the open portal, clearly intending to hold out for reinforcements they thought were coming.

Twilight couldn’t help but smile at how painless they were making this. With a few taps of her finger, Ur’s men learned the same lesson the Imperials had on Serenno. Blast doors can keep someone in just as well as they can keep them out.

“They fell for it,” she commed. “Guards are both in the security office with the only door on full override. They aren’t going anywhere short of a fusion torch. Time to move in and get the goods.”

With a few more finger taps, the front and back entrances simply slid open in front of the two teams. They had charges just in case, of course, but the less disturbance the better. Two and Three even dragged the unconscious body of the outer patrolman inside, laying him out in a hall beyond immediate notice.

From there, it was a simple matter for Twilight to direct both teams through the small building, past the guards pounding on the blast door, and straight to the boss’s office. There was no external connection there – Ur was too old-fashioned or paranoid for that – so they blasted the door open with a small explosive charge. The alicorn sat back and smiled as they began rooting through the Gotal’s files, looking for just the right bit of information. Just a minute more and they’d know all he knew of this mystery buyer.

Ten picked that moment to chime in.

“We’ve got Imps headed this way, moving fast,” his voice hissed. “And not just Imps – Stormtroopers!”

28: A New Encounter

Princess Luna crept slowly through the Coruscanti underworld, hating every minute of it. This place might have lacked the sheer malevolence of Korriban, but it was utterly disgusting to her. There was nothing green here, no wholesome life of any kind. No clear night sky overhead, no moon bathing the planet in gentle white light. Instead, there was only the unnatural press of a trillion beings from a hundred thousand worlds crammed into layer after unnatural layer of soulless, overpopulated grey metropolis. This place stank of used chemicals, rusted durasteel, half-rotten flesh, and necrosis.

Through the Force she could feel even the rot inside the people here – they were apathetic towards anything but their petty little lives, caring nothing for others or the greater good. They plotted and schemed and lied and murdered one another for trifles, petty trinkets and chemical stimulants. She witnessed a body simply lying slumped by a building, clearly hours old and completely ignored by the thousands of beings who shuffled past it, averting their eyes the whole time.

She hated them all.

Still, the press of bodies had its advantages. On other worlds she might have stood out, here she was just one more of a thousand exotic and rarely-seen species crawling miserably through the muck. She barely rated a passing glance, and that was before she did as Dooku had taught her to do. Wrapping herself in a mantle of the dark side, she sent out a continuous but subtle pulse into the minds of all around her, suggesting that she was unimportant, no one, certainly not worth the time to look at further. The trick had its limitations – it didn’t work on droids or through mechanical devices – but against these weak-minded alien scum like those around her it was the perfect tool.

Her Stormtroopers, per her direction, were taking the fastest and most direct route from their descent point to this Argon Ur’s primary dealing site. He was the intermediary the pirates had sold Vader’s stolen treasures through, and she would wring the answers from him or anyone else she found there. But first, her white-armored troopers would run down the main streets and right up to the front entrance, drawing all attention to themselves. She was making her away around the back, cloaked in shadow and a good distance from the actual building.

“Mistress,” the comm-bead inside her ear sounded. “The squad is almost in position. Rounding the corner now.”

“Acknowledged,” the alicorn responded. “Set up out front and hold. Shout for Ur to surrender himself into Imperial custody and threaten to break down his door if he doesn’t.”

“At once,” the Stormtrooper signed off.

Luna gave a satisfied snort. It felt good to be giving orders again and having them obeyed. Especially after so long as little more than a slave the Empire and the late Inquisitor.

She didn’t expect the black marketer or whatever proxy was there at the moment to actually surrender. One didn’t deal in such valuable stolen commodities by giving oneself up whenever one was asked. But it made for a heart-racing show, sure to send any smuggler into a flight of panic. Whenever the building’s occupants made their inevitable attempt to escape, she was waiting for them. She’d chased tuk’ata through the Valley of the Dark Lords – running simple criminal scum down would be no challenge at all.

Luna closed her eyes and concentrated, reaching out through the Force to sense the minds of the building’s active occupants. There were eight of them, she could feel, with the usual mix of emotions one could mostly expect in this situation: confusion, fear, anger, and… urgency? The alicorn’s brow furrowed as she stretched her mind out further, trying to get a clear picture of what was going on in there. There were two clusters of beings, she realized, one of two and one of six. The two were confused and very angry, but didn’t seem afraid. The other six though… they were confused, certainly, and afraid. They were feeling a tremendous sense of urgency, but they weren’t moving much at all if she was any judge. She delved deeper into the dark side, trying to discern some sense of motivation. Why…

“A break-in.” Luna’s eyes snapped open. “It’s a break-in.”

“What was that?” a Stormtrooper’s voice sounded in her ear.

“There are intruders in that building,” the princess snapped. “They mean to steal information. Blast open the front door and move in at once!”

“Yes ma’am!”

Twilight gripped the edges of her computer so tightly her knuckles were turning white. It was bad enough when the Stormtroopers were just shouting. Now they were fixing charges to the front door.

“Get out of there!” she hissed into her comlink. “They’ll have the front entrance blown soon and there’s only one more blast door between them and you!”

“Give it a damned second!” Two snapped back. “We’ve almost got Ur’s records on the sale. I don’t fancy leaving them to Vader’s henchmen!”

“If you don’t run for it those men will be all over you! You want to take your chances with ten Imperial Stormtroopers?”

“You said there weren’t any out back, right?”

“Yeah,” Eight interjected. “And I don’t see any from here, which means they probably have snipers set up.”

“See, we’ll have to get past ‘em anyway!” Three said.

“Rather we have something to show for it!” Two finished the thought. “You’re the slicer whiz, can’t you slow them down?”

“I already sealed every door between them and you!” Twilight wrung her hands helplessly as the compound’s front entrance crackled briefly, then exploded. The white-armored Imperial troops surged through the smoking entrance, firing blindly into the front lobby. Thankfully there was no one there, but they were quickly realizing that fact.

“Then just stop babbling and let us work! Unless you can wave your hands and conjure some magic shield around us you’ve done your part already!”

The next few seconds were positively painful to watch. The Stormtroopers quickly fanned out in several directions, with several going down multiple side halls with blasters at the ready. The majority, however, continued straight onwards, directly back towards Ur’s office. She switched the feed to said office, not even feeling much better when Two pulled a small stack of flimsiplast sheets from one of them many vast stacks, holding them up triumphantly. She switched back over, and the Stormtroopers were planting charges on the blast door before them.

“You’ve got what we need, now move!” Twilight urged. “The last door will be down in seconds!”

This time, the grey-armored men listened to her. Flimsiplast sheets in hand they ran back out the demolished office door, out the reception room, down the secondary hallway, and back into the main corridor to the back entrance. Without breaking stride all six veered right and sprinted for rear exit, which slid open for them again at Twilight’s transmitted command. They were about halfway there when the door behind them was demolished.

Blaster fire poured through the portal almost immediately, the Stormtroopers firing half-blind through all the smoke. The rebel team continued to run, not stopping even as the white-armored troops poured through, firing just as they had before. Four, bringing up the rear of the pack, took a shot in the back. He screamed and hit the floor. Before anyone had a chance to do anything about it, half a dozen more blaster bolts riddled his body. Twilight chocked back a sob.

Six and Two, now the closest to the Imperials, pointed their weapons backwards and fired wildly as they ran. Their shots went wide, but it slowed the Stormtroopers down a bit as they ducked for cover in adjacent halls and passageways. They returned fire in measured bursts, each popping out for just a moment before darting back to minimize their target profile. Their first few shots went missed, but then one grazed the armor on Six’s thigh and exploded in a shower of sparks.

Six stumbled and fell over, and Twilight felt her heart skip a beat. Two pivoted on the spot, firing with one hand while his other went to his belt. He grabbed a sphere on his belt and hurled it towards the troopers as hard as he could. A moment later, he took a blaster bolt to the face. Even while Two’s corpse hit the floor, the other end of the hallway was consumed in fire as the thermal detonator exploded. Six scrambled away, shielding his face against the heat and shrapnel. Two of Twilight’s camera feeds went dead.

It was just about then that Three, the man in the lead, crossed the building’s threshold into the street. Bent double and blaster in hand, he was frantically looking up and around, clearly trying to spot Imperial snipers on the rooftops.

He never saw the lightsaber coming.

A spinning red blade hurled in from somewhere beyond the cameras’ field of view, slicing through both of Three’s legs just below the knee. He tumbled to the earth, writhing wildly and kicking out with his smoking stumps. Over the comm channel, Twilight could hear every wailing sob.

One and Five were out the door almost immediately behind Three, and both raised their blasters. Before they could get so much as a single shot off, however, something invisible slammed the both of them back against the sides of the building. This was immediately followed up by a dozen bolts of crackling blue lightning, which caught both troopers and Three incidentally. After a few seconds of that, both men collapsed – all three were smoking.

“Six, do you read me?” Twilight commed frantically. “One, Three, and Five are down! There’s a Force wielder of some kind outside the back!”

“Damn it all to hell!” the man swore, just clambering back to his feet.

“I’m going to seal the rear exit to buy you some time!” Twilight was already furiously tapping at her miniature computer, and a moment later the blast door sealed itself shut. “There’s an auxiliary hall two doors down to your left! If you take it you should be able to bypass the Stormtroopers and make it to the front entrance!””

“If the bucketheads are even stupider than they look, maybe!” Six snapped at her. “I got a better idea!”

On her screen, Twilight saw Six making not for the entrance she’d pointed out, but for the still-smoking corpse of Two. He knelt quickly beside the dead man, turning him over and reaching a hand into Two’s pack.

“What are you doing?!” Twilight screamed at him.

“If they’ve got a Force witch I’m not getting out of here alive,” Six was panting, throwing several items aside hastily. “But maybe this can still be worth – aha!”

The man pulled a small stack of flimsiplast sheets from his dead comrade’s pack, then immediately threw them all over the floor. Some landed face-up with the Aurebesh writing visible, others face-down. The latter, Six rapidly started grabbing and flipping face-up where Twilight could see them. A blaster bolt whizzed over his back.

“Dammit!” he swore, clumsily returning fire with one hand while frantically flipping sheets over with the other.

“Stop!” Twilight urged, tears in her eyes. “Run!”

“Pay attention you stupid egghead!” he snarled. “I’m getting these papers right where you can take the recordings right back to the rest!” He snapped off three blaster shots. “Make sure we meant something here!”

The fire coming from opposite end of the hallway intensified, red bolts striking the ground around Six and setting at least one flimsiplast document on fire.

“You did all you could! Just get out!”

A red lightsaber blade burst through the exterior blast door, rapidly beginning to cut out a circle in the thick metal.

“Damn it all Seven I swear if you screw this up I will haunt you for the rest of–”

A blaster shot to the throat ended that thought. Two more to the abdomen ended the rest of him.

Underneath her own helmet, Twilight screamed. She reached out a hand as tears flowed down her face, grasping at the small screen in front of her as if she could magically reach out and resurrect the dead men by sheer force of will. The lightsaber finished its cut and a large chunk of blast door was thrown inwards, but she barely paid attention.

She should have been in there! She should have fought! She had fought against Tirek himself, her magic would have been more than a match for anything this Force-user or their flunkies could have thrown at them. But she wasn’t, and now six good men were dead for it! She would have pulled out her hair in that moment if it hadn’t been sealed in her helmet.

“Seven?” Eight interrupted her. “We’ve gotta go. Now.”

“T-They’re all dead…” Twilight choked a little.

“And we’ll be joining them if the Empire figures out there are more of us hanging around.”

Twilight swallowed. It was a very good point. At the very least they could make sure that they still got the information that the rest of the team had died for. And maybe, the idea came to her, a little bit more. She brought up he computer again, adjusting the video feed as she turned the camera on the advancing figure with the red lightsaber. Her jaw dropped.

“Princess Luna?!”

Meanwhile, in a very different part of Coruscant, Princess Celestia was stepping out of an airspeeder one more time for the night. This time, it was on a private landing garage in what looked to be a rather upscale apartment complex. There were four figures waiting for her – her two unicorn honor guards, and two Imperial Stormtroopers. All four saluted. Celestia, feeling drained but optimistic, managed to return it.

“Right this way, ma’am,” said one of the Imperial troopers. “His majesty has arranged for you to stay in royal suite for the duration of your stay here.”

Celestia and the two unicorns sniggered at the unintentional pun. The trooper just cocked his head.

“Riiight…” he turned, beckoning. “If the Governor would kindly follow me.”

All five set out at a brisk pace, with the two humans leading the way.

“Be of good cheer, my little ponies,” Celestia whispered to her two guards. “I think the day went rather well.”

29: The Princess and the Princess

“So… not one of you,” Luna addressed her remaining Stormtroopers. “Had the presence of mind to take one of these intruders alive?”

Five white-armored troops stood at attention before her, quiet as could be. Three had perished from the thermal detonator, while two more were injured but stable. None of them said anything to the alicorn.

“So we know absolutely nothing about who was here and why!” Luna hissed. “It could have been anyone, for any reason! Another criminal launching a raid! Our target, covering their tracks! Some other agency within the Imperial government! Someone else going after our target! We don’t know!” She seized a helmet on one of slain men, ripping it off with telekinesis. “I have no idea who this is.” She propped up the man’s face so everyone could see. “Do any of you?”

Again, the Stormtroopers chose to remain silent.

“Ugh,” Luna rubbed a temple with one hoof. “Do I have to do all the thinking around here? Fine, next time we fight an unknown opponent, try and take one of them alive for questioning.”

“Yes ma’am” the men saluted.

Luna continued rubbing her head. This not gone as planned. She hadn’t meant to kill the man she disabled outside, the lightning had simply forked to him of its own accord as if eager to murder. She needed to exert tighter control over the power in future. The alicorn didn’t much care about the deaths of Vader’s henchmen, but half of her contingent was dead or disabled, and that made things harder. Then there was the mystery of the papers scattered all over the floor, and one man had apparently neglected to flee and spent the last moments of his life ruffling… through… them…

Luna looked up, blue eyes scanning the ceiling. There, tucked away in a small cubbyhole about halfway down the halfway: a small camera with an excellent view of the area.

“You idiots!” she snarled at Vader’s minions. “We’re being watched!”

The Stormtroopers followed her gaze upwards, helmets turning slowly. About half a second later, they barraged the camera with red blaster bolts and it exploded.

“Oh for crying out loud…” Luna reached out with the Force, focusing her frustration into anger and anger into power, searching for a connection. She felt the presence of hundreds of alien scum in vicinity, but tuned them out as best she could. She was looking for someone with just the right mix of… aha!

“Lock down the perimeter,” Luna ordered her men. “And see to your wounded. I will return shortly. Oh, and get me a scan of those papers the thieves were after.”

Luna didn’t bother watching as her men hurried to obey her wishes, simply turning and walking cleanly through the hole she’d cut in the back door. Once outside, she burst into a run, allowing the dark side of the Force the guide her steps and make them faster. As she sprinted, lightsaber at her side, there was just one small nagging question.

Why did this presence feel vaguely familiar?

Twilight watched the scene with horror and incredulity. This wasn’t right. It couldn’t be! Princess Luna had been abducted from Equestria months ago, and nopony had seen hide or hair of the deep blue alicorn ever since. This had to be some kind of trick, some illusion or imposter.

But no, her logical mind wouldn’t allow for such a comforting delusion. From the camera’s angle she could clearly make out Celestia’s sister’s facial and cutie mark, hear her voice snapping at the same Stormtroopers that had killed her friends. Twilight watched with mouth agape as the elder alicorn – somehow wielding telekinesis without a horn – held up one of her dead comrades and used him as a prop to chide the Imperial soldiers with. Her computer shook in her hands.

“Who’s Princess Luna?” Eight’s voice in the comm interrupted her thoughts. “What’s going down there?’

“A F-Force wielder,” Twilight lied a little shakily. “I’ve h-heard of her before. She’s here! She killed th-them! She killed them!”

“If she’s a Force-user working for the Empire, of course she did! What were you expecting?”

Twilight didn’t answer. She instead stared down at her wobbling computer screen as her mentor’s sister seemed to stare right up at the camera with piercing blue eyes. She felt like Luna could see right through it, see her. A second later, red bolts filled the screen and the feed was lost.

“Seven? Seven?! Answer me! What’s going on down there?”

“She knows.” Twilight was already tapping other functions on her screen, half by instinct. “She saw the camera and figured out I was watching. I’m sending the entire recording to your datapad. Take it and run – we have to split up now!”

“If there’s a dark-sider after us, I agree.” Twilight could hear Eight already clambering down from his high lookout point. “If I don’t make it back, get that information back to command.”

“The same for you,” Twilight replied.

“Force be with you.”

“And you.”

Twilight deactivated her computer, tossed it into her pack, turned, and ran for her life.

Luna immersed herself in the currents of the dark side as she galloped. Terror, rage, hatred – this place was rich with all three, and they feed her strength the more she opened herself to them. Her hooves moved faster than they had any right to in nature, guiding her down several streets, through an alleyway, and directly towards another building some few blocks from Ur’s compound.

Luna didn’t slow down for a moment, reaching out instead with the Force. Channeling all her frustration from the night, she unleashed a telekinetic shockwave that outright tore the building’s front door from its hinges. The durasteel plate flew backwards as oversized projectile, conveniently scattering what few beings were in the cheap apartment complex’s lobby at the hour. They wisely chose to flee in terror as the princess hurdled through, little more than a blue blur. She paid it no mind.

The midnight alicorn smashed the entrance to the stairway open with a second blow from the Force, darting in and immediately looking upwards. There! A few stories above her, scrambling to get down another flight of stairs, was yet another figure in that grey armor the intruders had been wearing. This one was built more slightly than the others – probably female. It didn’t matter. This one wouldn’t get away!

With a primal cry Luna seized her lightsaber, activated it, and hurled the red blade spinning upwards in one smooth movement. The crimson blade carved a path through shoddy piping and rusty handrails, going straight for her enemy’s legs. The dark side guided its path, and the princess watched as it arced right up to the unfortunate woman and – bounced away at the last second in a purple flash.

The night princess watched incredulously as her lightsaber spun off to the side, cutting through the railing two stories down from the woman and clattering harmlessly to the floor. Her shock lasted only a moment. Summoning more power Luna called great forks of lightning into being and sent them tearing through the air. The woman above threw her arms up in front of her chest, and a magenta bubble encased her. The blue arcs of Force lightning crackled and lashed against it, but failed to do anything to the woman underneath.

Luna’s jaw dropped. This wasn’t like any Force trick she’d ever seen. It looked more like…

No, couldn’t be.

She was jolted out of her shock with the sound of blaster fire. The woman above had drawn a gun on her and opened fire with several blue ring stun blasts. Luna cursed and flung herself to the side, but not quite fast enough. One of the blue rings clipped her back left leg, and she cried out as she toppled over roughly.

Acting on pure instinct, the alicorn rolled, avoiding several follow-up shots. Without her lightsaber, she had no defense against the energy blasts save cover. She rolled underneath a section of piping and hit the wall roughly. She couldn’t move one of her legs and struggled to stand, breathing heavily. The next second, there was a purple flash directly behind her, and before the princess had a chance to turn around she took another stun blast to the back of the head.

Luna crumpled to the ground like a puppet with her strings cut, almost her entire body seizing up as her nervous system was overloaded. Lying awkwardly on the dirty floor, she could vaguely perceive the armored woman standing behind her, gun leveled at her. She couldn’t move, so she just lied there, allowing her humiliation to fuel her hate, and her hate to fuel her power. She didn’t have to wait long. The woman crept cautiously closer instead of just executing her where she lay.

“Big mistake,” Luna thought.

When the woman was all but on top of the downed alicorn, she lashed out with the power of the dark side. Invisible iron clamps seized woman’s throat and squeezed with all the desperate strength of a staving python. She dropped the gun as her hands immediately went to her neck, instinctively trying to pry what was choking her off. They clawed at nothing, while the princess poured in her power. The woman was lifted slowly off the earth, legs kicked wildly as the pressure around her neck only intensified. Just a few more seconds…

Then the woman vanished in another flash of purple, and Luna’s clamps grasped at nothing. She heard a pop in the distance, followed by heavy coughing and choked gasps for air. That was impossible! No trick of the Force enabled a human to just vanish and reappear like that. The only ones in the galaxy with the secret of teleportation were…

If Luna’s eyes could have widened at that moment, they would have.

Eventually, the hurried gasps for air slowed down and petered out. From her vantage point, Luna couldn’t make out much, but she did hear the sound of her humming red blade being deactivated. A magenta aura surrounded her limp form as the woman again chose to creep closer rather than attempt a deathblow.

Luna again called on the dark side. But this time, she seized her own mouth and throat with it.

“Who… are… you?” she forced herself to say. “Not… normal.”

“I’ll tell you that,” the voice from the helmet sounded firm, but Luna could feel doubt underneath. “When you tell me why you just murdered my friends.”

“Didn’t know…” precise control was difficult this way, and she bit her own tongue. “They were… yours.”

“And that makes it ok to just cut their legs off and fry them with electricity?!” the woman’s voice sounded almost hysterical with anger.

“Thought they were thieves,” she managed. “In… the way.”

“You tried to kill me too!”

“Not kill… capture. Wanted alive.”

“I’m wanted alive? They know?!” Luna felt the other female’s fear.

“No… I… wanted to take you… Empire knows… nothing.”

She breathed an audible sigh of relief.

“Will tell them… nothing. Would never betray…”

“What do you mean?”

“Leave this… to me.” Luna’s mouth was beginning to regain some feeling. Her eyes rolled to look up at the armored woman. “Go home, Twilight Sparkle.”

30: Twilight and Darkness

“Who?” Twilight forced her voice to conceal her nerves. “I’ve never–”

“Do you take me for… a fool, young princess?” Luna’s words were a little slurred, but Twilight was still surprised that she could talk at so soon after being shot in the head. “The magenta aura, the magical talents, the powers unknown outside our home… and of course the reluctance to simply shoot me dead. It all fits. You are Twilight Sparkle… Princess of Friendship.”

“Well, I’m not giving my name to an Imperial agent,” she replied. “Now answer my questions! Why did you kill my friends? What are you after? Why are you working for the Empire?!”

“Well… mystery woman…” the dark alicorn let out a wheeze that Twilight supposed was meant to be a chuckle. “I am here because I was sent here to recover… stolen property. I thought your friends… simple thieves. If I had known… yours, I would have found… another way. Didn’t know you were here.”

“So in your mind,” Twilight’s pitch was rising along with her sense of outrage. “It’s okay to just murder strangers for the Empire, but not people connected to someone you know?!”

“So… you admit I know you then?”

Twilight paled beneath her helmet as she realized what she’d just said.

“Should be… more careful with your words, young princess.”

“I admitted to nothing!” Twilight snapped at her. “And I’m not the on trial here! You murdered people in cold blood! Why?!”

“I feel your fear… your doubt… you worry I will betray you…. Never!” Luna coughed, her body wracked with the effort. “Everything I do, I do for our homeland.”

“Those men were no threat to you and you killed them with lightning!”

“I serve the Empire… same reason you are here… to save Equestria.”

“You think murdering good men in the underbelly of Coruscant is saving Equestria?!” Twilight couldn’t quite contain her shock. “Princess Luna… what happened to you? What did they do?!”

“Never… told you my name.”

The purple alicorn felt her stomach seizing up. Was she really this easy to worm information from?

“Fear not, your secret… safe with me. But… shouldn’t be here. Go back home to Equestria. I… will handle this.”

“Handle it?!” Twilight couldn’t believe her ears. “You’re working for it! Princess, I don’t know where they took you or what they did, but the Empire’s clearly taken your senses! Wake up! You’re not protecting Equestria, you’re skulking beneath Coruscant with Stormtroopers and killing people for getting in the way! You tried to strangle me to death not a minute ago! You’ve lost it!”

How could one mare be so insanely deluded? Here was Twilight, doing her best to help people resisting the Empire, and Princess Luna thought she was protecting Equestria by killing those same people with strange Force powers! The very first thing she had done was fling her lightsaber to try and chop Twilight in half, without even a demand to surrender! What had the Empire done to make Celestia’s sister lose all touch with reality?!

“You’re trying to fight… Empire,” Luna wheezed. “Mistake. Empire… cannot be defeated… from the outside. Too vast…”

“What, you’ve surrendered to despair, is that it? Surrendered your freedom and royal dignity to scrounge about for whatever scraps Palpatine will deign to throw a traitor?”

“Stupid girl!” Luna hissed in a much harsher tone. “Empire… billions of troops… thousands of Star Destroyers… vast shipyards… industrial worlds… too big, too big to fight from the outside. Only be taken down… from within.”

“You think you can defeat Imperial war machine by serving it? Princess, all you’re doing is furthering their goals! You’re here for Vader’s artifacts, aren’t you? He sent you after them!” Twilight nodded to herself. Of course, that made perfect sense. “Don’t you see? You killed my friends just to deliver Darth Vader artifacts that will only make him more powerful! He nearly strangled your sister to death! You’re being twisted, Luna, like when you were twisted into Nightmare Moon!”

“Who said anything… giving them to him? Not the only one… use them.”

“Your plan is seriously to betray and rob Darth Vader when he knows who are you and where you come from?!” And this mare thought she was protecting Equestria?

“Get close…” she said. “Kill the Emperor. Kill Vader. Outsiders are short-sighted, full of hatred and greed… they’ll kill each other for the empty throne…”

An Imperial civil war on that scale? Twilight blanched. It could last for years, decades even. Entire planets razed, billions of lives snuffed out before one warlord or the other eventually won and instituted their own brand of tyranny. To purposefully stoke one was madness, even if one was so cold-blooded as to condone death on that scale.

“That’s your idea of a good plan?! Destroy half the galaxy and hope whoever wins is nicer to us? Princess, there’s no guarantee that whatever ruler emerged would be any better than Palpatine! What if it were Tarkin or the like?”

“Then make a better one.”

“What do you mean by that?”

Luna didn’t answer, the strain of forcing a stunned body to work apparently getting to the elder alicorn at last. She slumped over, eyes closed and barely breathing. Twilight stared at her for a few seconds, mind racing, before turning around to pace nervously.

What was she supposed to do? She had held out precious little hope of ever seeing her mentor’s sibling again – it was a very big galaxy, after all. Not while the Empire held sway, at any rate. She had half-expected to dig the location of some horrible laboratory or anonymous execution site out of an Imperial database after years of fighting. That she would meet Princess Luna, out and about and murdering for the Empire only a few months after she’d begun was a possibility the Princess of Friendship had never even considered.

This was a matter that had to be handled delicately, Twilight decided. She couldn’t just execute a diarch of Equestria out of hoof, no matter how crazy and evil she seemed. Luna obviously needed help, and she equally obviously wouldn’t get it where she was at that moment. She needed to be brought home, perhaps to be cleansed by the powers of Harmony again. So the question was: how to do–

“Oh, and Twilight,” Luna’s soft voice interrupted her thoughts.

“Huh?” the younger alicorn turned around – to be immediately bowled over by an invisible shockwave.

It was like being hit head-on by a locomotive. One moment she was standing there, the next she was flying through the air like ragdoll. Twilight hit a wall painfully hard, cracking a few of her grey armor plates, but that was the last thing on her mind. Even as she was flying, the small lightsaber clipped to her belt tore itself and burst into life. The crimson blade swung upwards, shooting straight for Twilight’s head of its own accord…

And stopped, the instant before it impaled her through the face.

Twilight stared cross-eyed at the burning blade of red plasma, held in check by some invisible hand merest centimeters from her helmet. Heart racing wildly and massive torrents of adrenaline flooding her veins, it took the princess a moment to realize just how close she had come to being killed on the spot. Her whole body was pinned stock-still against the wall, held in place by great pressure that seemed to spring from nowhere.

“Watch your back,” Luna finished.

The younger alicorn was held in place a moment longer before the lightsaber retreated back into its hilt. Simultaneously, the power holding her in place slackened and she dropped to the floor. Twilight stumbled and went her knees, struggling not to hyperventilate.

“Against any Inquisitor but myself,” Luna continued calmly, her lightsaber floating gently back to her. Twilight noticed she had regained her hooves. “That would have been your last mistake, young princess.”

“You nearly killed me!” Twilight gasped, shakily getting back on her feet.

“Nonsense. I was in total control. It was merely a… visceral lesson.”

“Lesson?! To teach what?!”

“That you are too soft to be here, Princess Twilight Sparkle. You are too young, too naïve, too… inexperienced to face the full evil of the Galactic Empire. Had I meant to kill you, you would now lie dead, and whatever mission my sister sent you on would have failed. This is not our world, and you will not solve these problems by blasting them with friendship rainbows.”

“Didn’t think it would be so easy.” Under her helmet, Twilight was eying the blaster she’d lost, now lying behind Luna.

“Yet you thought me an enemy agent, and turned your back on me. That would have been a fatal mistake, had I actually been the traitor you presumed me. That you yet breathe is proof that my loyalty is where it has always been: to Equestria and her ponies.”

“Then you have a funny way of showing loyalty, princess.”

“Would you rather I have captured your friends?” Luna countered. “And turned them over to Darth Vader, my superior? I know much of Imperial interrogation procedure for high-priority suspects… like those trying to steal from a Sith Lord.”

Luna’s blue eyes were hard. Twilight swallowed.

“I did what I had to do then, just as I will in the days to come. As for you…”

“I don’t recall falling under your authority. We’re equals now, in case all this time serving the Empire has made you forget.”

“You will return to Equestria,” Luna continued. “Inform my sister that I am well, and that our problems with the Empire will soon be dealt with. Meanwhile, you will cease playing the courageous rebel and instead use that prodigious mind of yours to prepare the nation for the day the Emperor is no more. There is much rebuilding to be done, and there are none better to oversee the upgrade of our technological infrastructure and its integration with our magical traditions. Your talents are wasted out here, and it is my order that you will cease this damned fool crusade and return home at once.”

Luna paused and flared her wings, looking royal and imperious. Twilight stared her down.

“Further you will immediately break off your attempts to recover the stolen Sith artifacts that belong to Lord Vader.”

“Oh, he’s ‘Lord’ Vader now?”

“For the sake of our planet and people it is vital that I get close to Vader and his master, and those are a necessary step along that path. I cannot kill the Emperor if I cannot get near him, and Vader is the best path. You will therefore cease your hunt, and if you place any value on the lives of your rebel friends you will convince them to do the same.”

“Is that a threat, princess?” Twilight’s eyes briefly shone. “Will you murder more good men for your lunatic scheme that only empowers evil?”

“I’ll do what I have to do. Always.” Luna took a few steps backwards, towards the door. “I will return to my men and inform them that I found no one. You will call off your friends and return home immediately.”

“And if I don’t?”

“Then next we meet, I may have to be more… persuasive.”

Her eyes flashed a burning yellow.

31: Recuperation

Even as Luna backed away from the lesser princess, she was reaching out with the Force. She could feel Twilight’s confusion, sadness, outrage, and more than a twinge of fear. The young alicorn genuinely didn’t understand what was going on, couldn’t conceive of how Luna could justify what she was doing. Poor naïve little filly. This world was no place for one such as her. That she couldn’t see that only made it worse.

“Go home,” she repeated. “That is a direct royal command. I cannot spare the time to escort you personally, but I have every confidence you can return however you came.”

Twilight’s grey helmet showed no emotion, but Luna could sense her intentions behind it. The young princess was evaluating her options, wondering if she had some spell that could immobilize her elder. Wondering if she could return her to Equestria. Wondering whether the power of Harmony would cleanse her mind of this “taint”.

“I will not be returning,” Luna said. “Not yet. I will not live the life of a slave merely awaiting a beating from her masters.”

“Yeah, I heard Vader prefers to skip straight to strangulation. Real improvement.”

“My service to Vader is a means to an end. Life on Equus under occupation is just an end for me.”

“And it isn’t for me?”

“A place for everypony, and everypony in her place,” Luna quoted. “As we have different talents, so too are we suited for different roles. Your method of fighting the Empire is heroic but hopeless and will lead to nothing but your death. You have died here had I been anyone else. And that would have been a great loss to our planet. You would do much more good preparing Equestria for the future. That is why you will return there immediately.” She was almost at the doorway by this point. “And if I see you here again, you will be in direct violation of a diarch’s command, with all the consequences that implies.”

Luna turned and, without a further word, walked right out.

“Mistress,” one of Luna’s Stormtroopers saluted her return. “The area is secure. We have encountered no further opposition. Three prisoners have been taken.”

“Oh?” Luna raised an eyebrow.

“Security staff of the building, my lady. One unconscious, two locked in an office.”

“She fights to incapacitate rather than kill,” Luna thought. “How very… Equestrian of her. Principled, but ultimately self-defeating against the Empire.”

“I see,” she said allowed. “And those documents the intruders were taking? What of them?”

“Several were destroyed in the crossfire. However, we were able to piece back together most of what was lost from the security footage. We have a copy awaiting your inspection.”

“Excellent. And have you inspected the other files?”

“Only to a limited degree, ma’am. We have been busy.

“I see. Well, you’ve done… acceptably,” Luna’s compliment was grudging. “Summon a speeder at once. We need to return to the surface with our data and prisoners for a quick analysis. And the wounded will need to be dropped off for appropriate care. While it’s on its way, make ready to burn this facility to the ground. We most likely cannot stop our quarry from learning of an attack on their dealer, but we can at least reduce what they can learn to rumors and a pile of ashes.”

“What of the bodies of the thieves?”

“They are an irrelevant distraction. See to it that they go up flames with the building itself.”

That was a questionable order, destroying potential evidence like that. However, Stormtroopers were trained to obey, not question. So the man just saluted instead.

“At once, my lady.”

“Very good.”

“We received a notice from Sector Command,” the hologram of Cadence was saying. “Not half an hour ago. The Empire is halving all taxes, tariffs, and quotas imposed on Equus, effective immediately. Just like you said, auntie.”

Sitting back on a comfortable couch, Princess Celestia took a sip of her tea and nodded at the hologram of her niece.

“And our rebuilding aid?” she asked.

“We’re assured current levels will be maintained without interruption,” Shining Armor answered, still looking mistrustful. Celestia supposed she couldn’t blame him.

“I take it that you two are beginning plans for troop withdrawals worldwide?”

“Of course. Nopony wants to see any more ponies coming home in body bags. We may have to maintain a few outposts, though.”

“We haven’t quite finished calculating it all out yet,” Cadence finished the thought. “But we’re definitely going to be pulling as many back to the homeland as we possibly can. Their families will want to see them again.”

“How’s the situation in Equestria? Is everything proceeding smoothly in my absence?”

“As smoothly as can be reasonably expected,” Cadence answered. “Considering the present circumstances.”

“Which means only three instances of serious crowd control measures,” her husband said drily.

“I’m sure it will get better now. His majesty has ensured that our burdens will be considerably eased.”

“Mhm…”

Celestia heard the note of doubt in her nephew-in-law, but was thankful he had the sense to keep it mostly to himself. There was no doubt this holoconference was being recorded, if not actively monitored by some ISB agent even as they spoke. It would hardly do to say anything that could be construed as seditious.

“Is there anything else I need to know immediately?”

“I don’t think there’s anything too urgent, you haven’t been gone that long auntie.”

“I know asking you raise both the sun and the moon alone is a lot of work, Mi Amore. Are you holding up well?”

“I’m… managing.” Cadence wiped her forehead. “Just promise you won’t be gone too long.”

Celestia frowned a little. “I am afraid I cannot do that.”

“Right, of course, your assistance to the Emperor. How long do you think it will take?”

“I honestly cannot say. I would prepare to live without me for some time.”

Twilight staggered down the streets of Coruscant in a state of shock, walking numbly amidst the crowds of thousands-strong nightlife. It said a great deal about the underworld that a woman walking down the street in full face-concealing armor was not deemed notable. She wasn’t even the only one doing it – on any of the blocks she walked down.

Princess Luna was alive! Not only alive, but free and walking around the same planet she was on. And, whatever the Empire had done to her had restored a measure of the dark alicorn’s power. The problem being that she had, well, become even more evil than she was when first they met. Nightmare Moon, to her knowledge, had never killed anyone, much less three strangers who just happened to be in the way. She’d tried to scare Twilight and her friends away that fateful night, not murder them with lightning.

And then she was talking about killing the Emperor and deliberately plunging the galaxy into a civil war that could make the Clone Wars pale by comparison! That was insane even if she didn’t care about the deaths of outsiders – their own planet could just as easily become one of a thousand thousand battlefields. All it required was another military commander to crash land in the vicinity and bam! Or maybe someone would take an interest in their magic. Just because it hadn’t really happened so far didn’t mean it couldn’t. Warlords could be very creative in searching for weapons. How could one mare possibly think she could prevent that from occurring?

What was she planning to do, take over the Empire herself?

Confused, disoriented, and frankly at a loss as to what she was supposed to do about this, Twilight continued on through Coruscant’s underbelly. She needed rest. She needed advice. Most of all, she needed time to think.

Inside her cabin onboard the Starry Night, Luna delicately lifted a small metal box up to eye level. It wasn’t much to look at, being an unadorned grey durasteel container she’d taken from a toolbox aboard the ship. But, when it slid gently open, it revealed something very special: the curve-hilted lightsaber formerly belonging to Inquisitor Cia.

The weapon was a trophy, but it was more than just that. To Luna, that lightsaber represented hope, the rewards for perseverance in the face of seemingly unsurmountable odds. She’d been abused, strangled, shot, left to endure the elements, and finally sent off on a fool’s errand into perhaps the single most haunted place in the entire galaxy. Through it all she had endured, never once lost focus, and in the end she had rid the galaxy of the horrible woman that had done it all to her.

One day, she silently vowed, she’d add the lightsabers of Vader and Sidious to this little box.

For now, though, perhaps the weapon could serve a more practical purpose. Her brief engagement with Twilight had revealed a critical flaw with one of her favored techniques. If she threw her lightsaber to cripple the opponent and it was somehow lost, she was defenseless against simple blasterfire. Had the young princess been of a mind to simply kill her, Luna’s mission would have ended then and there. That was unacceptable.

Luna triggered the weapon, and the red blade appeared with a *snap-hiss*. She swung it experimentally. The weapon didn’t feel quite right, lacking the attunement her own blade possessed. After a moment of thought, she deactivated it and tucked it beneath her wing regardless. It might prove useful in the battles ahead.

32: Revelation

“My dear Twilight,” the letter began, oh so innocently.

In a small but serviceable apartment hundreds of levels up from where she had confronted the insane princess of the night, Twilight Sparkle sat behind a desk, a simple scroll clutched tightly in her hand. It was a fragile little thing, looking no different from the thousands of letters she’d sent and received in the years past. But, at that moment, it might as well have been a Base Delta Zero enacted on Equestria.

I have been summoned to a personal audience with Emperor Palpatine, to address the issue of my sister. I do not honestly know whether or not Luna shall be returned to us, but I am certain that while on Imperial Center I shall be monitored most thoroughly. As anything I do might have the utmost of repercussions for Luna and Equus itself, I must request that you refrain from sending me any further letters via dragonfire until such time as I contact you again. Knowledge of your activities must not reach the Imperials.

I know this has been your only link to home these last few months, and that this will be hard for you. I am deeply sorry, but I cannot conceive of a way to make certain that no one on Coruscant observes any letters I receive while I am here. I can only extend my heartfelt sympathies, and remind you that I have the utmost faith in your abilities. You are the most brilliant pupil I have seen in eons, Twilight Sparkle. I have every confidence you will prosper until we are able to speak again.

The letter was orbital bombardment delivered directly to her hope. Now, more than perhaps ever before, she needed to talk to her teacher. To tell her that sister had been driven mad, was wielding evil magic for murder, and planned to plunge the entire galaxy into a nightmarish civil war. Needed to ask her what needed to be done, how the Luna she knew could be brought back. She needed somepony with millennia of experience and wisdom to sit her down and tell her that everything would be alright. That six good men hadn’t just died for no good reason. But fate had conspired to take her mentor away, and put her right where she was completely out of reach. She was as physically close by as the two had been in months, but more distant than ever all the same.

What was she supposed to do now? Princess Luna had either gone insane or been turned back to evil, and now she was running around working for one of the single most dangerous and evil men in the entire galaxy. She had already killed for Vader at least three times, and quite likely more. She sought to deliver artifacts that would make the mysterious black cyborg even more powerful, all the while claiming to want to kill him. In all her years, throughout all her adventures on Equestria and beyond, Twilight had never encountered a situation like this one before. She needed advice, and needed it badly.

“It came a couple of days ago,” the little dragon sitting in her lap explained. “Not long after you and the rest of those guys ditched me here.”

“You know you’re too young and small to be wandering the underworld of Coruscant,” Twilight didn’t feel like rehashing the argument. “It’s too dangerous.”

“I’m not that much younger than you!”

“I’m a pony, you’re a dragon. You’re much earlier in your species’ life cycle than I am.”

“Now that you’re an alicorn, do you even have a life cycle? I thought they lived forever.”

“Barring fatal injury, so far as we know they do,” Twilight recited absentmindedly. Facts help take her mind off the letter in her hands. “There’s no recorded case of any alicorn ever dying of natural causes, and Princess Celestia’s and Luna’s ages suggest that there may for all practical purposes be no limit on potential alicorn lifespan.”

“Anyway, my point is that you’re not much older than I am, and I should have been with you.”

“Then would Luna have killed you too?” Twilight wondered, feeling ice in her veins at the very idea. Spike was like a little brother to her, the thought of him lying there with his legs cleaved off and then electrocuted to death…

“Absolutely not,” she declared, unable to shake the mental image. “They would eat you alive down there.”

“I’ve been in dangerous situations before you know,” he crossed his arms. “In the Crystal Empire back home, with you on Serenno. Remember? I’m not some helpless baby. And besides, you can’t just leave me behind forever.”

“That’s what scares me,” Twilight thought.

Her comlink chose that moment to begin beeping.

Many hundreds of miles away, Luna sat curled up on her ship’s bunk, reading over the documents that her men had recovered from the scene or subsequently been able to reconstruct from the video recording. Apparently, the theft of Vader’s Sith treasure trove had been specifically commissioned in great haste through Argon Ur to a group of pirates by a hooded and masked man mostly through courier droid intermediaries – he’d never actually met his client in person. Information on the location and nature of the sought after relics, as well as the best time for an ambush, had been supplied along with a very healthy number of credits run through an anonymous account via Muunilinst. Where it had all ultimately come from was a mystery.

While the client had clearly done his best to remain distance from the actual operation, Ur was a savvy businessman who knew the value of information. He’d had the droid messengers tracked several times, pinning them to a relatively wide area on level 1313 known for its exceptional criminality even by underworld standards. Most of them time it hadn’t amounted to much, the droids either giving his men the slip or else simply scrapping themselves after making a dead drop. Once, however, a droid of his own had managed to follow a courier back to an abandoned warehouse in time to catch a meeting in progress.

The courier droid had delivered Ur’s reply to a tall, well-built man in a black cloak and mask that concealed the bulk of his features. But the video feed showed something that the ferried holograms hadn’t – even through the hood it was plain that the man’s skull was crowned with a number of small horns, and that he sported twin cybernetic legs from at least the knees down. A man of that description had been tentatively linked to a number of shady gangs and insular secret societies on at least half a dozen worlds stretching from the Core to the Inner Rim and possibly beyond. He was known to be a collector of rare weaponry, as well as objects connected to what the Gotal black marketer had derisively deemed “outdated mysticism”. He paid well, answered no questions, never stayed in the same place for long, and those who dealt with him too often had a tendency to vanish into thin air.

They called him Maul.

Author's Notes:

So ends Act II of Empire and Rebellion.

33: A New Factor

Princess Luna drifted silently through a land of mists. It was a cold and gloomy place, little more than fog and blackness for as far as the eye could see, lacking even a solid ground to put her hooves on. There was no discernable source for the weak silvery light that provided what little illumination that there was, and every breathe she took seemed to echo endlessly into the void. The princess was thoroughly unimpressed with it all. Even bereft of her magic, she knew a dream when she saw one. If someone or something was hoping to give her a nightmare, they had another thing coming.

“Not a nightmare,” came a deep voice. Luna pursed her lips.

The mists around her parted briefly, allowing a familiar semitransparent figure to rise up from the darkness. Well-groomed, handsome despite his age, and immaculately dressed, even in death the man cut a good figure. Luna simply looked annoyed.

“Tyranus,” she vaguely inclined her head.

“Lord Noctis,” he smiled pleasantly.

“Cease the theatrics if you would,” Luna said. “Amateurish attempts to look more powerful ill suit you. If you had any real power here you would strike Sidious dead.”

“I see that your time away has not rendered you any more respectful.” Dooku matched her annoyed expression with one of his own.

“I feign enough subservience in my waking hours. We are allied because I need your secrets and you need my flesh for our combined vision of Sidious’ death. I see little reason to beat around the bush about it. An alliance built on shared hatred is not a friendship nor any personal affinity.”

“You do realize that projecting my spirit so far from my tomb while remaining below Sidious’ detection is quite taxing, don’t you? If I feel that I am too unappreciated I might simply decide to cease.”

“And then what?” Luna snorted. “Stew in impotent hatred until insanity or hell claims you, waiting for another with even half of my potential to blunder into the Valley and not get taken by some other Sith spirit? Please. We both know that I’m as good an option as you are going to find.”

Dooku said nothing.

“However much I might irritate you, you hate Darth Sidious with an undying passion.” The alicorn smirked a bit. “Literally. There’s nothing you wouldn’t give to return the treacherous death he dealt you, and that includes putting up with me for as long as it takes. That’s why you’re going to tell me whatever you came to almost irrespective of what I say, because if you stirred yourself from your dusty grave half a galaxy away it must be important. So please, just say what it is that you have to say.”

“A well-argued point, Darth Noctis,” Dooku sighed. “I commend your analytical abilities once again.”

“I’m beside myself with joy,” she replied flatly. “The man who tried to wipe out my entire species is complimenting me. Oh however can I express my foalike giddiness?”

“Bygones,” the Sith ghost waved a hand dismissively. “Very well, we will get straight to the point. I am here to warn you that your current course is one of quick opportunity, but also considerable peril.”

“Much like the dark side itself, wouldn’t you say? I’d hardly call what I’ve been through so far particularly safe.”

“Precisely,” he nodded. “More specifically, I want to warn you about the man you are going to chase for Vader. He is more than just a criminal or collector. The Maul you seek was once a Sith.”

“A Sith?” Luna raised an eyebrow. “What of the Rule of Two? There can only ever be two Sith, or so you taught me.”

“He was Sidious’ apprentice before my tenure. He was defeated, cut in two and seeming killed, by the Jedi before my conversion. But he survived, and returned to make trouble for us during the Clone Wars. My former master and I… dealt with him.”

Several more figures rose up from the mists around the two. Luna let out a reflexive hiss when she recognized the loathsome cyborg General Grievous among them. Then there was Dooku himself, along with a cloaked man she presumed to be Sidious. Across from them were a horned Zabrak male with cybernetic legs – obviously this Maul. In front of him was pale, inhuman woman wrapped in deep red robes.

“The witch Talzin, Maul’s mother and most powerful ally,” Dooku informed her.

Sidious stretched out two hands, unleashing the same blue lightning that Luna used. Talzin raised her own clawlike hands and countered with green lightning of her own. Dooku added his own Force attack to that of his master, while Maul placed a hand on his mother’s back as if offering his strength. The strikes met in the middle and were for a while even, but slowly the two Sith Lords began to overpower Maul and Talzin. The witch transitioned smoothly frim lightning to a green shield covering herself and her son. Then, as the Sith attack continued to press home, she waved a hand and threw Maul backwards, into the mists. General Grievous pressed himself bodily through the glowing shield as the exhausted witch sank to her knees. The pitiless cyborg plunged two lightsabers through the woman’s chest without hesitation.

“And what exactly is this supposed to show me?” Luna asked as the figures faded away. “That Maul hates Sidious as much as you do?”

“And that he hates me as well, for the part I played in the death of his mother and the destruction of his army. Though he believes me dead and gone, it would be unwise of you to reveal our… working relationship to him. I cannot be sure how he would react.”

“So you suggest I refrain from revealing my source of knowledge to him?”

“And that you decline to use, for example, lightning near him. If you wish to negotiate, of course. The power is uncommon, he is not foolish enough as to not wonder where you might have acquired it.”

“That could complicate matters.”

“Those things most worthwhile are seldom simple.”

“Aye, tis true enough.”

“If handled correctly,” Dooku crossed his arms. “Maul might prove useful to us. But I would caution you, Darth Noctis. In all dealings that you might have with Darth Maul, remember one of the very first lessons that I taught you.”

“And which one would that be?”

The ghost smirked. “That treachery is the way of the Sith.”

Hours later, Luna was gingerly awakened by a young man in a Navy Lieutenant’s uniform shaking one of her shoulders. It was impossible to tell the hour in her windowless cabin, but she got the sense that it was still far too early for sane people to be up and about. Which meant this had to be important.

“Yes, Lieutenant… Hayes, I believe?” she looked sleepily up at him. “Why are you disturbing me?”

“Begging your pardon, mistress,” the young man tugged at his collar. “But you said to come to you right away if anything change. It took a little bit of dropping Lord Vader’s name, but the ISB handed over those case files that you wanted. My lady… I think we may have a lead.”

34: A New Target

“And that’s what we know so far,” the cloaked figure was saying. “Now that we’ve confirmed the existence of an Imperial Inquisitor on the tail of these artifacts, your mission takes on ever greater importance. We don’t know exactly what Vader wants these things for, but the effort he’s made to retrieve them signals that we can’t ignore them.”

Twilight stood silently in a run-down apartment deep in the underbelly of Coruscant. Beside her stood Janus Reis, aka. Eight. As the only two survivors from the team, it was the duty and privilege of the alicorn princess and human male to hear back from their analysts.

“That’s why,” the figure continued, “despite the heavy losses you’ve suffered, I’m afraid I must ask you to continue this mission.”

“Why?” Janus asked, hand on his blond beard. “You can’t seriously expect the two of us to match an Imperial Inquisitor, not to mention this ‘Maul’, whoever he is.”

Twilight was, for just a second, tempted to just blurt everything out. That she wasn’t a human, she was an alicorn and more than capable of matching a magic-less Luna in a fight. But she couldn’t, she dared not. Equestria’s safety was too tenuous already. She couldn’t risk the lives of her friends, family, and people.

“Or maybe you just don’t want them asking why you let Luna murder three good men when you could have been there to stop her,” a small voice in her head prodded.

Twilight gritted her teeth and said nothing.

“Of course not,” the hologram replied. “But all the same, we can’t allow these Sith treasures to fall back into Vader’s hands. We don’t have much in the way of combat assets on Coruscant, but we do have access to a few beings of conscience on your destination. We can arrange for a cover story and some aid. I know it won’t replace those that fell…” there was a pause. “But in completing the mission, we honor their sacrifice.”

“By getting ourselves killed?” Janus glared. “Going up against an Inquisitor without heavy firepower or a Force user is just an elaborate method of suicide. I knew when I signed up for this that I might lose my life, but I didn’t think it’d be thrown away!”

“We aren’t the Empire!” the hologram hissed. “Our agents are not expendable gears in a machine. We won’t send you on a suicide mission.”

“Then how are we supposed to deal with Vader’s dog when she comes barking?”

Twilight bristled a little inside at the wording, but held her silence.

“…We have a plan.”

“Corulag,” Luna read aloud, as the Starry Night’s engines began to fire up. “Located in the Corulus System of the Bormea Sector of the Core Worlds, along the Perlemian Trade Route. Population: 15 billion. Primarily human. Corulag is an important economic hub for the Core Worlds, boasting industry and trade in equal measure. The population remained loyal to the Republic during the Clone Wars, which has now been only strengthened by the Emperor’s reforms. Volunteerism for Imperial service is high, and the population is considered loyal.”

The alicorn princess wanted to spit. Pathetic dogs these humans, so eager to lick the hand of an oppressor that promised them a little more comfortable existence. Did they really think whatever privileges they enjoyed couldn’t be stripped on a whim the moment something made them suspect? If these curs wouldn’t fight to be free, then they deserved whatever happened to them.

“Points of Interest:” she continued after swallowing her bile. “Corulag Academy. A military academy dating back to the Clone Wars, this school has produced a large number of competent but unexceptional pilots and soldiers known for staunch reliability and high degrees of discipline. Potential for subversion is minimal. Current students: 4.75 million. Triumph Base: Imperial Navy training academy located on the planet’s largest moon. Hosts two Dreadnaught-class heavy cruisers and one Venator-class Star Destroyer on a permanent basis. Which I’m sure will be very helpful if I need to call in any orbital bombardment.” The alicorn rolled her eyes, though in truth she doubted she’d mind a bit of collateral damage.

Luna skipped ahead a little bit.

“Last known sighting of a man matching this Maul’s description was six standard days ago, by ISB agent Tellus Yorn. Person of interest was in discussion with a known smuggler being tracked by the ISB when the agent was spotted. Suspect fled the scene without delay, smuggler fought to the death. This was considered uncharacteristic of the man and was not filed with the local enforcers.” Luna pursed her lips.

Why, she wondered. Why run and abandon a contact to his death? Why, if this truly had been Maul, had he not used his Sith skills to dispose of the ISB lackeys and finish his business? He could easily have fled the planet afterwards. Six days could put him anywhere within the Core or Colonies, and parts of the Inner Rim. True, the death of an agent and his team during a routine mission would have certainly raised more alarms than a cloaked man running scared, but surely he could have…

Luna blinked.

Of course, killing the ISB agent would have stirred up the hornet’s nest. On a world like Corulag, with plenty of Imperials around, the crackdown would have been brutal. Lacking a clear suspect, the clumsy aliens would no doubt have come down hard on all smugglers and criminal elements they could lay hands on. That would have meant nothing to any true Sith Lord… unless of course he was planning on receiving a delivery there.

The princess gave a small chuckle. Of course, right under the Empire’s nose. Vader might deploy agents across the length and breadth of the galaxy, from Nar Shaddaa to Ord Mantell, in search of his missing treasures. But who would ever suspect that they were worming their way to faithful Corulag?

Not bad.

When Twilight first set foot on Corulag, she looked a whole new woman. Her hair was tied back in a tight bun, her body armor had been replaced by the crisp green tunic of a lieutenant of the Imperial Navy, but most of all was her face. She had a perpetually straight-laced expression that somehow radiated a mild disdain for the world around her, along with a subtle air that suggested that she was someone important, someone to be appeased and obeyed. Down the ramp beside her walked a lone man in unmistakable white armor, signature E-11 blaster clutched tightly in his hands. Janus hadn’t liked his disguise, but Twilight was a little short to be a Stormtrooper.

There was no one waiting to greet them. After all, Corulag Academy was a busy place and the hustle and bustle of one of its many shuttleports was a constant. As the two of them approached the bottom ramp, a little MSE-series droid rolled up, squeaking as the model always did. Twilight took one look at it, noted the telltale pattern scratched faintly near the top of its hull, then gave the slightest of nods. Doing their absolute best to remain uptight and unflinching as dozens of other shuttles embarked or disembarked hundreds of Imperial military personnel, the two turned and followed it simply out the landing bay’s most prominent door.

As they walked down one of the many, many busy streets jutting through the harsh grid that was the Corulag Academy’s Atmospheric Air Wing, Twilight couldn’t help but frown just a little more than her role called for. It was amazing, this place. Building after building, airfield after shuttleport, the unending roar of engines overhead. People came here from planets all across the Core to learn to fly, or to design ever-better spacescraft. Sienar Fleet Systems had a presence here, and tens of thousands of talented engineers worked day and night to perfect new and ever better designs to be tested right here. She could see the enthusiastic fervor in the eyes of the cadets she walked past, could feel the ever-present undercurrent of electricity in the crowd. These people truly believed in what they were doing, thought that their work was making a galaxy a better place.

All a lie.

Did the bright-looking young ensign she’d just passed understand what he was fighting for, really? Did the designer walking, clutching a data slate and simultaneously struggling to Aerodynamics Across the Galaxy, think about what the ship he was working so hard for would be used to do? Twilight wondered how enthusiastic they’d be, if the engineer saw his prized work fitted with bombs the ensign would be ordered to drop on a people wanting nothing but to mind their own business away from Palpatine. Or that fellow in a crisp new gunner’s uniform. Where would that proud smile be when he was ordered to enact a Base Delta Zero?

Twilight shook her head.

“Such a waste.”

When the Starry Night emerged from hyperspace, Luna had wasted little time in firing up the holoprojector.

“I don’t care what your protocol is,” she snapped at the apparition aboard her command deck. “You can either put me through to whomever it is commands the ISB on this planet without delay or you can explain to Lord Vader why you chose to waste his agent’s time.”

The woman on the other end went noticeably paler even through the hologram. “…I see. As you wish, madam Inquisitor.” With a stiff and formal bow, she vanished.

Luna snorted. Invoking Vader’s name was always helpful but it was disappointing that her own presence failed to inspire that kind of efficient obedience. Perhaps one day, when the aliens had learn proper respect for her…

Less than thirty seconds later, an utterly nondescript human male took the woman’s place.

“Major Celebraine of Imperial Security Bureau, ranking officer on Corulag,” he announced himself, brown eyes staring out from a clean-shaven face. “How may I assist you, Lady Inquisitor?”

“Inquisitor Luna, on a personal mission from Lord Vader.” She felt a twinge of fright, but to his credit the man’s face didn’t show it. “I’ll be needing your agents.”

He didn’t even try to object. “How many men do you require, my lady?”

“Any and all of them, as I see fit.” Luna said without hesitation. “For now, five combat squads worth and total access to all of your informants will do. I’ll also require unrestricted access to your private channels, spy satellites, restricted databases, and at least a hundred probe droids.”

“I see.” Though the man’s expression was impassive, Luna could sense a mounting nervousness. “May I ask why?”

“That’s need to know classified,” she told him with just a hint of smugness. “I’ll also need access to competent technicians that can be discrete, this ship could do with a tune-up. An improved holonet suite and upgraded main computer will be vital for this mission.”

“Am I permitted to know why, ma’am?” Celebraine smoothed back one lock of brown hair. “So as to find the best expertise for your needs?” he added quickly.

Luna rolled her eyes. “As I’m sure you can guess, Major, I’m not exactly what you would call inconspicuous on a world that is more than 96% human. No amount of mind tricks is going to make people overlook four legs.”

Once again, the princess silently cursed General Grievous. If not for him molding her flesh into the image of these aliens would have been child’s play.

“I will therefore be coordinating the initial stages of this hunt from orbit, and I’ll need your men as my boots on the ground, as it were. I trust they, of all people, should know how to be subtle. Clear enough, Major?”

“As a kyber crystal, ma’am.” He paused. “May I ask our quarry?”

“In due time, Major. In due time.”

35: A New Respect

“Vader’s hound has arrived in-system,” the familiar faceless hologram was saying.

Twilight’s face was calm, but her heart was racing. She’d known intellectually that Princess Luna would inevitably follow them to Corulag – after all, most of the cell’s own clues had been based on stolen Imperial intelligence. But hearing confirmation that her mentor’s sister was here, now… she swallowed.

“Based on intelligence received from our sources, it appears she does not intend to personally lead the investigation. At present she remains in orbit, commandeering local ISB assets to do the grunt work.” The hologram folded its hands behind its back while Twilight let out a breath she didn’t realize that she was holding. “Luckily for us, they aren’t happy about a creepy Force-wielder outside the chain of command, and a non-human at that, butting in on their world. That lack of trust may give us an edge.”

“Which we’ll need,” Janus muttered.

Twilight winced, but nodded her agreement.

“Quite,” it nodded as well. “I think we have a narrow window of opportunity to act. The figure matching Maul’s description was last seen in the company of the smuggler Vercacius Eon, who was killed resisting arrest while our man fled the scene. We have access to Imperial databanks regarding known associates of his, some still in the system. If we want to know what he might have had to do with Maul and the artifacts, we need to question them. To do that we need to get to them before the ISB does. Sources strongly believe the Inquisitor will have them move in, and soon.”

“So we have immediate and ready access to classified Imperial data, the politics of Inquisitorial-ISB relations, and insight into Luna’s plans?” Twilight pursed her lips. “Beg your pardon, but doesn’t this sound a little too convenient?”

“Intelligence is our specialty,” said the figure. “I know it isn’t appealing to go in blind based on intelligence from a source you don’t know, but trust me when I say this one is quite reliable.”

“All this information comes from one source?” Twilight raised an eyebrow.

The hologram remained silent, as if aware they had already said too much. The princess frowned.

After a moment of the awkward pause, Janus coughed.

“Yes, well…” he cleared his throat. “I’m sure we have good reasons for keeping this all to ourselves, but-”

“You know the reason. If either of you are captured, you can’t give up intelligence you don’t have.”

“But time’s wasting. If you want these folks picked from the ISB net you’d better start sending that intelligence our way.”

“Of course.”

High in orbit, Luna paced irritably back and forth across what had previously been the primary briefing room. Technicians from the Imperial Security Bureau were hard at work, replacing large sections of wall with monitors connected to the Starry Night’s upgraded sensor suite. The primary holoprojector was being doubled in size and partitioned into sections, the better to sort and display the data from an entire planet-wide network of satellites and probe droids, along with allowing simultaneous communication with up to half a dozen agents scattered throughout the globe.

Or, at least, that was what they were supposed to be doing. In actual fact the job they were doing was, if not criminally incompetent, at least skirting the line. The technicians had had to call a complete halt to work three times so far to retrieve necessary tools they had somehow “forgotten” to bring, replace a key holonot transceiver component that had somehow managed to break, and to perform maintenance on the ship’s main reactor “to ensure proper flow of energy to the new equipment”. What this actually translated to was that a job supposed to take a mere five hours had somehow been going on for fifteen and still had yet to bring matters to a conclusion.

Luna halted her pacing at random, choosing the closest technician to fix with a distinctly unhealthy glare. The man looked up at him, let his eyes wander briefly to the prominent lightsaber on her belt, and then rapidly fell back into the work he had been doing. Sweat trickled down his forehead, and the princess allowed herself a quick smirk. Somehow, they seemed to have fewer problems when hovered over by a being with the authority to execute them on a whim.

The alicorn’s smile faded as she resumed her pacing. She had no doubt that this was an unsubtle but utterly deniable message from the Imperial Security Bureau. Concerned first and foremost with their own petty turf and potential for advancement, as all their kind were, Major Celebraine and his lackeys hoped to coerce her into a less dominant position than was her due. Or at least demonstrate they could sabotage her mission if she became too demanding.

Luna shook her head. Perhaps petty politicking might work on a human, but an alicorn was made of sterner stuff. Just as soon as that holoprojector was ready…

In the end, it took another half hour, but at least part of the expanded holographic table came online. The princess didn’t hesitate, placing a call to the Major virtually the instant the technician vacated the underside. The plain-looking man was gratifyingly swift to answer this time.

“My lady Inquistor,” he said with a formal bow. “How may I assist you?”

“I find your workmen unsatisfactory,” Luna answered. “Every hour that they dither and delay provides my quarry another hour to slip away. Utterly unacceptable.”

“My apologies, madam,” Celebraine replied in a neutral tone. “They were the best I could find on short notice. They had previous experience working onboard the Arquitens-class for the Navy and came recommended by Admiral DeWylt. I assure you the Imperial Security Bureau will not hire them again any time soon.”

“So these men are not actually employed by the ISB?” Luna sounded almost conversational. “And you deny any formal affiliation with them?”

“You are correct, ma’am,” he nodded.

“Fascinating,” the princess said drily.

Suddenly, and absolutely without warning, there was a whirling blur of light and movement. No one in the enclosed space had time to move, or even blink. There was a hiss like a striking serpent. One moment, a middle-aged technician had been standing next to an opened vidscreen port, a small device clutched in his hand. The next, he was staring down in mute horror at the blade of red plasma jutting from his chest.

The other two men jumped, panic writ large on their faces. Tools were tossed aside in a mad dash for the nearest exit. It was in vain – the door shut itself. There had never been such a malicious-sounding click. As the luckless technician fell to his knees, eyes rolling back in his head, even Celebraine couldn’t keep his eyes from widening. The man's limp body hit the deck with a dull smack. Luna had her back to him. She hadn’t even moved.

Celebraine’s eyes moved from the corpse to the technicians cower in the corner to the Inquisitor. His face had resumed its typical impassive expression, but Luna could feel the fear rolling off him. Not even the Imperial Security Bureau could train agents to be entirely divorced from emotion.

“Now you realize just who you’re dealing with.”

For a minute, Luna simply let the man stew in it. Silence, thick and oppressive, descended. Half-active machines beeped and whirred and two men struggled to hold their breath in the vain hope of being forgotten, yet still it seemed so quiet that one might hear the beating of their own heart.

“So…” Luna continued at last, as the small metallic device wormed free from the dead man’s hand. “You deny any affiliation with this?” The little thing floated gently in the air before her.

“I do, my lady.”

“If my memory serves, this appears to be some manner of… oh, what do you people call it… bug?” It rotated on its axis before her eyes. “Encrypted, system-scale reach, perhaps even the capability of using the ship’s own suite to boost range through the holonet?”

“I’m afraid signals intelligence is not my department, madam.”

“Now whoever would have wanted to do such a foolish thing, I wonder?”

Celebraine’s eyes flicked from the princess to the device, then back to the princess. “I haven’t the faintest idea.”

“And if I were to, say, follow this little wonder’s signal, who might I find on the other end?”

“Criminals or dissident elements most likely.”

“Hmmm… well, I haven’t come here for such a broad sweep of things. My target is rather more specific and time-sensitive. I suppose perhaps I should just leave resolving this mystery in the capable hands of the ISB. After all, it wasn’t that inconvenient.” Luna tapped her chin. “Of course, if I had reason to believe these nefarious elements posed a threat to the success of my mission… why I suppose I’d have to take a more personal role in the investigation.” She paused. “Do you catch my meaning, Major?”

“I do indeed, my lady.” He gave another military bow. “I shall set agents to it without delay.”

“Good.” Luna nodded. “Now that we understand one another you can begin to transfer all the intelligence you have our mean and his sadly deceased companion. It should make for some interesting reading material while the ship’s upgrades are completed.”

“Of course,” Celebraine folded his arms behind his back. “Intelligence is our specialty.”

“Then get to it. Dismissed.”

The hologram faded away. Luna’s blue eyes wandered to the men in the corner.

“What are you two staring at?” She hissed. “Get back to work.”

Never had she seen a job done quite so quickly.

“So…” Twilight held a pair of magnoculars in her hands, peering past the speeder traffic zooming by. “All we have to do is sneak into a sleazy motel stuffed to gills with criminals and under the active observation of the ISB, convince an already paranoid man likely undergoing spice withdrawal to escape in secret with a pair of total strangers, and then smuggle him out before the Imperials realize we’re there and come in to shoot us.”

“More or less,” Janus shrugged, the wind atop the tall building musing his hair. “I thought we weren’t supposed to be getting any suicide missions.”

“Believe me,” Twilight smiled a little grimly. “I’ve been through worse.”

“…Do I even want to know?”

“Probably not.”

In the confines of a small cabin, an alicorn sat alone. Lights banished, breathing slowed to a crawl, she looked like nothing so much as part of the scenery. She sat there on the hard durasteel floor, silent as the grave and almost as serene. She appeared… at peace.

“Peace is a lie,” the princess thought, “there is only passion.”

Eyes closed, wings folded, and mane down she was, mutilated horn held low like some great weight.

“Through passion, I gain strength.”

A small cylinder atop a rough bunk buckled, then began to rise.

“Through strength, I gain power.”

The little metal settled around her head, like a moon orbiting its planet.

“Through power, I gain victory.”

A second cylinder joined the first in its gentle dance, elegant and curved.

“Through victory, my chains are broken.”

There was a snap and a hiss, and twin pillars of brilliant red broke the darkness.

“The Force shall free me.”

Twin rings of sulfuric yellow joined them.

36: A Precious Thing

The Rusty Hydrospanner was often called a motel, but that was a misconception. It was more accurately described as a combination of cantina, spice den, and thinly-disguised front for all manner of smuggling and racketeering that happened to have some space for a criminal to collapse after a hard day. Or overdose. It had been tacitly ignored by first Republic and then Empire for its owners’ keen sense of just how far they could push things, and because it drew the local scum into one place.

When the front doors opened to admit the latest two customers, raucous music blasted out. Inside dozens of beings, mostly human but far from totally, were freely drinking, gambling, smoking a wide variety of narcotic spices, and nakedly leering at the pretty Twi’lek singer currently occupying the weathered hunk of scrap metal that passed for a stage. Grainy holoprojectors displayed quasi-legal fights and races from across the sector when they could be bothered to work. Three hard-looking bouncers draped in body armor and openly carrying blaster rifles kept anyone from getting too uproarious.

“It reeks in here,” Twilight thought.

Through the magic of makeup, sythskin, and a touch of actual magic, she had reborn once again. Now sporting noticeably greying hair, an eyepatch, prominent and ugly scarring along her face, and an armored greatcoat over an outdated military-style tunic, there wasn’t one person in a million who would believe she was the same woman that had marched smartly out of an Imperil shuttle a day before. Still less the woman fighting the Inquisitor on Coruscant. For all that she was supposed to be a hardened smuggler, she couldn’t help crinkling her nose at the combined stench of waste, drugs, and drunks.

Suppressing her disgust as best she could, the alicorn strode confidently towards the bar with hands folded behind her back. As she stepped over a Duros laying sprawled out on the floor, a drunken man stumbled away from the bar, then tottered into her. Twilight shoved him aside, where he toppled over backwards into a puddle of something dark green and unidentifiable. She winced a little.

“So-” Twilight caught herself just before she extended a hand to help him. “So don’t come near me again if you know what’s good for you!” she corrected rather unconvincingly.

Rubbing her shoulder a little bit, she proceeded to the bar while Janus covered the exit. Finding a seat and struggling not to wince at the grime, she waited until the bartender turned her way.

“What can I get ya, beautiful?” he asked, to a small round of chuckles from a few patrons.

“Room for two. One night only.” Twilight kept it simple.

“Only a stopover, huh?” the man laughed heartily. “Then you gotta try our Corulag Comet Concoction while you’re here! Normally its five credits, but for a guest like you, four!”

“Room for two,” she repeated.

The man’s smile fell away. “A hundred credits. One twenty-five if you want our secure hallway.”

“That’s where intel says Kresh is hiding.”

“Secure it is.” Twilight answered, placing the indicated chips on the bar, where they disappeared faster than she would have believed possible.

The bartender slipped a key card into her hand. “Sleep tight.”

The “secure hallway” turned out to be a lengthy and poorly-lit metal square with a long series of around two dozen sliding doors equipped with key readers. Coincidentally, it looked exactly like the unsecured hallways with the exception of a single bored-looking man in body armor seated on a rickety stool at the end of it.

“We got gyped,” Janus muttered as the two strode up to the door matching the card’s number.

“It’s the Empire’s money anyway,” Twilight countered as she swiped the key. The door rolled open with only a moderate squeal of protest.

“Point,” he admitted.

Once the thing had opened fully, the two beheld a pair of hard-looking military style bunks, two metal chests at the foot of each bed, and a single lumen strip. All crammed into a space not much larger than your average walk-in closet.

“Thank you very much for choosing the Rusty Hydrospanner,” the guard at the inn said dully. “I hope you have a pleasant evening.”

“Thanks,” Twilight answered cheerfully. “I hope you do too. And get some sleep, you look like you need it!”

The hard-looking smuggler woman turned, blaster pistol hanging at her hip, smiled brightly and waved briefly to the bored guard before the door began to close again behind her.

Her partner just stared.

High in orbit, Luna was busy dishing out orders through her new and improved primary holoprojector.

“I want probe droids above and inside every spaceport on this rock with the capacity to handle a decent-sized freighter,” she told Celebraine’s second, a woman by the name of Gial. “Get me an ongoing list of incoming ships as they’re declared. I want names, captains, purported cargo, and any history of Imperial entanglements they may have. I also want all available information on every ship currently docked in our ports, including projected takeoff times.”

“That is… rather a lot of data, ma’am.”

“I’m not finished. Bring up all files on the known associates of Maul’s deceased smuggler friend and their hiding holes. Come to think of it, give me areas known to be criminal or less than reputable. Spare probe droids should begin a sweep – long range aerial scans only, I don’t want them anywhere near the ground. Compliment this with your spy satellites as orbits allow. All machine-sourced data to be linked directly to my ship in real time. Mobilize your men and keep at least two combat squads on full alert and ready to move out the moment I give the order. Make sure you have a capable gunship on standby to deliver them anywhere on the planet as swiftly as possible.”

“That is an ambitious data collection for one… woman, Lady Inquisitor. Are you-”

“Are you telling me the Imperial Security Bureau is unable to fully service my needs?” Luna cut her off. “Lord Vader’s needs?”

“Of course not,” Gial stiffened noticeably. “I simply inquired if you needed any assistance with data sorting. Our agency has many analysis droids and capable agents who could be made available to help you sift through an entire planet’s worth of continuously-updating information.”

“Your concern is touching,” Luna answered drily. “But I shall take on the task myself. The Force is with me, and we shall prevail. Maul will not escape.”

“…Of course, my lady. Will there be anything else?”

“Just one. Don’t fail me.”

“Yes, my lady.”

A couple of hours and a small amount of uncomfortable sleep later, it was the middle of Corulag’s night and it was time for Twilight and her partner to put their plan into action. The squeal of the door as it opened was impossible to conceal. The guard looked up from where he’d been reading some less than savory literature to see the same greying smuggler woman step out into the moonlit corridor, hand in her pocket. His brain didn’t even have time to process the faint flash of purple that he glimpsed in there before the stool he sat on took on an immediate, all-encompassing presence in his mind. All other thoughts, feelings, and aspirations melted away before a single, simple desire.

He wanted that stool. He needed it.

He needed it so badly, in fact, that he completely failed to notice the silenced stun blast travelling down the hallway until it washed over the back of his head.

“Sorry,” Twilight muttered under her breath, as the guard slumped over. She turned back towards her room and beckoned. “That’s guard down and camera set on loop. We’re good to go.”

Janus took a step out the door, then took a quick jog down the hall. “First you break into an Imperial prison by yourself,” he said when he returned, “then you escape an Inquisitor with your head attached, now you’re taking guards down without a sound or a blast fired in anger. How do you do that?”

“Trade secret,” Twilight whispered, even as they crept along.

His eyes went to the unconscious guard, then back to the alicorn. “Well I sure wish you’d share.”

“We’re here,” Twilight changed the subject quickly, “Intelligence pinned Kresh to room 37.”

“Which means they almost certainly know we came here,” Janus added, pulling a small device out of his pocket.

The motel’s doors, lacking a central computer or connection to exterior network like the Imperial outpost on Serenno, were beyond Twilight’s ability to crack remotely. Fortunately, as Janus had suggested, the guard was bound to be carrying a key. One swipe of the stolen goods and this door too immediately began to wheel open. Human and alicorn winced at the noise of it, but a more apathetic and inebriated clientele could scarce be found beyond Hutt Space. No one peeked out to investigate.

Both Twilight and Janus peered delicately into the room from opposite sides of door, bodies in cover and pistols in hand. They needn't have worried. The old man inside was curled up roughly on the bunk, blankets strewn randomly about the floor. There was a grey pile of ashes and torn packaging, and the little room reeked of spice. Twilight grimaced.

But the alicorn’s gaze was quickly drawn to Kresh’s hands. In his left, he clutched an older-looking blaster pistol, ugly and obviously repaired many times. But in his right…

“Is that a…” Janus stared at the fist-sized hexahedron, shining gold-silver frame and bright blue crystalline sides standing out like a torch in the night.

“Holocron,” Twilight breathed.

37: A Kind Word

For just a moment, all was still. Neither alicorn nor human dared to move a muscle, they scarcely dared to breathe. Both stared unblinkingly at the glittering device, somehow clean and shining in the midst of decay and waste. It drew the eye like a beacon and, once there, somehow held it enraptured.

As ever, it was Twilight’s rational mind that kicked into gear first, pulling up what limited facts it had. The Imperial databases on Equus had had nothing to say on the subject, and the information from the cell she worked with was scarcely better. Holocrons were repositories of data, accessible only by a Force-user, said to contain the greatest mysteries and secrets their creators had to offer. The Sith had made them in ages past, as had the extinct Jedi Order. The former tended to favor pyramidal designers, according to the scant images of the targeted treasures they had. Of the latter, there was no information.

“Where the frag did he get that?” Janus whispered.

Twilight shook her head.

“…Do we try waking him up first?”

Twilight hesitated. It was an odd feeling, but…

“Let me try.”

“You sure?”

She shook her head.

“Ah.”

Twilight straightened her coat, holstered her pistol, and walked gingerly into the room. The scent of spice was everywhere and after a foot or so discarded paper crinkled beneath her boots. The princess winced, but the old man did not stir. Janus stayed where he was, covering her with pistol in hand. Twilight stepped delicately up to the bedside, paused, and took a deep breath.

And got a rusty pistol shoved right between her eyes.

“I KNEW IT!” the old man screamed.

“GAAAH!’ Twilight jumped, stumbling backwards a step until she came into contact with the empty bunk. She lost her balance and fell on her rear.

“Freeze!” Janus brought his own gun up towards Kresh’s head. He was summarily ignored.

“I knew it,” the man repeated, this time in a muttered half-whisper. Neither his eyes nor his gun wavered from Twilight. “I knew it all along.”

“Knew… what?” Twilight managed, heart pounding frantically.

“I knew he’d come after me soon, I always knew it. He wants every last piece. You work for him, don’t you?” His gaze shifted to Janus, but not his weapon. “Or maybe the Empire. You came here for this!” Suddenly his gun was pointed at the holocron itself. “But you can’t have it! We won’t let you take it!”

“Who’s we?” Janus asked.

“Him! Him and me, of course.” Kersh giggled as though that were the most obvious thing in the world. “We’re the best of friends.”

“Okaaaay,” Janus gave Twilight a look, finger on the trigger of his blaster. She shook her head.

“Whoa there,” Twilight sat back up, hands open and empty. “We aren’t here to take anything from you. We’re here for you.”

“You’ll never take me alive!” He yelped, pistol jumping back to Twilight. “I won’t go to whatever torture dungeon he has set up, you hear me?!”

“We’re here to help you,” Twilight clarified hastily.

“Like that quack back on Corellia?” Kersh looked at her funnily.

Twilight blinked. “Nooo…” she hesitated. “We’re here to get you out of here.”

“But why would I want to go? It’s so cozy here and I have such good company.”

“Because the Imperial Security Bureau knows you’re here,” she answered. “And because Vader’s sent an Inquisitor to lead the hunt for the artifacts. They know you’ve been associated with… ‘his’ deceased companion. And soon they’ll be coming in to grab you, just for that.”

“Alas poor Yorrick!” Kersh held up the holocron, staring at it. “He was a good man. A greedy man. A stupid man. He cheated at sabacc. But a good man.”

Twilight kept her silence for the moment.

“But then he got the big job. Paid a fortune for just run. His partners and him, they got greedy.” He whispered conspiratorially to the shining hexahedron. “Wanted even more money. Sent Yorrick to talk to him. Brought a sample to dangle. Then he died.” The old man let out a small sob, wiping a tear from his eye. “So I took it from his place. Keep it safe. Or maybe sell it. No no!’ he reassured the device. “I’d never sell you now. Now that I know.”

“Know what?” Twilight couldn’t resist.

Kersh glared balefully at her. “It’s rude to eavesdrop.”

“Sorry.”

“Where was I…” he paused. “Oh yeah!” Kersh levelled the gun at Twilight again. “You work for him, don’t you? Admit it!”

“We don’t work for Maul,” Twilight insisted. “We don’t work for the Empire. We’re here to get you somewhere safe before they get to you.”

“But I’m already somewhere safe,” he muttered. “Great service too. Anyone got a light, by the way?”

“More spice is the last thing you need right now,” Twilight looked him in the eye. “You’re in danger for what you know, and for that thing in your hand. I know it seems strange that we broke into your room in the middle of night… that could have come out better.” She scratched the back of her head. “But anyway, my friend and I don’t mean you any harm. All we’re here for to ensure your safety. All we ask in return is a few questions. If you still want to, you can keep the holocron when this is all over.”

“He can?” Janus interjected.

Twilight silenced him with a glare.

“I know you don’t recognize us,” she continued, “but all we want is to keep you safe. Maul and Vader both want you, and it won’t be long before ISB agents are knocking down your door. If that happens they’ll take the holocron and throw you in some dark hole for the rest of your life. Do you want that?’

“They’ll never take me alive,” Kersh hissed.

“I’m sure they won’t but wouldn’t you rather stay alive?”

The old man actually seemed to consider it. “Guess so.”

“We can help you with that,” the princess said earnestly. “No tricks, no underhanded agenda. We two are all about helping people, making sure people like Vader can’t step on everyone with impunity. Does that sound like a good thing to you?”

“Suppose it does,” the gun wavered a bit in his hands. “What’s the catch?”

“No catch, we just want to get you out of here before you come to harm.” She paused. “If our cause sounds good to you, do you think you could help us out?”

“And how would I do that?” he clutched the holocron tightly to his chest, pistol now clearly pointed at Twilight again.

“Just come with us, answer a few questions, and we’ll let you off again somewhere safe.” Twilight promised. “We’ll give you as many options as feasible. But we have to move quickly. There are people on their way even now with far fewer qualms about shooting a man in his sleep.”

“I…” Kersh hesitated himself.

“Don’t you want to honor Yorrick’s memory?” Twilight pressed. “These people, Maul and the Empire, they killed him. They killed him for the treasures. Do you want them to get away with that?”

“Of course not!”

“Then help us,” Twilight pleaded. “We’re doing everything we can to keep the treasures out of their hands. We’ve lost friends along the way as well. We know what they’ll do to get their hands on them. That’s why we can’t let it happen.”

“I… don’t suppose we can.” Kersh said slowly. “What did you want me to do again?”

“Just come with us,” Twilight repeated. “We’ll take a speeder ride for a bit, ask you a few questions, and then drop you wherever you prefer.”

“I have always liked speeder rides.” He looked at the holocron, hesitated, then lowered his pistol. “Alright, I’ll take you up on that. You seem like trustworthy folks, far as folks breakin’ and enterin’ go.”

“Uh, thank you,” said Twilight, standing up. “Don’t mean to rush you but please grab your belongings. We don’t know how soon someone else could be coming, but it could be any time.”

“Shouldn’t be too hard, didn’t pack that heavy.” Kersh turned towards the pile of junk and blankets strewn about the floor, and took a few wobbly steps in that direction. Then he turned back around.

“You know, if you people just take me out back and shoot me in the head, I’ll be very disappointed in you."

A few minutes later, a greying smuggler, her bodyguard, and a scruffy old man clutching something wrapped tightly in a blanket like it was his firstborn crept out a disused side entrance of the Rusty Hydrospanner. They were quick and, considering their situation, reasonably stealthy. It took them a few minutes of elaborate doubling back and looking over their shoulders for tails, but eventually they reached an appropriately aged-looking speeder that may or may not have been bought third or fourth hand from a Coruscanti junk dealer. Despite the condition of the vehicle it started easily enough, and the trio zoomed off into the night.

They never noticed the Imperial probe droid hanging high overhead.

38: On The Fly

“How interesting,” Luna muttered, looking up from another data file. “Our deceased friend seems to have had quite the network of associates. Any one of which could be tied to Lord Vader’s property. If only your agents had been competent enough to bring Yorrick himself in for questioning instead of gunning him down.”

“A simple observation mission abruptly became one of life and death.” The hologram of Major Celebraine appeared as nonplussed as ever. “My agent acted appropriately given the circumstances of which he was aware. That he did not possess precognitive abilities is no slight against him. One might argue it was your department’s failure to share intelligence that left us unaware of the significance of the smuggler’s companion.”

“And one could argue that it was your department’s… failure to properly assess its technical personnel that almost resulted in my ship becoming bugged.” Luna retorted with just a slight undertone of threat.

The Major took the hint. “I regret to report that as yet our agents have found no further signs of this elusive ‘Maul’. The Bureau is sparing no effort in this endeavor.”

“I should hope so,” Luna said. “As yet the droid and satellite data I’m receiving has not turned up any sightings either.”

“Unfortunate. Perhaps the man has spooked into vacating the planet. It would hardly be the first time.”

“Without his stolen prize? Hardly likely.”

“What makes you so confident that he didn’t receive Lord Vader’s belongings and leave before you ever broke hyperspace above Corulag?”

“Call it Inquisitor’s intuition,” said Luna drily.

“As you say, my lady.” Celebraine nodded.

“So tell me, Major, what do you make of this latest intelligence?”

“I am afraid that you will need to be more specific, Lady Inquisitor,” he answered. “We have hundreds of sources of new intelligence arriving constantly.”

“Are you ignorant, dense, or pretending to be so?” Luna snapped. “You know I’m referring to the data we’ve received regarding Atax Kersh and his sudden evacuation in the middle of the night. According to your files the man was a close associate of Yorrick before his demise and had spent the last several days curled up in the rat hole, only coming out for drinks or spice. And then suddenly he leaves in the middle of the night with a man and woman of unknown providence? That is, I assume they are of unknown providence, Major?”

“No Imperial Security Bureau files on the pair exist in any database I have access to,” he said noncommittally. “Which would indicate they have yet to come up as any serious issue to the Empire. Most likely they are simple criminal acquaintances of the man.”

“There’s a first time for everything, Major. But tell me, why would ‘simple criminal acquaintances’ be removing Kersh from his rat hole in the middle of the night, avoiding the eyes of your agents as they did so?”

“Who knows why scum do what they do?” He shrugged. “Fear for his safety or sanity, perhaps. Our images of the man suggest he was not in good health, physical or mental, to begin with and it has only gone downhill from there. Perhaps he owes them money they wish to collect.”

“Is it not your sole function to understand why scum do what they do?”

“My function is to secure the Empire and, more immediately, Corulag and the surrounding system, preventing deviants and dissidents from taking root. Chasing petty criminals and smugglers I leave to more local authorities. I do not waste my time on stalking elderly addicts and mental patients,” he answered with a note of contempt.

Luna frowned a little. For all the dismissive attitude Celebraine feigned, she could feel a sense of growing unease in the man. He didn’t like where this conversation was headed. Why?

“Besides, we’ve had at least three of the men and women on this list move around since we began our observations,” he continued. “I see no reason this one should be of particular interest.”

“I might take that attitude,” Luna said as she pulled up a second hologram, this one from the probe droid. “If it hadn’t been for the way they’re going about it. Tell me, Major, what do you see?”

The overhead shot showed a trio of beings taking a long and circuitous route through a run-down portion of cityscape, feinting and doubling back several times through the maze of buildings, stalls, and piles of scrap. They weaved in and out of various streams of people with ease, taking a few minutes to reach a speeder not actually that far from where they began. It was a route guaranteed to throw off all but the most able ground-bound tails.

“A pack of scum worried about someone following them.” Luna sensed a flash of irritation alongside his unease. “Which is hardly abnormal.”

“And this?” the princess asked, magnifying the image.

From such a high and far removed vantage point the details were unclear at best, but it did show what was obviously Kersh holding something tightly under his arm. When the hologram was allowed to move again, the man kept looking at it every few steps. Luna didn’t recognize the other two, but they appeared more focused on getting the old man to move.

“The man is a known spice addict. Clearly, he didn’t want to leave any of his stash behind,” Celebraine reasoned. “Again, this is nothing abnormal.”

“You could be right, Major,” said Luna with a frown. “But I haven’t seen such behavior from any of the other targets we’ve been observing, and I don’t feel like taking chances.” The memory what Vader had done to Captain Oro slipped into her mind, and the alicorn shuddered slightly. “This man was one of Yorrick’s closest associates, and he may know something. Activate some of your agents. I want a tail placed on that speeder and the people inside it.”

“Are you certain, my lady? Is that not something of-”

“Do it, Major!” Luna hissed dangerously. “Or I may start believing that your heart isn’t in this.”

Despite the unease and the frustration that she could feel rolling off him, the man gave a formal military bow.

“As you wish, Lady Inquisitor.”

The hologram vanished.

Wind whipped by as the speeder zipped along, following a set route out of town. With Janus driving, the trio followed a little-used route beyond the city and into the countryside areas. They avoided straying from the designated paths, so as to minimize the chances of being noticed by traffic authorities. It was easy enough – Corulag played host to so many walkers and tracked vehicles that old-fashioned paved roads were still in use all across the planet.

It was only when they were almost three quarters of an hour past the city limits and deep enough into the countryside that the night sky was crisp and clear overhead that Twilight finally turned to Kersh. The old man was seated in the back seat, clutching his blaster close to his chest and cradling the wrapped holocron like it was his child. Despite the peace and quiet of the environment – even the speeder’s engine seemed more subdued out here – his eyes kept flicking from place and he looked jittery.

“So,” Twilight said, drawing his gaze. “Do you think you’d mind answering those questions now?”

“What questions? I don’t remember anything about questions.”

“…The questions we said we wanted to ask you before dropping you off?”

“Oh,” he blinked. “Now I remember. What can I do you for?”

“I’m sorry to have to ask about a sensitive subject,” Twilight began, “but we have no idea how much time we have. So I do need to get to the point. What do you know about the man Yorrick was with when he died and what they were doing together?”

“He and some of his buddies got a big score.” Kersh whispered. “Bragged about it to me, over sabacc and drinks. Said they were getting paid a fortune to smuggle some old junk from the Outer Rim to Corulag.”

“So what was he doing here?” she asked. “Why wasn’t he with… whoever else is in on it?”

“That’s the tricky bit. See, way they figured it, whoever wanted this stuff so badly, to pay so much for it and anonymity, they’d probably pay a little bit more, see?” He nodded a bit. “So they sent him on ahead. With a sample.” He stroked the blanket. “Don’t imagine he liked that none.”

“I doubt it myself,” Twilight muttered. “Was there anything else you knew about this deal? Or the man?”

“Never saw ‘em myself, but the way I heard it sounded like bad news. Didn’t want him taking my friend here, so I broke in after Yorrick… after Yorrick…” Kersh put a hand up to his mouth. A few tears trickled down his cheeks.

“I’m sorry for your friend,” Twilight said with utter sincerity. “We’ll do everything we can to make sure that neither that man or the Imperials get away with it.”

“Thanks,” he sniffed, wiping his eyes with a sleeve. “Knew him for almost fifteen years. I’ll miss that bastard.”

“I understand.” The princess nodded. “…Sorry to ask this, but is there anything else you might know about this? Anything at all?”

“Well…” the old man paused, rubbing his scruffy, unkempt beard. “Don’t know if it’ll help none, but I do know Yorrick and his partners had one landing pad they liked to use a lot. Might be they’re still planning on putting down there.”

“That’s exactly the kind of clue we were hoping for,” Twilight answered excitedly. “Please, by all means, tell us where that is.”

As Kersh did so, Twilight felt a slight vibration in her commlink. Even as the old man went on with the details about the smuggling crew’s favored spaceport and individual landing pad, she took a quick glance down at it. On the little device was a simple message, sent anonymously over encrypted channels.

The Empire has a tail on you. Watch the skies.

39: Over The Edge

Imperial Security Bureau Agents Isaac Dorn and Telchar Kulkis were not in the best of moods. Soaring high above the earth in one of the agency’s many modified airspeeders, they had been pulled from their duties and tasked by their apologetic Major with stalking an ancient mental patient and pair of scum literally everywhere they went. Celebraine had of course explicitly said nothing to the effect, but the tone of their commander clearly revealed the origins of their pointless assignment: the “good” Lady Inquisitor.

Like most in their department, the two shared their leader’s assessment of the Inquisitorius. “As arrogant and tactless as the Jedi, and twice as unstable,” as Celebraine had memorably put it in a rare emotional display. And wasn’t their existence a walking insult to the ISB? Hadn’t the Clone Wars proven that mystics running around with laser swords were nothing when faced with a proper army and intelligent tactics? The Imperial Security Bureau was well-equipped to handle any would-be Jedi insurrectionists, especially this close to Imperial Center. Sonic blasters could circumvent lightsabers, stun grenades and toxic gas canisters to bypass their reflexes, assassin droids had no emotions for them to sense, and let them try dealing with solid slug snipers at half-klick range or more. So what did the Emperor need some lunatics waving outdated red swords around for?

That this particular one looked like an overgrown plush toy Dorn might buy for his daughter only made the humiliation more complete.

It wasn’t as though the assignment even was difficult. A rookie fresh out the Academy could manage to follow an older, slower, ground-bound speeder even without the autopilot. Their targets not only weren’t aware of them, they didn’t even seem to be trying to get away from anyone. If anything, they seemed to be on nothing more than leisurely tour of the planet’s more backwoods areas. The Major had hypothesized that the two “mysterious” people were little more than old friends trying to yank the old coot of his slow, spice-induced decline and as usual his predictions seemed to be bearing out. Take him out for some fresh air and scenery, keep him far away from other scum and chemical temptation. Simple enough, and utterly unworthy of their time.

They’d been following the trio for almost two days now, and all they had gotten was cramped and sore. Forced to live and sleep in an airspeeder, unable to touch down lest they lose their target or alert the quarry to their presence, they’d seen a lovely view of improvised camping on the plains but little else. The data was being duly sent to the Inquisitor, with hopes that one day the little equine might see sense.

The duo figured that they would be there for a while.

It was mid-afternoon, the sun was shining, the forests below were a brilliant green, and the two ISB agents were irritable and bored. From high in the sky, they watched with flat expressions as the speeder wove its way in and out of the forest cover, the road weaving its way along one of Corulag’s few remaining natural rivers. It was a nice view on a pretty day, and more than once one of them silently wished to trade places with one of the three lowlifes below.

That lasted right up until the old speeder appeared once again out of the forest and one of its dual engines burst into smoke and died. The now unbalanced right engine sent the junk pile swerving uncontrollably. Before the luckless scum could regain any sense of control it punched straight through a thin rail on a bridge and soared out right over and into the river. The other engine failed to prevent it being caught in the powerful current, and whole scrap pile was swept along, choking and sputtering, right over the edge of the nearby waterfall.

From their perch in the forest, Twilight and Janus watched through magnoculars with baited breath as their vehicle went over the edge. Behind them Kersh just shivered, now deprived of his addictions for almost two straight days. It wasn’t like any of them had any particular attachment to the heavily-used speeder, but even this close to a town it was a gamble. But they had to shake the ISB somehow, or they’d never get anywhere. They had wasted too much time already. Who knew what Maul had been up to?

Slowly, carefully, but not surprisingly, the two of them made out a shape descending from the sky. An older model of airspeeder, slightly worn and painted in dull blue with tinted windows, it came into view with clear reluctance, descending towards the area the speeder had gone over.

The alicorn and human held their breath.

The old man jerked up.

“I KNEW – MMPH!”

Two pairs of hands appeared over his mouth.

Now perched above the waterfall themselves, Dorn and Kulkis simply stared down at the several hundred-foot drop into deep, rocky white-water rapids as their equipment did its work. The occasional hunk of rusted scrap could be seen, weaving in and out as it was bashed mercilessly into ever-smaller chunks.

“I’m getting no life-signs from down there,” said Dorn, looking at one of their sensors. “Well, nothing above the level of fish, anyway.”

“What about the forest?” Kulkis asked.

“It’s a forest,” The other man stared incredulously at him. “There are thousands of life signs in all directions.”

“What about human ones?”

“Dozens on either side of the river. Hikers and hunters from the nearby town, undoubtedly. We should get out of here, before someone reports us to local police. You remember what happened last time the Major caught wind of security breach like that.”

Kulkis peered out the window. “Should we check down there?”

“You want to go fishing for little chunks of scum? In that? For likes of some alien interloper?” Dorn snorted, then waved his hand. “Be my guest.”

The other man thought for a moment. “You raise a good point.”

“I always do,” he punched a few buttons on the airspeeder’s autopilot, and it began to rise. “Let’s get out of this thing already and get back to real Imperial business.”

“You said it, partner.”

“What do you MEAN you lost them?!” Luna roared, eyes blazing and wings flared wide.

“First of all,” said the hologram of Major Celebraine in his usual emotionless tone, “I did not lose them. At my rank I seldom perform fieldwork any longer. Secondly, my agents have already forwarded you all the data I myself looked at. They fell victim to their self-induced poverty and negligence at a particularly inopportune moment.” He snorted. “Unfortunate but hardly unprecedented. Scum, spice, and poor engine maintenance are not a good combination.”

“And you didn’t see fit to do anything about any of this?” The princess was grinding her teeth now.

“What was I supposed to do, offer them a free tune-up and rehabilitation program courtesy of the Imperial Security Bureau?” He countered. “Your orders were simple and direct: dispatch agents to tail them, and nothing more. And that I did. You may review the entire footage at any time, as you no doubt already have.”

“Your men failed to confirm any evidence of their bodies.”

“As did the probe droid you dispatched. Nor any evidence that they managed to pull a miraculous escape from their watery graves. I ask again, my lady, what would you have me do? If you wish me to send half men to scour the river and the surrounding area for any signs of their survival I will, but otherwise I see little point. Unfortunate things happen in the course of investigations. One simply learns to accept setbacks as they come.”

“Remind me again, Major…” Luna hissed. “Why I shouldn’t just kill you for insolence and incompetence?”

“Firstly, because I am neither incompetent nor offering you insult. I am simply stating the facts, as I have always done since my days with Republic Intelligence.” Celebraine folded his arms behind his back. “I have done nothing except offer you all the resources at my disposal from the moment we first spoke, pulling many of my agents off of preexisting investigations to aid yours. Many trails will no doubt go cold by the time we find Maul. Secondly, because by killing me you would make an enemy of not just the Bureau on Corulag, but throughout the Core and even beyond. The deaths of officers are not taken lightly, and while I’m sure you can kill any number of us willing cooperation is usually far more effective. It would be an act of grossest inefficiency.” He met her gaze without flinching, despite the unease she could sense. “But if you wish to lash out at me and cripple your own investigation, you know where I can be found.”

It was tempting, Luna gave it that.

“I’m through with the delicate touch,” she growled after a moment, struggling to wrestle down the urge to strangle this impudent whelp. “Mobilize your men. Bring me every last surviving acquaintance, friend, and family member Yorrick had on Corulag! I won’t lose any more to misfortune! I’ll wring the man’s story out of them if I have to tear it from their beating hearts!”

“Very good, my lady.” He bowed again, stiff and military as ever. “Will there be anything else?”

“Just don’t screw this up.”

40: On The Brink

“Your little stunt riled Vader’s lapdog quite fiercely,” the familiar synthetized androgynous voice said through Twilight’s commlink. “She’s ordered the ISB to arrest anyone with even the most tangential connection to the dead man, and I doubt many will again see the light of day.”

“Princess Luna,” Twilight thought, as twin waves of guilt and horror swept over her. “What are you doing? What did they do to you?”

Twilight and Janus, once again reimagined via the miracles of modern cosmetics, sat quietly beside an ancient tree in the forest outside one of Corulag’s mountain resort towns. Kersh, less ably made-over but at least shaved, bathed, and given new clothes and a short haircut, sat nearby, still clutching the wrapped holocron tightly to his chest. The occasional bout of muttering to it was a small price to pay to make sure he didn’t inadvertently wander off into Imperial hands.

“I wish there was something we could do, but there aren’t enough of us on Corulag,” the voice went on. “Not enough for a shooting war with the Bureau, at any rate.”

“So we’re just going to let more than a dozen innocent people be tortured and killed?” Twilight hissed. “Because of something we did?”

“What we did was save an innocent old man from going to join them!” Janus snapped at her. “We aren’t to blame for what the bitch does.”

“But if we hadn’t grabbed Kersh…”

“He would have also been taken,” finished her commlink. “Perhaps a day later, perhaps a week, but she would have done it sooner or later no matter what happened. Your partner is right, you cannot take responsibility for actions that are not your own.”

“I can’t let her go through with this!” Twilight declared. “We have to do something!”

“The abductions have already begun,” said the voice. “And they will be completed within the hour. The nearest target is exactly 527.18 miles from your present location. Do you have the means to get there in time?”

“I…” Twilight hesitated.

“And assuming you can, what will you do? Fight the numerically superior enemy agents, risking capture or death. Assume you succeed, then what? The Imperial Security Bureau will come down on you like a hammer from the heavens for the death of its agents. The Inquisitor will doubtless order anyone connected to the person that you managed to rescue rounded up and treat them to the same fate.”

“She-”

“And while if you wish to confront her directly I can certainly supply you with her coordinates, the fact remains that even in the ludicrously implausible event that you are not immediately carved into pieces who will her defeat call in? Her master, Darth Vader. Do you suppose he will stop with a dozen victims?” The voice was relentlessly logical. “You are skilled and lucky, of that there is no doubt, but you do not have the power right all the wrongs in the galaxy by yourself.”

Twilight slumped back against the tree. The guilt in her soul – the feeling that this was her fault – did not cease, but now her logical mind inexorably ground into war with it. Victory over the Empire and Luna here could not be achieved without calling on the full magic she possessed, yet in doing so she would only call yet greater retribution on this planet and hers. Rationality could not continence it, which only made her feel guiltier. She was among the most individually powerful beings in the galaxy, yet she had little choice but to stand by and watch helplessly as monstrous injustice was perpetrated.

“You must learn to do what you can,” the commlink continued, “and to accept that you cannot do everything, no matter how much you wish for it. I…” there was a deep, bitter sigh “have substantial experience in that.”

There was pause.

“If you must feel guilt, I advise you to turn it into determination. The Empire must fall if injustices like this and too many more to count are to be stopped. And to do that, we will need beings of unflagging dedication and bottomless patience. You must know how to pick your battles, when to stand and fight and when to slip away into the shadows. Our final victory will not be achieved in day, nor a year, and perhaps not even a decade. But assured when I tell you this: our day will come. The Force will make it so.”

“So,” said Kersh, a few hours later. “What’s our next move?”

Twilight, now fitting a broad-brimmed hat over her head, shared a glance with Janus. He nodded, and she nodded back.

“Don’t take this the wrong way… our next move is to get you off this planet,” she said.

“What?!” The old man looked genuinely. “We’ve known each other so long… we’re in this together, the three of us.”

“It’s not even been three days yet,” Janus observed.

“What he means to say,” Twilight jumped back in. “Is that we can’t risk your safety. It’s too dangerous here, between her and Maul, there’s too many people that might want you hurt. So we’re getting you out of here, first transport in the morning. We have friends on Corellia, they can help you get somewhere where you’ll be safe.”

“Dawn…” Kersh said, using Twilight’s given alias. “I been thinkin’… what have I got left, really? Not many good years left in me, nope.” He shook his head. “You’re gonna go say hi to the scumbags that killed Yorrick, right?”

Twilight said nothing, getting an increasingly bad feeling about this. The old man pulled her in close.

“I want in,” he whispered. “I wanna find those scum and make ‘em pay.”

“Absolutely not!” Twilight shook her head firmly. “You’re well past your prime and still recovering from heavy overuses of chemicals. Those people will eat you alive, and there’s no way I’m letting that happen.”

“Didn’t say anything about let. I know we’re they’ll show up, you know it to. I go with you or I go alone,” he declared.

“Are you insane?!” Twilight hissed.

“Probably,” said Kersh and Janus together.

“What have I got left to lose? My family’s gone years ago, now my best friend’s dead. I’m almost broke and probably got some kind cancer… or some old people disease or somesuch.” He shook his head. “May as well get somethin’ important done before I go.”

“Think about what you’re saying! Would your friend Yorrick want you dying in some insane effort to avenge him?”

“Probably. He was always a spiteful one.”

“Gah!” Twilight pulled at her hair.

Behind the old man, Janus slowly slipped the pistol out of his holster. Twilight saw him flick the setting to stun, but shook her head frantically. For all that the old man needed their help he wasn’t a prisoner.

“I know what you’re thinkin’. Has this old coot finally lost it?” he chuckled. “The answer is: yeah. But there’s still enough left a’ me to remember that I can make it worth your while.” Kersh grinned. “I saw that look in your eyes back there, girl. Seen it before. That there was the look of gal lookin’ to save the galaxy.”

“The answer is no, whatever deal you had in mind,” Twilight folded her arms across her chest. “Absolutely, positively, no. I won’t let you kill yourself in some stupid quest for revenge.”

“Justice!” Kersh snapped, before grinning again. “But he thought you’d say that.”

“He? Who – oh.”

“You wanna be hero, do you? Well I just so happen to have someone who can help you with that.” He patted the ever-present bundle. “You may not know it, but this here’s a genuine Jedi holocron. Weren’t no fools in galaxy more heroic than them. Help me out, and he might just help you.”

As the last of the screaming faded away, Luna turned and, with a huff, exited the cell. The door slammed shut but her, as two Stormtroopers from her limited contingent offered a salute. The alicorn ignored them, sweeping past imperiously. She headed back down the hallway and to the grand chamber now filled with holograms and display feeds from satellites and probe droids a world over. With an idle thought, she shut the door behind her. With another, she activated a holoprojector. The Major was refreshingly prompt this time.

“Good day my lady,” Celebraine said. “I trust the interrogations went well?”

“None of the scum had any real ability to shield their minds,” said Luna. “Ripping information out was child’s play.” Without Vader nearby to sense the power of the telepathic attack, there was no reason to hold back. “A little rough on their nerves, but gentler than your interrogation droids.”

“Did they survive?”

“Mostly,” Luna shrugged. “I’ll be transferring them back to you shortly. Detain them until I give word to do otherwise. And keep them alive, Major.”

“Of course. Was there any intelligence of interest?”

“I want the inbound list of the spaceport linked to my data feed,” she commanded, punching in the coordinates with a thought. “Not a ship comes out of hyperspace headed for the area that I don’t know about, understood?”

“Without question. Have we any idea what ship we are actually looking for?”

“Depending on whose mind you’re reading, it’s either Silver Sky or Scarlett Flash,” she answered. “Assuming anything these people remember can be trusted.”

“I’ll add an extra flag to those names,” he promised.

“See that you do. I’ll contact you again soon.”

Celebraine bowed, then vanished.

Luna rubbed her forehead. This wasn’t working. Mundane means hadn’t turned up much of anything of worth, and the Sith artifacts could be here at any time. It was surprising that they hadn’t shown up yet, really. She didn’t have any actual mundane evidence that Maul hadn’t already accepted delivery and fled before she had ever arrived, but the Force was telling her-

The alicorn’s eyes went wide.

“Of course,” she thought, as the answer finally struck her. “The Force shall free me.”

41: Dark Cargo

Even as data flooded in around her, Luna closed her eyes. Even as a dozen chimes from as many screens called for her attention, she tuned them out. Even as she shut down her body, she opened her mind.

Why hadn’t she thought of this before? The Force was an infinite field of energy that rose from, and connected, all living things. Time and space were malleable concepts where it was concerned. One could, with effort, trace the infinite skeins of possible futures out to their furthest depths, granting potentially unlimited knowledge of what is, what was, and what might yet. But such affairs were inconsistent at best, dangerous at worst. The future was undecided and always in motion, and one could easily go mad trying to gaze millennia into the future, oblivious as one’s own neglected body withered and died.

The princess had no such grand ambitions – at least not yet. All she sought was knowledge of more immediately relevant. Days, or perhaps even hours from now, the treasure trove would arrive. All Luna needed was to find its thread of fate, and follow it to its most likely destination. Even that was daunting, the swirling matrices of ten thousand possibilities swirling about her even as she cast her mind into the maelstrom. Before her spiritual eyes the future around her grew clouded and dark.

But darkness was her ally.

While in the mundane world the Sith relics were quite well-hidden, in the luminous world it was not so simple. These were ancient things of darkness and hatred, forged across centuries by dark lords long crumbled to dust, that their legacies might endure forever. And as ever, like called to like. They wanted to be found.

Luna’s soul roared her bitterness, her hatred, and her rage into the unending abyss that was the dark side of the Force. Ripples swept out, a hundred futures destroyed forever and just as many called into being. Black threads enveloped her deep blue spirit in a tangled web, pulling the princess this way and that, threatening to drag her off into a realm of wailing and madness, the torment of those too weak to master it. Whatever else she might have been, Luna was not weak.

“I am no puppet! I am your mistress!” came the silent shout, as her soul blazed with a deep blue fire. “Submit, or suffer.”

The threads of possibility adjusted once again, several burned away to so many cinders, still more rising from the infinite inky depths. One, thin and delicate as the slight strand of silk, fell across the princess’ eyes.

An instant and eternity later, yellow eyes shot open.

The data around the princess had changed considerable, the holographic projections now unrecognizable from what they had been. Her legs felt stiff and her neck was sore. Luna’s stomach rumbled. Whether it had been an hour or a week, the princess could not tell. But neither did she care. With the flick of an excited thought, she reached for her holoprojector.

“Major,” she said the instant that the man appeared. “Assemble your best squad and contact the Invulnerable. We have our heading.”

The man didn’t even blink. “May I enquire as to what it is, my lady?”

“As a matter of fact, you may not. But fear not, you will see soon enough. Because I want you by my side on that Star Destroyer within the hour. I’ve decided it’s time for you to get out from behind your desk and stretch your legs. I’d advise you to wear armor.”

“Your concern for my welfare is appreciated,” he said in that same irritatingly emotionless tone. “Is there anything else I should be aware of?”

“Tell the Invulnerable to clear one of its ventral hangers and prepare all tractor beams,” Luna ordered. “Scramble a squadron of fighters, just in case. Actually, better make it two.”

“As you will.”

Exactly twenty-three minutes later, the princess stood in one of the many sub-hangers of the Venator-class Star Destroyer Invulnerable’s immense dorsal flight deck. Semitransparent blue shields protected her, Sargent Crest, and the remainder of her depleted Stormtrooper compliment from the vacuum of space as a Nu-class attack shuttle slipped in through the vast opened doors. Without ceremony, the ISB craft slipped through the field and touched down, the clang of metal on metal echoing loudly in the cavernous space.

A boarding ramp descended a moment later, and down came eleven humans in perfect lock-step. Major Celebraine took the lead, grey armor plates fitted over his white uniform, forgettable face as seemingly flat as ever. Behind him marched two rows of five men each dress in grey armor over a black body glove. Luna noted the unusually-sized rifles the ten of them carried on their backs, the grenades on their utility belts, the long knives sheathed on their hips, and the iron in their minds. These were men trained to resist the mental effects of the Force, of that she had no doubt. The Major himself, by contrast, had a simple blaster pistol on his hip and a utility belt full of pouches.

“Imperial Security Bureau, Enforcement branch, reporting for duty,” he announced to an utterly unimpressed audience.

“Your arrival is timely,” Luna answered. “But your choice of weaponry seems a bit of overkill.”

“You asked for the best. I brought our Jedi-killers.”

“Might I ask why?”

He stared flatly down at her. “It seemed prudent.”

When the HWK-290 light freighter Silver Sky broke hyperspace, its singularly unfortunate crew had just enough to blink before their ship shuddered roughly, then lurched hard away from Corulag. Hanging overhead, blocking out the system’s star like a executioner’s axe, was the massive bulk of a mighty Imperial warship. As the sheer force of the tractor beam pulled them in despite a truly heroic effort by the ship’s engines, they just barely had time to whimper.

There they sat, tucked away in a corner of a small cargo bay, as far from the cockpit as was physically possible. An ancient suit of glossy spiked armor, the color of tarnish brass and with a sheen like insect chitin. A half a dozen moldering tomes, wrapped in cracking leather of unknown origin, affixed with fading glyphs, and sealed with rusting chains. There was a small pile of crumbling scrolls, carefully sealed in an airtight container and still looking as though they might fall apart at any moment. An ancient metal sword was sheathed in black reptilian skin, a golden dragon’s head pommel with dark rubies for eyes sat alongside a black iron spear in a transparisteel case, tattered war pendants still carrying some ancient and unknowable boast. A beaten bronze lightsaber hilt, lovingly engraved with glyphs and with a broken cord dangling from the bottom, lay alongside it. There were a trio of bejeweled pendants, each carved into the shape of snarling terentatek or coiled war wyrm.

And there, in center of the hoard, rested two small pyramids. They weren’t much to look at – carved from a dull black material and with only a faint red glow near capstone to show that they were more than simple decoration – but Luna could sense ancient malevolence seeping from the dusty old things. To a ordinary being, it was a creeping sense of unease, a whisper on the wind, a shadow that shouldn’t be cast. To a Force-sensitive, it was a wellspring and a maw, offering the succulent lure of knowledge and power long forgotten, waiting and eager to drain the life and soul from the unwary.

The Inquisitor and her men stood there for a moment, simply staring. She could sense the disquiet in their minds, the creeping suspicion that something was wrong with this picture. Even for hardened veterans or heartless secret police, there were things that caused even their calloused souls discomfort. They instinctively recognized the menace, even if they couldn’t put a name to it. Some instincts were too primal to be removed, even by the Empire.

“Evil…” Celebraine’s whisper broke the spell.

Luna glanced up at him. For the first time that she could remember, the Major’s face was openly displaying emotion. He had a snarl writ large across him, one of his hands was close to his blaster.

“Those… those…” he struggled to find a word “things are poisonous, we can all sense it.”

There was a general murmur of agreement, neither the Stormtroopers nor ISB agents liking the look of the relics one little bit.

“They ought to be flown into the nearest star without delay. Nothing good can come from this.”

“Strangulation will come from this if you think to lay one finger on Lord Vader’s property,” Luna reminded him. “And in very short order.”

The man let out a slight hiss. A ripple of Force energy ran gently across his neck. The Major hesitated, then slowly withdrew his hand from the vicinity of his gun. He took a step back, clearly attempting to reassert his lost composure.

“Prepare to move out!” Luna barked. “We have a rendezvous to attend to!”

“Should we remove the relics, ma’am?” Sargent Crest asked. “We have a place on the ship prepared for their arrival.”

“No,” Luna shook her head. “If they aren’t on board to conceal it Maul will sense my presence and flee. And if neither of us is aboard then he’ll sense the absence and undoubtedly vanish back into the shadows. That’s unacceptable.”

“As you wish.” Crest nodded.

“Fire up the engines and make ready to be underway!” The princess commanded once more. “We have a loose end to tie up.”

42: Dark Duel

The man once known, and feared, as Darth Maul waited impatiently in the shadows of a delipidated hanger on the outskirts of Crullov City. His prize, the culmination of months of careful scheming, was badly overdue. It should have been here, and he gone, weeks ago. But the wretched smugglers he had arranged to have hired proved both greedy and stupid, clumsily attempting to fleece him for an even more obscene amount of money. Then their contact, the idiot Yorrick, had alerted the Imperials with his incompetence and failure to detect an obvious tail. After ensuring the man wouldn’t be taken alive, he’d had to negotiate via tenuous encrypted holotransmitions far more vulnerable to interception.

Their terms had been nothing short of extortionate. He’d accepted only because it was a given that none of them were ever going to survive the night no matter what happened.

But at long last the moment was here. Maul could feel the smothering aura of darkness that surrounded the ancient Sith treasures. It was overhead, even now, and coming this way, though still far too slowly for his liking. He needed to be away from this place, and fade back into the distant darkness of Wild Space for time. He needed to study, to meditate and plan. He needed a way to hit Sidious where it hurt. He needed his revenge. The one-time Sith apprentice stared up into the skies, eagerness and hatred alike writ large across his masked face.

Minutes ticked by, Maul’s frustration wearing away at his already-damaged mind as they did and still he had nothing. He reached out through the dark side, impatience driving him to tune out all else as he did. They were there, so close, so tantalizingly, excruciatingly… close. A gloved hand reached up, grasping at empty air.

When at last the moment came, and a sleek but battered freighter finally began to set down, it seemed to him almost like an angel of primitive mythology. He rose from amidst the shadows without delay, casting off the net of Force energy he’d worn to conceal his presence. Striding boldly from behind one of the many cast off and empty cargo containers, he didn’t even wait for the landing ramp to descend before he started talking.

“You’re late!” he snarled at the as-yet invisible smugglers. “With the kind of payment that I’ve provided for you I expect-”

Maul cut himself off, as the boarding ramp descending. Standing atop it was a deep blue equine creature of species he’d never seen before or even heard of. But those yellow eyes it had… those he knew all too well.

Luna was out the bottom of the ramp in moment, staring at the masked man now standing there in silence, hands hanging low at his sides. He didn’t look like much, face concealed behind a flat grey mask with slits for eyes, body wrapped tightly in a dark cloak and tunic, and matching pants exposing cybernetic legs from the knees down. But when she looked at him though the Force…

The alicorn was dimly aware of Imperial Security Bureau troopers filing down behind her, strange rifles clasped in their hands and contemptuous looks on their faces. Her own Stormtroopers marched alongside them, blasters at the ready. Fools. Last of all was the Major, standing atop the ramp with arms folded behind his back. The Sith before them was quiet, unmoving. Even as the men around her raised their rifles and began fanning out, he didn’t even seem to pay them the slightest mind.

“Maul,” Celebraine once again decided to break the silence. “In the name of the Galactic Empire and his majesty the Emperor, you are hereby placed under arrest. Come quietly and it will go better for you.”

That got a reaction. The man before Luna snorted, then burst out laughing. A harsh barking sound echoed through the docking port, tinged with the ravages of time and madness.

“This is it?!” Maul laughed. “This is the only dog Vader could send after his precious cargo?! A single wretched neophyte and a handful of lackeys!” He burst into another round of mildly-hysteric chuckling. “I spent weeks skulking in this refuse heap… for fear of this?!”

Luna bared her teeth. Celebraine drew his pistol. The men’s fingers were on their triggers.

“This…” Maul hissed, “should be fun.”

Then the world exploded.

One moment, Maul was standing there with his hands at his side. The next, it seemed to Luna, a red blur was swinging impossibly fast for her head. Her own lightsaber, guided by instinct as much as will, surged forth from underneath her wing in a burst of crimson. Two blades collided not inches from the alicorn’s face, red on red flaring brilliantly in the dim lighting.

A cybernetic leg shot underneath the locked sword, catching the princess in the throat. She went flying, hitting the hard metal floor several yards away, her lightsaber clattering to the ground as her concentration was disrupted. Maul leapt into the air even as strange energy blasts filled the space where he had just been, so fast that for a moment he barely seemed visible. He came tumbling down with a single red blade above his head. Luna’s pain fed her anger, and her own lightsaber soared across the bay. He landed roughly with one foot atop her, blade swinging smoothly into a death blow at her neck. Instead, the crimson plasma intercepted a second time. This time the Zabrak pressed down with all his considerable strength, forcing the matched swords towards her tantalizing flesh. She hissed in naked hatred as she telekinetically pushed back up. For a moment the two stared at one another, deadlocked.

Their contest of strength was broken by a green bolt of energy aimed at Maul’s back. The Sith whirled, dodging Luna’s swing as he brought up his lightsaber to deflect it. Instead, the moment green struck red there was a deafening boom as the containment field around the condensed sonic energy was ruptured. The omnidirectional blast flattened Luna against the floor and sent Maul staggering back as the lightsaber was torn roughly from his hand.

The princess surged to her hooves, lightsaber swinging for her opponent’s unprotected chest. Maul dodged with a nimble backwards summersault, landing smoothly and calling his weapon back to his hand with a wave. Luna all but threw herself at him with a lethal jab of her lightsaber, which he sidestepped. She followed up with a precise slash at his lower knee, which the taller man leapt over, coming down with a powerful blow aimed at her head. When he was all but on top of her she unleashed a wave of raw Force energy, tearing the mask from his face and hurling the expert close-quarters fighter back. He landed smoothly, his yellow eyes meeting Luna’s own. There was a half smirk on his face.

“Gun him down!” Luna roared, rather unnecessarily, at her men.

The bay was already filled with energy blasts, green sonics from the ISB men mingling with the red blaster bolts from the princess’ own contingent. The latter, Maul deflected off his lightsaber, but the others were a problem. He darted forwards, rolling suddenly to get underneath several sonic spheres. The moment he was on his feet he thrust his left hand out, and three of the nearest Imperial troopers were bowled over by a powerful Force push, Maul pounced on the nearest of them, mercilessly beheading the luckless man even as he tried to scrabble away. The carcass surged upwards as more energy blasts tracked him, interposing itself before its killer. The Sith laughed as the Imperials’ own weapons all but disintegrated their comrade’s corpse.

Luna held back a moment, content to rest herself while taking the measure of the man’s style. He was fast and aggressive, relying more on speed and a good offense to avoid harm than skill with deflection. As she watched him viciously impale another soldier, she identified the form as Juyo. The seventh and most aggressive of all lightsaber forms it emphasized a berserker ferocity at the expense of defensive viability. A third man died as she made the observation, carved into multiple pieces by a savage flurry, but no matter.

It was as Maul was closing to eviscerate the fourth of the ISB “Jedi-killers” that Luna made her move. With a cry and a flash of Force-assisted speed, she all but crashed into him from the side. Her lightsaber came straight from his chest, and his own swung up to meet it. Even as he caught it, the alicorn’s wing flared and Cia’s former lightsaber burst into life. Maul was forced to duck underneath the wild swing, disengaging from the blade lock and backing up a step. Luna followed through with a wild frenzy of her own, not a coherent style so much as a randomized outlet for raw aggression. Two blades hacking madly at him, their owner comfortably outside his immediate reach, Maul was forced into a more defensive position.

The Sith was far from inept at defense, of course, parrying the comparatively amateurish blows from the alicorn with quick and efficient moves, but judging from the way the smirk had faded from his tattooed face it was clearly not the place he wanted to be. Luna didn’t let up for a second, pressing him back as Grievous had once pressed her. A red haze threatened to envelope her, calling on the would-be hero to abandon her reason and lose herself in the fury of the moment, cut down the this pretend, cut down these humans, cut down everyone…

With a hiss and a twirl, she disengaged, her lightsabers abruptly yanked back towards her. Taking their cue with commendable swiftness, the surviving Imperials opened up again the moment she was out of the way. Well-aimed sonics and blaster bolts poured down on Maul’s position, and he tumbled aside with a curse. Before he was even back on his feet again Luna was on him, twin lightsabers lashing out with wild abandon. Maul’s own crimson blade raced to meet them as fast as they came, but Luna’s strategy was already decided.

It wasn’t a push and pull, it was a push and push and push some more. Luna came at Maul with both lightsabers flashing, using telekinesis to control them from outside the reach of his arms, random attacks from two directions at once keeping him from concentrating on one saber and picking it off. The moment she felt her stamina begin to wane, succumbing to the high energy demands of such a flamboyant style, she broke off the attack and right away the Imperials resumed firing. Now as spread out and far away as they could get without leaving the starship open, they unloaded from enough different angles to force Maul to keep dodging, denying him any chance to recover. If he tried to rush the gunline the alicorn could attack from the side, and if he tried to rush her she could disengage and leave him to be shot at.

Luna didn’t know if she could beat him in a fair lightsaber duel. But she did know that she didn’t have to.

The pattern continued for what felt like forever, but in reality couldn’t have been more than a few minutes at most. The Imperials couldn’t land any real hits on the Zabrak, but neither did he have any breathing room to resume an offensive flurry and overwhelm them. Maul’s face was slowly devolving from arrogance it had started with to a naked snarl, which Luna gladly returned. Both duelists were slick with sweat, but to the alicorn’s eye he seemed to be running out of stamina more quickly than she was, and that was all that mattered.

As she pressed her latest flurry against him, Maul suddenly switched to a one-handed grip. Thrusting his hand out before she had a chance to react, Luna was bowled over by a sudden Force wave and hurled across the room. She hit the wall with a painful thunk, then fell to the floor with a dull thud. Ducking easily under the now-disoriented swings of the twin lightsabers, Maul rushed princess in a reckless blitz, determined to kill her before his energies were drained. Luna scrambled madly, narrowly rolling out of the way as his lightsaber carved a long furrow in the floor where her abdomen had just been. Desperately she called her lightsabers to her, but they were far away now, and Maul was all but on top of her. His follow up stab missed impaling her by a hair’s breadth. Grabbing blindly for a few seconds more, she hurled the first thing that came within reach – the corpse of one of the ISB men. Contemptuously, Maul swept his lightsaber through it. The crimson blade parted weapons, armor, cloth, and flesh with equal ease, right up until it seared through the knife sheathe on his belt and nicked the polished blade.

At which point it promptly sputtered and died.

For just a fraction of a second, Maul stood there, staring at the lifeless hilt with dawning look of horrified comprehension. Then he looked at Luna. Then he was the one flying across the room, as the princess hit him with a wave of her own. He hit the ground hard, the useless hilt of his lightsaber rolling away. The princess’ own lightsabers reached her just at that moment.

“Cortosis,” Luna realized as she resumed her hooves. “The ISB is issuing these units cortosis blades.”

The rare, exotic, and highly-expensive material had the power to temporarily short out a lightsaber that came into contact with it – an unpleasant surprise for any Jedi.

Maul rose quickly to his feet, and just as quickly was being forced to summersault as another wave of gunfire swept his position, Luna’s own lightsabers illuminated her broad grin as the Sith was made to dodge this way and that, his attempt to take cover behind an old cargo container only getting him a side-full of sharp metal shards when concentrated sonic bolts blew it to pieces.

“You were right!” she called out to him. “This is fun!”

His yellow eyes turned to her one more time, a look of pure hatred on his face. Then, without a word, he turned and bolted for the hanger’s nearest exit. The Force amped his speed to superhuman levels, even as sonics and blasterfire dogged his heels.

“After him!” Luna shouted, calling the forgotten hilt of Maul’s lightsaber to herself. “Do not let him escape!”

Even as she began to run herself, the alicorn smirked.

“I have you now.”

43: Dark Deal

“Major!” Luna shouted even as she bolted, “Take the Stormtroopers and lock down this hanger! Jedi hunters, with me!”

Not bothering to check to see whether or not she was being obeyed, the princess called on the Force and ran like a mare possessed after the fleeing shadow. Maul himself ran with the speed of a phantom, hurling himself out one of the disused hanger bay’s delapidated entrances and vanishing from sight. Luna locked on to something a little more reliable, and follow, plunging freely into the dark corridors beyond.

Long considered obsolete, for many years this particular starport had been nothing more than a credit-sink for any fool luckless enough to own it, until at last it had been virtually abandoned and left to the elements. The wide hallways, built for hundreds of beings and their cargo, were empty and lifeless. Lowly vermin scattered before the pounding of Luna’s hooves and the boots of her men.

Her senses took her quickly from the hanger, and through a winding maze of dilapidated corridors weaving this way and that. Lumen strips long dead, the only light came from the cracks and holes where the ceiling had given way, exposing the stars high overhead. Debris was everywhere, from rusty chunks of durasteel to broken shipping containers to dusty old wrappers long picked clean. The princess ignored it all, her every sense given over to her pursuit. Her quarry was an experienced Sith assassin and infiltrator, and she had no intention of letting him give her the slip, though she was forced to slow down on occasion to let the humans behind her keep her in sight.

The path narrowed as Maul took to the back ways – old maintenance corridors, restricted areas, and employee lounges. In the even more confined space, noise echoed easily this way and that, creating a disorienting difficulty in determining its origin points. Perhaps the roof was more solid here, for the holes providing the faint moonlight vanished altogether. Luna could hear footsteps in the pitch black, but her though her ears tracked it one way after another she couldn’t discern the original direction. No matter, she didn’t need that sense right now.

After a minutes of darting around through the dark, Luna crossed a threshold, then came to a sudden and inexplicable halt. Behind her, she sensed the seven surviving ISB troopers coming to a halt, breathing heavily but still clutching their sonic rifles close. It did their training credit that they had been able to keep up at all, even if the alicorn had had to make allowances for them.

“Maaauul…” Luna called out into the darkness, her voice echoing in all directions. “Come out come out wherever you are.” She grinned, lightsaber hilt hovering close to her head. “You can run but you can’t hide, because I can smell your fear!”

The red blade flared to life and a shadow descended.

From the perch he had taken in a ceiling alcove in the small corner office, Maul flung himself into his pursuers’ midst. He passed over the alicorn’s head, crashing down like a ton of bricks onto one luckless ISB man, driving him hard into the ground. Another, acting on well-honed reflexes, swung his heavy rifle at the Sith. Maul seized the improved club in one hand, grabbed the man’s shoulder in the other, and viciously drove his metal knee into the gap in his armor near the abdomen. Luna smelled blood.

With a smirk of her own, she charged the horned man. Maul reacted quickly, swinging the wounded soldier between them, but not fast enough. Luna drove her red blade through the Imperial’s back without hesitation. It burst out through his chest, and only the Zabrak’s quick reflexes prevented him from getting impaled through the face. Instead the crimson lightsaber seared away one of the many horns that crowned the left side of his head, leaving a short stripe of burnt flesh.

Hissing with pain and fury, Maul lashed out wildly with the dark side. A Force wave blasted in all directions. Luna, able to shield herself, was only forced back a few feet, but the Imperial soldiers were flung about like a child’s playthings in a hurricane. They slammed roughly into walls, ceiling, and furniture, at least one killed outright by the sheer force of impact. The princess couldn’t help but smirk as Maul threw himself atop the nearest one, shoving him roughly against the wall even as he tried to regain his feet. The Zabrak seized the human by the neck and, with one swift and efficient twist, broke it. He didn’t even bother to let go before he grabbed the dead man’s cortosis knife from its sheath.

Maul, his face a mask of incandescent fury, looked in the lightsaber’s glow like nothing so much as murderous demonic nightmare. With a roar he hurled himself at the alicorn, bringing the knife down even as the lightsaber rose to meet him. Luna’s own blade sputtered and died just as his had done at the slightest touch, but it bought her the time she needed to dodge aside, letting the short blade cut empty air. He whirled about to face her, but was forced to roll aside himself as a sonic bolt whizzed for his chest. Coming up on one knee, he thrust his hand out at the trooper who’d fired, hurling him back against the wall with bone-shattering force.

With only three men left in any shape to fight and only a backup lightsaber remaining, Luna decided it was time to play her trump card.

Before Maul had had even a nanosecond to turn back to her, the alicorn’s broken horn erupted into an electrical storm. Force Lightning surged like water from a broken dam, flooding the small office and washing over the defenseless Zabrak. It was his turn to be thrown about like a toy, hurled hard into a shelf as thousands of volts coursed through his flesh. It collapsed on top of him, heavy frame adding insult to injury.

Even that wasn’t enough to keep the Sith apprentice down. A moment later, his one free arm hurled the furniture off of him, pain only empowering his Force abilities. It flew several yards and incidentally crushed an ISB man still struggling to extricate himself from debris he’d been tossed into earlier. Yellow eyes boring into Luna, mouth twisted into a bestial snarl, Darth Maul rose up yet again.

Or tried to.

Luna’s face split into a malevolent grin as Maul’s legs shook violently, the odd bolt of blue electricity crackling across the length of them. Unable for now to bear his weight and systems going haywire, the failure of his grafts forced the Sith to his knees. It was just as Dooku had told her – cybernetics were especially vulnerable to Force Lightning, its wild discharges overwhelming and unbalancing the precise and delicate electrical systems necessary for their operation when it did not burn them out altogether.

Maul’s violent expression faded as his mind processed what had just happened, realized that there was no possible way his weakened legs could propel him across the room to cut her heart out before she could unleash another torrent of electricity. Without a lightsaber, he could not defend against it. Another burst would finish off the circuitry inside his legs and leave him utterly helpless. Hate faded, an expression of grim stoicism taking its place.

“Congratulations,” he hissed, flipping the knife around in his hands. “You surprise me.” He pressed the blade up next to his own throat. “But I won’t be taken alive. Tell your master I won’t be some trophy in-”

“I’ve been after you for weeks,” Luna cut him off. “Since I first pried your name out of that trash pit on Coruscant. I’ve killed and tortured and done things I’d never thought I’d do just to get to this moment.” The two remaining ISB men now stood behind the princess, rifles leveled at the injured Sith. “Now that I have you right where I want you…”

Cia’s lightsaber burst into light and movement. A moment later, twin headless corpses slumped to the floor behind her.

“I want to talk.”

Maul blinked, but the knife did not move.

“You and I share more than you realize,” she went on.

This earned a bitter chuckle from Maul. “What could a… slave like you possibly share with the likes of me?”

“Hate.” Luna bared her teeth, yellow eyes flaring in the dark. “Hate for the Empire. Hate for Darth Vader. Hate… for Darth Sidious.”

Maul’s eyes widened, then narrowed again.

“Of course,” he hissed in a low voice. “I should have realized… that is Sith lightning, my old master would never bequeath such a thing to an expendable lackey. So where might you have learned such a power?”

“Korriban,” Luna answered, truthfully.

“Ah… now the pieces begin to fall into place.” Maul smiled wrily. “It makes sense that Sidious’ slaves would have established a training facility there, seeking to exploit the world’s strength in the dark side. So perhaps you stumbled onto an old scroll or holocron… or even won the favor of shade of a dark lord long passed?”

She said nothing.

“Now you think yourself a Sith, and like all Sith must do, you seek to overthrow your master?” Maul chuckled again. “Am I close?”

“I am not a Sith, though their powers are mine to command,” Luna declared. “I do not seek petty power over others, only vengeance for crimes done to my people and their freedom from the Empire’s tyranny.”

“Through victory, my chains are broken.” Maul quoted with a knowing smirk. “The Force shall free me.”

“Exactly,” Luna nodded. “Just because I share in pieces of their wisdom does not mean I share in their insanity – what fool would ever deliberately seek an apprentice capable of killing him, knowing what would come to pass?”

“Funny,” said the Zabrak. “I suspect Sidious would agree with you on that point.”

Luna growled, sparks dancing across the ruin of her horn.

“So,” Maul continued quickly. “What is it that you want with me?”

“Your help,” the alicorn answered. “You hate Sidious every bit as much as I do. He wreaked slaughter on your people as he did on mine, made you into a slave as he seeks to do to me. Your undying wish is to take his head for all that he has done. I share that wish. We should combine our strength.”

“Even together I doubt we would match him. Believe me, I’ve tried… that is why I am now an only child.”

“My condolences. Regardless, I was not thinking of going after Sidious just yet. My sights were set on a more… visible target.”

“Vader?” Maul’s brow furrowed.

“Yes,” she nodded. “Vader. Kill the apprentice, and what is the master like to do?”

“Seek a replacement,” he answered bitterly.

“And who would be the natural first choice for such a lofty position?”

“I would hardly call it ‘lofty’, but for someone schooled in Sith doctrine you surely know the answer. An acolyte who slays their superior earns the right to claim that position. Such has ever been the Sith way.”

“Exactly. And what better position to await the opportunity to strike at his heart?”

“You underestimate him badly if you think Sidious will fall easily.”

“Not yet,” Luna grinned. “But my species is… long-lived beyond the comprehension of humans. In five years, ten, maybe twenty, his body will rot under the twin strains of age and the ravages of the dark side. While I will remain healthy and whole, his strength will wither away until he can barely hold a lightsaber any longer. And in the meantime I can learn more from him, more of him, until the day comes when he is weak and together we can cut him down.”

“You seem to have thought this out. But if all is as you say, what do you need me for?”

“To face Vader. He will treat me as a faceless peon, doling out knowledge in paltry quantities if at all, while he greedily consumes knowledge like what resides in that ship. I will never be anything but an errand girl to him, and so my potential would stagnate. It might take me decades to get to the point of challenging him on my own.”

“Ah… my assistance is a shortcut to the power that you crave.”

“The vengeance I crave!” Luna snapped.

“Of course,” Maul smiled slightly. “Of course.”

“Together we can beat Vader! After what I’ve seen tonight, I’m sure of it! And I once I take his place I can arrange for you to receive whatever you need from the Empire’s vaults and weaponsmiths. Think about it, no more skulking and scrounging on the fringes of the galaxy. An ally at the very top of the Imperial hierarchy, able to provide you with the best of everything until we’re ready to make our move.”

“You make it sound rather attractive, but I cannot help but notice that this relies a great deal on me trusting you.”

“Is cutting down my own men not proof enough of my intentions?” Luna gestured at the ISB corpses. “But I’m sure you’ll be happy to know I’m fully prepared to offer further proof of my good faith. As I said, I am no Sith, constantly compelled to backstab my allies out of greed or madness or pique. What I propose, should you accept, is a pact you should find most gratifying and more than fair.”

“…Go on.”

“Should you accept my offer, the first thing we will do is seal our pact in the blood of Sidious’ pawns. We will return to the hanger where the treasure ship still lies and slaughter the Stormtroopers and the irritating Major.” Luna smiled as she pictured Celebraine’s face when he realized his imminent and painful doom. She’d save him for last, she decided. “Then we split the treasure between the two of us. Some of it must be returned to Vader, alongside your lightsaber for proof of why I could not bring it all. Then-”

“Assuming he doesn’t strangle you.”

“Assuming he doesn’t strangle me, which I will worry about, we will remain in clandestine contact. You can use the time to recover, or to boost your knowledge and power with your share of our spoils, I care not. Eventually, when the time is right, I will call upon you, and together we will slay Vader.”

“So I get half of the Sith artifacts, and a better chance for revenge,” Maul mused. “You make it sound quite compelling.”

“Considering our respective positions, I am being more than fair.”

“And should I refuse?”

“Then I shall electrocute you to death here and now,” Luna answered flatly. “And take your head to Lord Vader as proof of my prowess while I await another opportunity.”

“Well…” Maul smiled grimly. “With terms like that, how could I refuse?”

“I am pleased that you are seeing sense… partner.” Luna returned the grin.

“To vengeance long overdue.”

“To vengeance long overdue.”

Under her wing, Luna’s commlink chose that exact moment to begin chiming.

Author's Notes:

I know I let this story sit idle for a while, but I've been trying to make up for lost time. I'd really like to hear some commentary on how you guys are liking this arc.

44: Twist Of Fate

Major Josef Celebraine of the Imperial Security Bureau sat as calmly as could reasonably be expected in the cockpit of the Silver Sky, considering the faint but incessant voices in his head. Beside him, in the copilot’s seat, was Sargent Crest. The ship’s engines were warm, and its handful of defensive cannons armed and ready for any sign of trouble. At his own insistence, the two officers were alone on the ship, under the theory that they would be best equipped to avoid being driven insane by the constant infernal whispering no other noise could quite drown out. The other Stormtroopers of the Inquisitor’s squad had taken up defensive positions across the hanger bay, as far from the hateful treasures as practically possible.

If this were a mission under a sane officer, Celebraine reflected, they would have been ordered to take off as soon as they had deposited the Lady Inquisitor, denying this Maul any chance of successfully completing his theft. Of course, under a sane officer they would have infiltrated sniper teams around this refuse heap and had shuttles of troops on standby to lock down the entire area the moment Maul’s presence was confirmed. Sane officers also wouldn’t lead troops trained to engage a Jedi at maximum possible range into a chase through dark, narrow hallways against a viciously effective close quarters fighter. Far more sensible to call in backup to surround the area and pick it apart piece by piece.

“Kill her… rend her flesh… avenge her crimes in blood…”

The plain-faced man scowled, closed his eyes, and rubbed his temples as the voices bubbled up again.

“Can help you… make you strong…”

“No thank you,” he muttered.

“Sir?” Crest’s helmeted head swung to look at him. “Something wrong?”

“Just the effects of these wretched things,” he answered, lowering one hand and opening his eyes.

“They’re Lord Vader’s,” the clone said. “He’ll use ‘em right.”

“Will he?”

“He may not be social, and he may not be kind, but the man is brave and loyal.” Crest nodded. “He’s also a damned good commander and never hesitates to get stuck in the muck with his men. He’s led the 501^st better than any other officer the Empire has to offer, and if anyone has what it takes to use these things for good, it’s him.”

“I see.” Celebraine pitied the clone for a moment. “Well, you have more experience with the man than I, so I’ll defer to your judgement.”

“Very good sir.”

The Major’s eyes fell on one of the ship’s scanners.

“What of the Inquisitor?” he asked, just a moment later. “How would you describe her style of leadership?”

“Well sir… I haven’t really worked with her for very long so I don’t think I’m qualified to make that judgement call.”

“Really? You’ve not formed any opinions or first impressions?”

“We were created to fight and to obey, sir.” Crest said as though it were self-evident. “Not to waste time on forming opinions.”

“So I see.” Celebraine gave a little sigh. “There’s the pity.”

“Sir?”

In one smooth, practiced movement, the Major whipped out his blaster pistol and put a bolt through the side of the Sargent’s head.

Without hesitation, he followed up by tapping a rapid sequence into the ship’s controls, grabbed the primary throttle, and pressed down on the two buttons on top of it. The Stormtroopers outside had barely had a chance to hear the sound of gunfire and turn their heads before the ship’s weapons blazed into life. Caught wildly out of position, totally surprised, and with no heavy weaponry, to call what followed anything but a massacre would have been a grotesque mockery. Celebraine watched them die with an impassive expression.

When it was over mere seconds later, the Major took a moment to take a deep breath and wipe the sweat he hadn’t quite been aware of from his brow. Well-honed efficiency took over again a moment later, and he wasted no more time in pulling out his private commlink.

“Fortune favors us this evening,” he said. “The Inquisitor is indisposed and the Imperials in the hangar are eliminated. Abort planned approach vector, proceed directly to docking bay. Opportunity is time sensitive in the extreme. Fulcrum out.”

It didn’t take them long, not more than a minute or two really, but to the Major’s eyes it was still too long. The meticulously-plotted alternative paths of approach he had gone over with them went to waste, the specialty anti-Jedi weapons and gear he’d arranged to be misplaced were of no use, and even the small cell of fellows he’d been trying to maneuver onto this mission had been left behind by the Inquisitor’s haste and unpredictability. Things might easily have gone so wrong. They still might.

Still… Celebraine wasn’t one for superstitions, but it certainly seemed like something had been watching over them tonight. Maul had drawn the Inquisitor’s attentions away, and she had taken his Jedi-killers – the very ones he’d intended to turn against her if necessary – with her on a merry chase into the dark. With her out of the picture, for however long that might be, this would be easy. He might even get out of this with his cover intact. Perhaps if he was very fortunate, the two lightsaber-wielding lunatics would kill each other and he could make the entire report himself.

As it was, when the two agents and old man they’d foolishly agreed to host finally did arrive, the Major was still seated in the cockpit, sweating hands clenched tightly about the throttle, prepared to take off or open up with all guns the moment either Force user showed their face. To their credit, the two actual recruits only paused for a moment when they saw a man in an ISB uniform sitting in plain view. To their detriment, the old paranoid halted altogether, leveled his new sonic pistol, and began shouting something. The other two moved to restrain him before he could do something profoundly stupid. Celebraine rolled his eyes. He’d warned them that this fool was a serious liability, but Dawn had refused to listen.

“We don’t have time for this!” he barked into his commlink. “The Maul or the Inquisitor could be back at any second. If he’s too much a fool to notice I haven’t opened up on you with all guns then leave him!”

“I don’t leave people behind!” Dawn’s voice replied.

It couldn’t have taken more than thirty seconds for them to get Kersh moving again, but in Celebraine’s view that was thirty seconds too long. He tapped a button when they came near, and the boarding ramp descended. Dawn raced up it, followed by Janus, then the old man. He swallowed, said an uncharacteristic prayer to whomever might feel like listening, and got up to go meet them in person.

“Did you do it?!” Kersh roared the moment he came fully into view. “Did you kill Yorrick?”

“I had nothing to do with your friend’s death,” Celebraine lied with an impassive face, then followed up with a truth. “And I am the reason that you have not suffered a considerably worse fate.

That seemed to mollify the man, at least for the moment. The accusatory finger dropped, and was replaced by a vague muttering. It was Janus who spoke up next.

“So,.. an ISB man, huh? Never would have thought…”

“I joined Republic Intelligence during the Clone Wars in order to protect the galaxy from cruelty and barbarism,” he answered. “Not to enforce it.”

“See?” Dawn interjected. “I told you everyone has some good in them.”

“Yeah, maybe you should tell Darth Vader that before-”

“As fascinating as this all is,” Celebraine cut them off. “May I remind you that we still have a mission to complete, for which I have now risked not just my cover but my life? I have no idea how long those two simpletons with red swords will keep one another occupied.”

That quieted them down a bit.

“Now,” he said, “if you kindly gather the high explosives and follow me.”

Without another word the Major turned and led the intrepid if ragtag trio down the freighter’s main hallway, to the rearmost cargo bay. Every step he took made the voices worse, but he didn’t let it show. The moment he pushed the button to open the door, a wave of ancient malevolence washed over the little group. Celebraine grimaced, Kersh froze, Janus stared, and Dawn…

Dawn took one look at the lot of them, double over, ripped off her helmet, and voided her stomach onto the deck.

“Yes, well…” Celebraine looked down at the woman’s pale, visibly shaken face. “The two of you, kindly take your friend’s charges and set them. I’ll see to her briefly.” No one said or did anything for just a second, still spellbound. “Move!”

The shout of his shout seemed to stir their minds to action. Dawn shakily handed her pack to Janus, leaning heavily on the wall for support. The man, to his credit, seemed to be handling the effects at least somewhat better, and dragged the older man with him into the cursed cargo bay. Celebraine noted that Kersh was now holding very tightly to a small bag strapped to his hip.

“Come now,” he said to Dawn, offering a shoulder. “Let’s get you some distance.”

She accepted the offer, leaning the whole of her comparatively light physique against him. Together, they began walking slowly back in the direction of the cockpit, the stricken woman still shaky and cold.

“I… I’m s-sorry,” she managed as they limped along. “It’s j-just… there was so much…”

“Evil?”

“Evil in there…” Dawn shuddered. “I should h-have been better prepared… it’s just… I…”

“Not to worry,” Celebraine reassured her, “such effects are quite normal.” He leaned in close and whispered into her ear. “For a Force-sensitive.”

He hadn’t thought it was possible for the woman’s face to be drained of any more color, but apparently he’d been wrong. Her wide eyes darted this way and that, as if wondering if she should make a break for it right then and there.

“Not to worry, your secret is safe with me. I’m quite good at keeping them, you know.” He smiled wryly. “I have no idea where you came from or how the Jedi missed you, but if I were you I might consider learning to control that better.”

Her brow furrowed and her cheeks flushed angrily, but she said nothing further as they made their way down the exit ramp. Color slowly returned to her face the further they got from the corrosive Sith whispers, until when they set foot on the landing pad itself she shook him off altogether. Dawn brushed herself off, still breathing a bit heavily. Her commlink chimed.

“Explosives wired and ready to go,” came the sound of Janus’ voice. “Everyone alright out there?”

“Fine,” she answered. “Get yourselves out of there quickly and let’s blow this place.”

“Then I suppose it’s time for me to see if my cover is salvageable.” Celebraine nodded. “If you wouldn’t mind providing a bit of background with that sonic blaster of yours I’d be most grateful.”

She nodded, drawing the bulky pistol. When Janus and Kersh ran down the exit ramp, looking considerably paler from what he could see, she gestured at them to do the same. On Celebraine’s cue, they began to fire randomly backwards as they all made quickly for the exit. The Major drew his own blaster, and his commlink.

“What is it?” came the Inquisitor’s distinctly smug voice a moment. “What’s that sound?”

“My lady!” Celebraine fired his own blaster several times at a random crate as he ran. “We’re under attack!” He fired another shot. “They have heavy weapons – gah!”

“What?! Who?! How many?!”

“Too many!” Celebraine barked over the sound of yet more fire, even as they crossed the threshold. “We can’t hold them! Falling back to signal for reinforcements!”

“Don’t you DARE!” the device roared.

“We’ll lock down the skies!” he took another shot. “They won’t get away!”

“If you abandon that cargo I’ll kill you myself! Don’t you dare to even think about-”

Celebraine nodded. Dawn hit her detonator. The hangar erupted into a cataclysmic fireball.

“Don’t you dare to even think about-”

Luna screamed as she and Maul felt a sudden, massive surge in the Force. The building shook with the force of explosion, dust raining down both of their heads. But that was nothing compared to the pulse of energy that washed over the metaphysical plane. The voices of ancient evil cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced.

After a moment, the pressure in her head faded away, and the alicorn looked up. One look at the grimace on Maul’s face told her that he had felt it as well. Two pairs of yellow eyes stared at one another in silence for just a moment.

“Quickly!” Luna hissed. “Before the Imperials arrive! Go to the hanger and see if anything can be salvaged.”

“And you?” he asked.

Luna’s lightsaber flared to life.

“I’m going to deal with these interlopers.”

45: Twisted Reunion

Twilight, Janus, and Kersh were hustling quickly through one of the dilapidated spaceport’s many dark hallways, though not as quickly as they might. They had to make allowances for the old man’s limited stamina after all, and their ISB man knew exactly which route the inevitably incoming Imperial reinforcements would move to secure last. Despite that, they were making good time about it, having long since left the hangar bay behind them. The alicorn felt the cold night air, her discarded helmet undoubtedly having been annihilated in the freighter’s explosion.

It shamed her a bit, to have been so affected by those things. Yes, she certainly was a creature of harmony – or the light side as some called it – and thus subject to much greater pressure than a normal, non-magical being, but she still should have handled it better. Not only was it embarrassing and potentially dangerous in a combat situation, but it had allowed a normal man to somewhat pierce her cover. If he could do it, so could her enemies if they ran into this kind of situation again. Perhaps this Major was right, perhaps she did need some kind of-

It all happened so fast.

One moment the princess was jogging along briskly, mind half on retreat and half on how to prevent another slip-up. The next she was hit by a runaway freight train.

Twilight flew off her feet, hurled backwards through the air by a nigh-irresistible tidal wave of invisible energy. She was slammed into the duracrete wall with a force just short of spine-snapping, armor cracking under the strain. Blood, rich and crimson, dribbled down the back of her throbbing head. Two more bodies thudded against the wall next to her, and after a moment the pressure lifted and they collapsed to the ground in heap.

“How dare you?” a hiss emerged from the darkness.

Blinking and shaking her head, trying to clear away the pain and lingering nausea, the princess peered out in the vague direction of the noise. It took her a moment, head still swimming from the impact, but she spotted something. There, perhaps twenty-five yards down the dark hallway, a pair of yellow irises, burning like lanterns in the night.

“How dare you?” it repeated.

There was an uncomfortably familiar clopping sound, as hooves met the hard durasteel floor. Twilight blinked once more, just to clear away the strange aberrant colors, as Princess Luna stepped into a thin sliver of moonlight coming in from above. Even in such low light, Celestia’s sibling looked a wreck. Her coat was drenched in sweat and visibly matted in places, her once-regal mane a wild tangle thrown every which way, many feathers of her wings bent out of shape or snapped off altogether.

But the worst part was her face. The alicorn’s teeth were clenched like she meant to bite someone’s head off, the muscles of her jaw visibly straining to force them yet further together. The ruin of her horn crackled and sparked visibly, the air around it seeming to shimmer as if from heat. And her sulfuric eyes burned with a rage that made even Twilight’s blood run cold.

“How DARE you defy me?!” she exploded, the building rattling from the sheer force of her words. “I gave you an order, you whelp! A clear, direct, and very specific order! And what have you done instead of obeying?” Luna stamped a hoof, denting durasteel. “You stuck your nose in where it never belonged and putting the fate of all our kind at risk?!”

The princess strode forward, the sparks about her horn intensifying. “I am your liege and your ruler, and you owe me your unconditional obedience you brat! Your petty selfishness and idiotic desire to play the hero might just have set my plans back years! Decades! Our people will suffer for every day this goes on, and you have just made it that much longer with your ignorance and your ego and your stupidity! The blood of innocents is on your hooves!”

Twilight said nothing, allowing the natural healing processes of alicorns to work on her head wound while the seemingly-mad princess ranted.

“Answer me you accursed, meddling child! As your rightful ruler, I command you to obey me! I will not tolerate insubordination or insolence! Not in this matter!”

“Ugh…” Janus moaned, rubbing his helmeted head. “What… is she talking about?”

Yellow eyes fell on him.

“Perhaps,” Luna hissed, “you need to be reminded of the price of disobedience.”

Twilight barely had time to blink. She had no time to move. One moment, Janus was slumped over against the wall right beside her. The next he was flying through the air like a ragdoll, directly at the elder alicorn. The next there was a flash of light, and Janus hung there with a crimson lightsaber through his gut.

Both of them had time to scream.

“I warned you.” Luna snarled as the impaled man went through his final, hopeless struggle. “I told you back in the depths of Coruscant that if you placed any value on the lives of your little alien friends, you would convince them to call off their hunt for Vader’s treasure. Yet in your arrogance, your selfishness, and your naivety you have led them right to their deaths! Princess of Friendship, hah!” She beheaded the dead man with a flourish of her red blade. “Look at what you’ve done and tell me how this is friendship!”

“I didn’t do that,” tears trickled down Twilight’s cheeks, her fists curled into balls. “You did that!”

“He had heard too much of our home,” she said, extinguishing her lightsaber. “He had to die, lest his knowledge should bring Equestria to ruin.”

“He heard that much because you screamed it out at him!” Twilight roared at her, rising to her feet.

“You took his life into your hands the moment you defied my warnings, whelp.” Luna shot back. “His death here is your doing, and yours alone. If you had obeyed me like a good little filly, he would still be alive!”

“Listen to yourself!” Twilight screamed even through the furious flood of tears. “You just murdered a man in cold blood with your own two hooves, and now you’re blaming me! Open your eyes princess, the Empire’s twisted you! Made you into a monster! Snap out of it before it’s too late!”

“One alien had to die to preserve the safety of our lands,” Luna answered. “If doing whatever it takes to shield our ponies from harm makes me a monster, then so be it. My loyalty will ever lie with Equestria, never the Empire. I will never stop until she is safe and free once more, and forever after protected from these wretched alien filth!” The princess narrowed her eyes as they fell on another figure now slumped behind Twilight. “Speaking of which…”

“NO!” Twilight roared.

Luna’s horn flashed with deadly lightning, arcs of it crackling through the air at the prone form of Kersh. The old man threw up his arms in futile effort to defend himself. Twilight stretched out her hand, and there was a flash of purple. The lethal energies expended themselves against a wall of brilliant violet that sprang up in front of the human. Kersh looked up at Twilight the awe in his eyes matching the blazing purple in the princess’ own.

“Run!” Twilight yelled at him. “Get out of here just like we planned!”

“But you-”

“I’ll be along! GO!” the alicorn commanded in a voice that brooked no dissent.

Kersh took one look at the raging electrical storm outside the barrier, the snarling Inquisitor behind that, and the stoic determination on the face of the woman he’d thought he knew something about. The next moment he jumped to his feet and took off like a man half his age, ducking down a side hallway not far behind Twilight. He vanished from sight, footsteps soon drowned out by the continuing crackle of lightning.

Soon after he was gone, Luna allowed the flow of energy to fade away. Twilight’s protective spell evaporated not long afterwards, and the two princesses stared another eye to eye. There was a brief moment of silence.

“That was quite cruel of you, Princess Twilight.” Luna spoke again first. “To give that old man false hope. Now, instead of a quick death, he’ll spend the last few minutes of his life in misery and terror, attempting futilely to escape an inevitable doom that comes stalking through the night.”

“Do you even listen to words that come out of your mouth? There’s nothing inevitable about you trying to hunt down and murder a harmless old man. “

“As I recall, that ‘harmless’ old man just helped you to prolong the misery and suffering of Equestria by interfering so greatly with my plans. His actions will cause yet more of our kind to toil miserably and die for the Empire’s profit. As princess, I deem that such an enormous crime can only be justly repaid with death.”

“As princess, I deem that you’re out of your mind!” Twilight hissed at her. “You’ve wrought murder and mayhem in the name of the Empire you say you oppose! I felt those abominations… those treasures you were going to deliver to Vader. They were filled with more evil than anything I’ve ever felt in my life! And you were going to hand them over to one of the most powerful and evil men in existence! The same man who almost strangled your sister to death when she tried to get you back!”

“Your weakness in the face of simple inanimate objects is neither my fault nor my problem, young whelp. I too felt those treasures, and I saw their potential. They could have been a boon to me, a boon to Equestria! Instead I must contrive a way to appease Lord Vader, lest he kill me for your actions! You play with the life of your liege just because you cannot resist playing the hero!”

“You think this is about my ego?” Twilight sounded flabbergasted. “I can make a difference out here! I’m where I am because it’s the right place to be! It’s the right thing to do!”

“You are a reckless fool and arrogant beyond measure,” Luna pronounced. “You play at being some glorious rebel, a brave hero, when in reality you do nothing but lead your alleged friends to their deaths and interfere with the efforts of your betters! You will never defeat the Empire from the outside! You will be crushed the moment you attract their attention and put all our people at risk by your stupidity! Only from the inside can it be brought crashing down, and I alone seem to understand this!”

“Because you alone have been corrupted,” said Twilight, a little sadly.

“Nonsense. I control this darkness, it does not control me.”

“You’re delusional. What would the Luna I met for the first time that fateful night have to say to you?”

“Nothing, because she understood nothing, and yet even she understood when to hold her tongue!” Luna shook her head. “But now I am enlightened. Through victory, my chains are broken. The Force shall free me.”

“I don’t see anything about Equestria’s freedom in there, princess.”

“That’s because you’re an ignorant fool. When I am free, Equestria will be free. And the Empire, the Emperor, Vader, and all our enemies… they will burn.”

Twilight’s eyes flicked to the side, just for a moment. Luna caught the gesture all the same.

“Ah…” she gave a sly grin. “Now I see your game, young whelp. By keeping me standing here, talking to you, you hope to give that surviving fool time to flee. It will only prolong his suffering. I will find him no matter where he goes, and I will destroy him before his knowledge can threaten the only world that truly matters.”

“You’re sick,” Twilight hissed. “But you’re not going anywhere.”

“And who will stop me?” She laughed darkly. “You?”

“If you think I’ll-”

Twilight was cut off as her body was flung upwards at the ceiling with the enough force to concuss an ordinary human, if not much worse. She hit the durasteel head-first, matting her fine black hair with crimson. The next instant she was hurled rapidly into one of the duracrete walls, cutting her exposed cheek open along its rough surface. Then she was flung backwards into the opposite wall. Then back to the first wall. Then the second again. First. Second. First. Second.

By the time she came to a harsh and abrupt stop in the middle of the hall, the princess was dazed, bleeding, and half-blind from concussion, her armor riddled with cracks and small chunks falling off. But that wasn’t the end – Twilight caught a face full of Force Lightning while she was too stunned to defend herself. She screamed as lances of agony raced across the entirety of her body, driving away the dulled senses with the malevolence of the dark side. The barrage continued for only a few seconds, but it felt like an eternity of its own. The skeleton of her transformed body flared briefly into view.

Then the telekinetic hold was released, and her smoking body hit the floor with a painful thud.

“Your naivety is your greatest weakness,” she vaguely heard Luna say.

Despite the continuing agony that wracked every part of her body, what was left of Twilight’s focus forced her to shakily open one eye. Princess Luna loomed over her, face contorted into a contemptuous sneer.

“You simply do not know what you’re getting into. You rely far too much on your active magic – that requires your focus and time you simply don’t have. You have no passive telekinetic barriers to protect you from a surprise attack. You have no foresight, enabling you to wield a lightsaber or dodge attacks. Your only choices are to fight in an entirely mundane manner or break cover and reveal your magic. And even if you do the latter a serious opponent will still best you easily. You simply are not cut out for fighting.”

The only response Twilight could manage was a low moan.

“Pathetic. And you think you can fight the Empire?” Luna’s lightsaber flared to life. “I could end you right this moment and all you could do would be scream.” The tip of the blade leveled itself just a few short inches from Twilight’s head. “Come to think of it, why should I not?”

The air seemed to chill noticeably.

“Not only have you defied a royal command. Not only have you led those you profess to call friends to their deaths. Not only have you neglected your duties to your homeland to go gallivanting off into the galaxy in the name of your own ego…” Luna hissed. “But you have endangered Equestria with your foolishness, with your refusal to obey! Your little ‘adventure’ puts our homeland at risk, and you have demonstrated that you will not heed the wisdom of your liege when ordered to turn back. So…” the red glow of her saber framed her face. “Perhaps you have outlived your usefulness to Equestria.”

“I…”

“What is it, whelp?” Luna looked down.

Twilight met her gaze.

“I beg to differ, princess!”

Twilight’s hands shot up, and this time it was a startled Luna who flew upwards, away from the other alicorn and into the ceiling. She thrust out her arms, and the princess of the night went sailing down the hallway like a bullet. Luna hit the ground roughly more than a hundred yards from where she’d startled, rolling along yet further until she hit an errant chunk of ceiling lying on the floor. Acting on some unseen instincts, she reached up, curled her hands into fists, and pulled down hard. The already weak ceiling shuddered, and vast chunks of it rained down along the length and breadth of the hallway, a spectacular avalanche of rubble and dust that swallowed all sight.

Twilight paused, rose on shaky legs, and allowed herself to take one deep breath.

Then she turned and ran.

46: Major Trouble

The stillness of the dark hallway was broken by an explosion of force. Chunks of duracrete and durasteel the size of boulders were flung like children’s toys as an indignant alicorn rose from the rubble. A wave of dust, swept along by the raw force of her anger, sandblasted what little was left clean. Wings flared and eyes glowing, Luna gazed on the empty hallway with wrath-filled expression.

That insolent whelp had defied her yet again! She, the princess of the night, the most selfless and noble of all the alicorns! Twilight talked of doing the right thing in the right place, but where had she been when Luna had faced General Grievous in ill-fated Canterlot? Where had she been when Luna had been shot, beaten, and sent to die in the cruel sands of Korriban? What torments had she endured, that she sought to pronounce judgement on her superior? She preened her perfect feathers and deemed herself righteous for her dangerous naivety, heaping scorn on the princess who had endured far more than any other for embracing effective tactics! It was insult beyond toleration, and she would not abide it!

She would hunt that whelp down, make her know the truth of the universe if she had to carve it into her very bones! The galaxy was hard and cruel, and the rules that civilized and gentle folk like ponies played by meant nothing here. To succeed, to bring down the Empire and restore freedom to Equestria, there was no option but to fight the darkness with the cleansing fire of righteous rage! To do whatever was necessary, no matter how much it hurt her precious morality. And she, Princess Luna, was the only one who saw the truth of the matter. To her fell the burden of shedding all restraint, all weakness, and the shackles of empty idealism. To suffer and overcome, that others might not, was her duty and her honor. To see it besmirched by a soft-headed ignorant child was too much to bear.

She would blast that self-righteous indignation from Twilight’s face with her Force waves, sear the simpering naivety from her brain with bolts of lightning, carve off those accursed hands that dared themselves raise themselves against their better, drive her sword right through-

Luna blinked, then rubbed her head.

No… she didn’t have time for this. Twilight was but a distraction now, a vexing one to be sure, but a sideshow nonetheless. She had plans, plans to destroy Vader and Sidious, plans to burn the Empire to the ground and annihilate all who would do her nation harm. And right now they were in serious danger, and she mustn’t tarry overlong. She would see Twilight again, she felt sure of it. The Force would make it so. She would make it so.

Eyes a natural blue once more, Luna turned away and ran.

To her thoroughly-unspoken relief, when Luna returned to the still-smoldering hangar bay she sensed a dark and familiar presence amongst the ashes and scrap. When her eyes saw nothing, she closed them and reached out with her mind. She could sense other minds too, rigid and disciplined and far too close for her liking.

“Is this theater truly necessary? The Major summoned reinforcements, it won’t be long before this place is swarming with the Imperial Security Bureau and you would do well not to be here when it is.”

“And miss a chance to show my hospitality to my new ally? Now what kind of a man do you take me for?”

“Someone who hates as much as I do.”

“You overestimate yourself.”

“You underestimate me.”

“Mhm, perhaps. Time will tell.”

“Are you going to posture at me or are you going to tell me how this went before the Emperor’s slaves arrive?”

“Perhaps you might tell me how your little hunt went. I sensed your rage even from here.”

“I found the foolish idealists responsible for destroying this ship and slaughtered them to the last,” Luna answered. Maul was the last sort of person she wanted having even the slightest knowledge of Equestria. “They won’t be an issue any longer.”

“Well, judging from the ripples in the dark side and your battered body they must have put up quite the fight.” There seemed a distinct smugness to his tone. “Are you certain you’re up for facing Vader?”

“I faced you and we know how that went, so why don’t you tell me?”

“I say you have a long way to go.”

“Vader needs machines to so much as breathe,” Luna answered confidently. “He’s weaker than he seems.”

“Don’t be foolish,” he snapped. “He may be more machine than man but he is far stronger than almost any other wielder of the Force. If he is to be brought down, it will take careful planning on both our parts.”

“I quite agree. Which is why I came to find out how this stage of the plan went. Did anything survive the explosion?”

From wherever he lurked, Maul chuckled a little.

“Did you know that I considered betraying you?”

“You would not be a Sith if you hadn’t.”

“I am not a Sith,” he hissed. “Once a Darth, now just Maul. The Sith abandoned me, and I will make them pay dearly for it.”

“As is only right,” Luna nodded. “But time is short. The artifacts?”

“Most of them were annihilated in the explosion. Millennia-old parchment rarely holds out well against thermal detonators.” Maul chuckled again, though this time with a hint of bitterness. “But…”

Luna felt her heart quicken. “But what?”

“But some treasures are more resilient.”

“Out with it already! What survived?!”

“Such impatience. You must overcome that or Vader will draw you in, wear you out, and cut you down like a mad dog.”

“Your mildly-hypocritical advice notwithstanding, we are genuinely short on time.”

“Hmm, fair point. Very well, when I searched through this wreckage I found something. Some might consider it an omen, really. A pair of Sith holocrons, scorched and battered but operable… I think.”

“One for you and one for me,” Luna mused. “Poetic, is it not? Almost as if the Force was giving us a sign. A benediction of the dark side.”

“Perhaps. Or perhaps it is simply meaningless chance.”

“Either way, it is a boon to us both.”

“It looks that way.”

“Quite. We do not have much longer, so there should be but one more thing left to attend to, I think. When we go our separate ways, we will need a way to stay in contact with one another.”

“I have just the thing…”

Only a few minutes later, Luna strode confidently out one of the dilapidated spaceport’s main entrances, now a bustle of activity. Several guns were tracking her already from grounded gunships and sniper positions set atop nearby hills or buildings, but none of them dared to open fire. She was far too recognizable for that.

“My lady,” came the all-too familiar sound of Major Celebraine’s voice.

The plain-faced man had obviously been sweating, his brown hair was mussed, and there were visible patches of ash and dirt on his ordinarily immaculate white uniform, but otherwise he looked in rather good shape for a man that had just gone through a firefight with an alicorn. Especially considering how little had been left of Crest and his Stormtroopers. Luna narrowed her eyes.

“We’re establishing the perimeter now,” he stepped out of a gunship where he and several other ISB officer had been examining a hologram of the general area. “Soon this place will be locked down and we can-”

He got no further, because in the blink of an eye Luna’s lightsaber flared to life and flew forth. The spinning crimson blade crossed the distance in a heartbeat, controlled precisely by its mistress' will.

And sliced both of Celebraine’s hands right off.

Luna gave a slight smirk as the man’s emotionless façade crumbled like a broken fortress. He toppled over backwards with an anguished wail, curling up blindly around the charred stumps that had previously been his forearms. His fellows shouted in alarm, several backing up franticly. One reached for a pistol, but a wiser officer grabbed his arm and wrenched it away before he could get himself killed. The princess could feel the burning hate in the gut of distant sniper with a bead on her head, the yearning to pull the trigger and damn the consequences. Their petty hate was utterly inconsequential.

Almost casually, she retrieved her lightsaber and continued walking as if without a care in the world. In but a few short strides she loomed over him, his fellow Imperials not daring to lift a finger to stop her. The red blade illuminated the Major’s face, heavily flushed and scrunched up against the burning agony, his maimed limbs held protectively about his stomach, as if that could do anything. He seemed to hear her coming, judging by the way his head turned.

“Go ahead and do it, schutta,” he hissed through clenched teeth. “I won’t give you the satisfaction of-”

“Give me one reason,” she leveled the point between his eyes, “Not to kill you for incompetence and cowardice right now.”

There was a sudden change in his emotions. Bitter defiance became sudden relief and puzzlement. His eyes snapped open, meeting hers despite the burning plasma not an inch from his nose.

“What?”

“You heard me. Convince me.”

Celebraine’s eyes widened, then scrunched up again against the agony. She could feel his mind racing, trying desperately to work her angle. Luna gave him a few seconds.

“The… report…” he managed, biting down on his lip.

“You’re not as stupid as you seem, Major.” The alicorn replied. “The aftermath of this incident will say exactly what I want it to say, understood?”

“Urgh… yes… anything you… nrgh… want.”

“Maul did this,” she whispered into his ear. “And no one else, understood? It was his cohort that spitefully attacked the ship for their master when it became clear I was too much for him. And it was your incompetence, and yours alone, that permitted the destruction of Vader’s artifacts. I slaughtered Maul’s minions and drove him off. This is what the ISB will determine, with the aid of you, the sole surviving eyewitness. Am I correct, Major?”

“…yes.” Celebraine managed a weak nod.

“Good,” Luna smirked.

Killing the man now, however gratifying it might have been, might well be counterproductive. Vader would undoubtedly be furious at the loss, and if this man was already dead would have no one to lash out at but Luna. If he was alive he could be made into the scapegoat for any of the mission’s failures. If someone had to be strangled, better it be him.

A small part of the Luna that had been wondered if she was going too far. The next instant she quashed that thought under a torrent of pain and anger. This man was of the Imperial Security Bureau, a truly monstrous organization even amongst the ranks of these alien beasts. He and all the other existed but to enforce the cruel will of a tyrant through blackmail, torture, and murder, sowing terror, misery, and paranoia amongst their many victims. He and all his ilk deserved nothing but pain and death.

“Take this man back to your headquarters,” she commanded the other ISB officers, extinguishing her lightsaber. “And see to it he gets treatment and appropriate prostheses…” she looked down at the shivering, mutilated man. “But no anesthetics during the surgery, I think. I don’t want failure to become too comfortable.”

47: Paths Split

A few minutes later, a rusty metal plate was shunted aside and Twilight stumbled shakily from the underground. An old smuggling tunnel constructed by one of the spaceport’s many past owners, it had been used for years to discretely move merchandise of the less than legal variety out of the port without risking a customs inspection. It was musty in the extreme but still serviceable. Most importantly, it led easily past the emerging Imperial cordon.

“Dawn!” a familiar voice yelped.

Before Twilight had had a chance to do more than blink, she found herself enveloped in a surprisingly powerful bear hug.

“Thank the Force you’re alright! I thought that crazy talking Dewback might have killed you!” Kersh said almost breathlessly as he squeezed her tight.

“What are you doing here?!” Twilight hissed. “I told you to get away like we planned! In the speeder, remember?”

“And leave you here, with her and him? After you saved my life back there? Are you insane?”

“I didn’t save your life so you could throw it away for no reason!” she countered. “One dead man is far too many already!”

“I had a very good reason!” Kersh said, a little indignantly. “Neither of your ever gave me the codes to the speeder!”

“Oh,” Twilight blinked, suddenly remembering exactly why they’d declined to do so. “Alright, forget about it, let’s just get out of here before they realize they’re combing and empty building. I’ll drive.”

It didn’t take them long to find the latest used speeder exactly where they’d left it, half-buried in miscellaneous junk and concealing tarp in run-down shed near the back end of a bad district. Clearing it off by hand was difficult and inconvenient with only one and a half sane people to do it, but better that than flash magic for any passing back-alley tramp to see. It took a few minutes, but soon enough the two of them were on the road again, zipping away from Crullov City and the ever-expanding ISB net as fast as the princess judged they could without being obvious.

“I think it’s time we got off this planet,” she said. “They were trying to be subtle before, but who knows what kind of crackdown that… woman will order after tonight?”

“Don’t think she’ll be very happy,” Kersh nodded in a sage manner. “Say, what was that thing you did back there? The purple… energy stuff.”

“Just… a neat trick I learned somewhere.”

“Like where, the celestial realms?” He looked the bloody, dusty princess up and down. “You some kind of angel or something?”

“Don’t I wish,” Twilight muttered. “That would make things so much easier.”

There was a moment of quiet, only the winds whipping by.

“That means no.”

“Ah, well, if you ain’t an angel, then I guess this might be something you could use,” Kersh pulled back the bag he always carried, revealing the blue-gold holocron, somehow still shining resplendently. “He says he thinks so too, and he’s always right.”

“Put the bag back on that thing!” Twilight’s eyes flew to the air, uncomfortably aware of just what could be up there even now. “Not while we’re still on the planet!”

“So that’s a no?”

“When we’re not in danger of being picked up, dragged off and tortured until we become like her? I think I’ll take you up on that.”

Maul crept through the shadows with a grace and stealth that should not, by all logic, have been possible. After the electrocution, his legs were in critical condition and would need an extensive refit to return to full working order. They wobbled and jumped unevenly beneath his weight, the joints sometimes failing to bend or open when they ought to. And yet the Force was his ally and his tool, and he had been well-trained in the Sith arts of clouding the perceptions of others. He had trod on Coruscant under the collective nose of both Jedi and Sith at one time or another, and compared to that blinding a few weak-minded Imperial lackeys to his presence had been no challenge at all.

As he walked, slowly but surely, towards his ticket off this planet, he considered the evening. It had gone much worse than he’d expected… but perhaps also better. He’d been planning on a simple massacre of smugglers, a quick transfer of cargo, and then a flight to the furthest reaches of Wild Space to rest and regroup. Instead, he’d lost a fight, his lightsaber, and the greater portion of the artifacts he’d spent so much effort to attain. And yet, perhaps he had gained something even more valuable.

Maul was under no illusions about his ability to face Darth Vader. He’d seen the aftermath of the Sith’s sacking of the Jedi Temple – a role that should have been his – and read more than a little about the monstrous cyborg’s confrontations with surviving Jedi and other malcontents afterwards. He had always taken great pride in his prowess in hand to hand fighting, but equally important was knowing one’s own limitations. The whole reason he’d risked an appearance in the first place so deep into the Core Worlds was to deny Vader the opportunity to widen that gap yet further, and perhaps use the knowledge of the ancient Sith to even the odds.

Yet instead of treasure, he was leaving with the knowledge that there was another embedded in the Imperial hierarchy that hated his replacement almost as much as he did. In that, at least, he had sensed no deception from her. The little Sith in denial really did loathe Vader and his master with all her being, and would fight to see them both cut down. And yes, she had been wielding a surprising strength in the Force, but it was raw. Her training, whatever she had gotten from the Inquisitorius and amongst the tombs Sith past, was far from complete.

Could she really do what she claimed? Perhaps. Could she be trusted? She certainly had been prepared to take a risk to begin a partnership, but that didn’t mean she didn’t ultimately plan to use and discard as Sidious once had. Treachery was innate to the Sith, after all. And her feeling when relating how she had allegedly eliminated the group that had destroyed his hard-won treasure had been… conflicted, at best. He didn’t know much about her, not even her species or name. But he would find out. He would not go into battle blindly with such a foe as Vader as their enemy. It might take weeks or months or even years of digging, but he would know more of his would-be “partner” and where she had come from.

And in the meantime, he thought as he clutched the Sith holocron close, there would be plenty of interesting things to learn.

His course decided, Maul vanished into the Corulag night.

Far above the planet’s surface, Luna returned to the Starry Night in a sour mood. Things had not gone as planned tonight, not in the least. She had expected to leave with a horde of Sith treasures to present to Vader, along with either a powerful ally in her back pocket or an impressive trophy to show the black cyborg. Instead, she had only the barest fraction of his property to return, and a well-rehearsed story she fervently hoped would be enough to sate him,

After ensuring that the ISB’s cordon had no chance of actually catching either Maul or Twilight, she had retired from the hunt, citing exhaustion and the need to report in. The Imperials would undoubtedly expand their sweep after a time, arresting and possibly torturing anyone with even a tenuous hope of having seen anything, but that was no concern of hers. They wouldn’t find anything that would lead them to Equestria, and the former Sith apprentice knew well how to vanish from sight.

Luna sighed wearily. Now all she had to do was rest, recuperate, make herself look presentable, and make certain the ISB had arrived at the correct conclusions. Once that was done… she would have to contact Lord Vader.

48: Diverging Destinies

His presence washed over her like a frigid tsunami, at once a crushing tide of dark side energy that threatened to drown her mind in terror and a cold, calculating intellect that regarded all things like some unfathomably ruthless equation to be balanced. He truly was as much machine as man, if not more so. As the cyborg’s hologram flickered into being, Luna steeled her mind and, however reluctantly, bowed her head.

“Inquisitor,” Darth Vader said without preamble. “You have something to report.”

It wasn’t a question.

“I do, my lord,” the alicorn said, not daring to look up. “I have traced the path of your belongings and identified the being responsible for their theft. And I have this, for you.”

At her telekinetic bidding, a small black pyramid rose into the air before Vader’s projected face. The red capstone seemed to burn all the brighter in the presence of so much dark side energy. The image of the towering cyborg stared at it for a moment, and then turned his dark lenses back to the kneeling princess.

“There were far more antiquities than that among my property.” Luna felt a slight pressure on the edges of her throat. “I trust you have an explanation.”

“Of course, my lord. The remainder were…” here she couldn’t help but swallow. “Destroyed… in an explosion.”

Her windpipe abruptly halved in diameter.

“Engineered by the man who stole them in the first place!” she added hastily. “The Sith Lord Darth Maul! He was responsible for the theft of your possessions. He arranged for them to be stolen and shipped to him on Corulag. I tracked them there and did battle with him. When I proved too much for him his cohorts attacked the ship carrying the cargo and destroyed the bulk of it.”

“Too much,” Vader repeated, arms across his chest. “For a Sith Lord. I trust you have proof of this claim, Inquisitor?”

“Yes,” Luna nodded quickly. A lightsaber rose to levitate alongside the holocron. “I took it from Maul when we dueled… and nearly his head as well! His cohorts died by my hand. The Imperial Security Bureau was involved as well, their report will confirm everything I have said.”

For a moment the room was still, Vader’s rhythmic mechanical breathing and Luna’s far more labored efforts the only things that could be heard. The dark cyborg stared at the floating weapon, distant and inscrutable in the physical and metaphysical planes. Finally, he returned his gaze to Luna.

“That is undoubtedly the weapon of Darth Maul,” he pronounced, and the pressure on Luna’s throat abruptly ceased. “I can sense his lingering presence on it. Not only to survive a duel with him on your first mission, but to take his weapon? Impressive… most impressive.”

“Thank you…” she took a deep breath, resisting the temptation to rub her throbbing throat. “My lord.”

“I knew that you had potential. Perhaps I underestimated how much.” He paused, as if considering. “It may be that I have another use for you. Meet me in orbit above Kashyyyk, and we shall see.”

The hologram vanished.

Many lightyears away, Twilight sat alone in her room aboard the Harmony, eyes fixed on the strange hexahedron. The crystal panes of the Jedi holocron glowed a soft blue, the gold and silver of the edges and angles shined brilliantly, as if they had never seen a speck of dirt. The light it cast was… calming. Soothing, really. It was as if just looking at the thing was enough to settle a troubled mind.

And Twilight’s mind was plenty troubled. For the second time in as many missions she’d watched the princess of the night – the very pony she and her friends back home had rescued from the Nightmare – murder one of her new friends in cold blood. And this time when she’d tried to fight she’d simply been brutalized and nearly executed herself. If Luna hadn’t wasted time lecturing her…

And yet, she still brought up a legitimate point. Twilight was a being of great magical potential, but was hobbled by the need for secrecy. She couldn’t wield Equestrian magic, even when she needed it most, or else someone might be able to trace her back to her utterly defenseless homeworld. Moreover, it did seem that whatever abilities Princess Luna had been taught were able to be used much more quickly than the magic she knew. And without a horn, or a glow. It would be really good to have something like that in a fight.

Twilight stared at the holocron.

“I don’t know if you can hear me,” she whispered. “I have no idea if you’re even sapient, like Kersh seems to think. But… Jedi were supposed to be protectors of the innocent, right? And I want to protect to the innocent. Lots of innocents, actually. And holocrons are supposed to teach, I think. And I want to learn. Very badly.” She smiled faintly. “I’ve always loved to learn. Do you think you might be able to teach me?”

It showed no reaction.

“Look,” she continued. “I know you’re probably feeling a bit wary. All that time mixed up with Vader’s things… I felt their presence too. Not pleasant, not fun at all. But there are more important things than personal comfort, right? There’s a galaxy out there that needs help. There are people out there who need help. And if I don’t help them, and you don’t help them, who will? Somebody has to.”

Still nothing.

“You probably don’t know a lot about me. I don’t know a lot about you either, so I guess we’re even there. But I can feel harmony, er, the light side in you. Maybe you can feel it in me?” Twilight invoked a small spell, fingers shining a gentle purple as she grasped the holocron. “I know I must be pretty strange to you, but can you at least sense that I’m not evil?”

The alicorn princess grinned a little feebly, her glow mixing with the strange device’s own. Yet, apart from the pretty lightshow, there was still no clear reaction. Eventually, both smile and glow faded.

“Alright,” she said with a sigh. “I see. You-”

The princess jumped as the holocron’s glow doubled, then tripled in intensity. Twilight shielded her eyes as an impossibly bright blue radiance filled her small cabin like a miniature sun. But that lasted only a moment, and very soon the room returned to the way it had been. Save only for the for the small blue image standing calmly atop the holocron.

“Greetings,” said the human female. “My name is Jedi Master Bastila Shan.”

Rare grey clouds blighted the skies the skies above Coruscant. Rain, a rarity on the climate-controlled world, fell in torrents unseen in years above the vast Imperial Palace. Lightning forked uncomfortably close to the monolithic towers of the former Jedi Temple, thunderclaps boomed overhead. Far below, the little people scurried like drochs before sunlight, or else simply endured the indignity and discomfort with what stoicism they could muster. But the chiefest occupant did not mind.

In fact, Palpatine found it rather appropriate.

“And so, your majesty, I regret to report that true progress continues to be elusive,” the hologram of 11-4D was saying. “All of our cell cultures thus far have met with failure. When removed from the main body of the Governor, cells evidence an almost immediate change in behavior. Whether taken from skin, muscle tissue, vital organs, or even blood cells, the results are consistent. The cells begin to behave as normal cells do, going through a life cycle of reproduction and death. Analysis conducted around the sutures themselves have confirmed the subject’s own hypothesis: cell growth in wounded areas is rapid and produces a cellular structure completely identical and numerically equivalent to the extracted tissue.”

“And you have no idea why this might be.”

“My apologies, but no.” The droid shook his head. “I suspected it might some hitherto unknown organ function, but consistent observations have revealed no anomalies that our sensors can detect. In fact, when tagging blood cells for tracking it was discovered that the exact same cells were making the exact same trip to the exact same destinations in an endless cycle. There was not even the slightest variance in all the time we studied them.”

“Even movement is stasis for that one,” the Emperor observed. “A biological perpetual motion machine, one might say.”

“An astute observation, your majesty. But we are no closer to determining the source of this stasis than when we began. I am currently pursuing the theory of a biochemical cause that has yet to come to life, but thus far the results are not promising.”

“I see.” Palpatine considered for a moment. “Continue your studies as they are.”

“Should we begin more aggressive procedures?”

“No.”

“As you wish, your majesty.” The droid bowed his head, and then vanished.

Palpatine sat calmly in his darkened throne room, ears listening to the patter of the rain outside even as his mind listened to the currents of the dark side. He was silent and alone, bar the ever-present Royal Guard standing unobtrusively near the door. Minutes rolled by, Moffs and Admirals and Senators and many important beings kept waiting solely on his whim. None would dare to speak a word about it.

At last, he made a small gesture and holoprojector flared to life again.

“Contact Kamino,” he said. “Inform the cloners that I have a task for them.”

Author's Notes:

Thus ends Act III of Empire and Rebellion.

49: The First Hunt (I)

When the Starry Night emerged from hyperspace in the Kashyyyk system, Luna found a planet under siege. From the light cruiser’s bridge, the alicorn stared out at a force of no less than seventeen Star Destroyers of the Venator, Victory, and Imperial-class lines, twice that number of Vindicator and Dreadnought-class heavy cruisers, dozens of smaller cruisers and troopships, and, perhaps most importantly, a pair of Immobilizer-418 Interdictor cruisers ready to deny a ship hyperspace at a moment’s notice. Those ships not directly hanging above the Wookiee homeworld were clustered about Vader’s flagship, the Devastator. Fighters of all stripes soared this way and that, wings of bombers descended into the atmosphere for attack runs.

“This,” Luna thought, “is why Twilight is a fool.”

This mighty armada represented only a small fraction of the might of the Empire’s war machine, yet by itself it would smash any world that dared oppose Palpatine’s will and burn it to molten slag. Hundreds of thousands if not millions of Imperial troops could be deployed from these ships, armed with the weaponry to take any city or set fire to a continent. And yet, on a galactic scale, this force barely registered at all. Every ship could spontaneously explode right now and only Vader’s loss would mean anything to the Galactic Empire.

Trying to resist this from the outside? Madness.

The alicorn tore her gaze away from the awe-inspiring fleet and the doomed world at the sound of chiming. The bridge’s communications officer was at his console, now flashing with an incoming hail. He looked up at Luna, who simply nodded.

“Inquisitor,” came the voice of an officer she didn’t recognize. “Lord Vader is pleased by your timely arrival and bids you to attend him aboard the Devastator without delay.”

“Tell him I am on my way,” she answered, keeping the resentment out of her voice with some effort.

“Very good my lady.”

“The Wookiees of Kashyyyk have long been a troublesome race,” Darth Vader informed her.

The two stood in a darkened, private chamber illuminated only by the holographic projection of the planet below. Or more accurately Vader stood and Luna, not having gotten permission to stand, awkwardly knelt while trying to observe Sith Lord’s briefing. The Sith holocron she’d gone through so much to get to was set on a plinth in a side alcove, accepted without comment and seemingly forgotten already.

“Since the earliest days of the New Order, they have resisted the Emperor’s will,” the cyborg continued. “With long established ties to the Jedi, they are believed to have assisted in the escape of Yoda and afterwards to have knowingly offered safe haven to fugitives from the Order. I eliminated them years ago, but that was not the end of it. Their world is well-suited to guerilla war, the vast wroshyr forests offering protection from our aircraft and countless places to hide. For years various groups have waged hit and run battles against Imperial forces, and in the last several weeks the situation has grown markedly worse.”

“Why not simply burn the forests?” Luna risked asking.

“Because our goal is enslavement, not annihilation. Moff Tarkin requires skilled laborers with great strength for his special project, which these creatures are well-suited for. Scouring the forests with turbolasers would kill off the population altogether. We must break their will to fight, but their bodies are still of use to us.” The hologram switched to a recording of a pitched battle between Stormtroopers and the massive, hairy natives. “Since my arrival the 501^st has won several key victories and killed thousands, yet these beasts continue to resist with surprising vigor. But recently we have identified the source of this contagion.”

The image shifted again, this time settling of the form of a green-skinned humanoid female with distinctive robes and swirling facial tattoos about her eyes.

“Jelee Almar,” Vader identified her. “Once a Knight and healer of the Jedi Order, vanished after the Clone Wars and not seen again until now. We believe her presence inspires the Wookiees, deceiving them into believing that the Force fights with them. It is also possible she may have some skill with battle meditation.”

A rare Force ability Luna had only heard of from Dooku, battle meditation sapped the morale of one’s enemies and boosted the coordination and unity of allies. Few had any talent for it, fewer still could do it on anything more than a localized scale.

“More likely that she simply serves as a symbol to them, a guttering light of hope in a time of darkness ascendant. A light that we,” he clenched his fist, “will snuff out.”

“How may I serve?” the princess asked.

“We have located what we believe to be her current base camp, deep in the lowest levels of the jungle.” Vader said. “An elite strike team is being formed to cut the head from this serpent. You will accompany me on this mission. And you will claim her head for the Empire. Alone. It should not prove too troublesome for one who has faced a Sith Lord.”

“And if she is stronger than anticipated?”

“Then you will die,” the cyborg answered. “Report to the armory at once, we depart in two hours.”

It was obvious that these humans weren’t used to working with nonhumans at all, Luna reflected, much less quadrupeds. The deep black bodyglove they had initially shown her had proven to be ill-fitted and in need of serious and rapid size adjustments to enable her legs to move freely. The dark blue armor plates that they fitted over it had been marginally better, but they were poorly balanced and made her front section disproportionately heavy in their eagerness to protect her chest. It would have made flight awkward and ungainly at best, had her wings still been capable of as much.

Still, Vader’s gift did have its upsides. The helmet contained a full filtration system to protect her lungs from the many varieties of poisonous plants and creatures that wandered Kashyyyk’s jungles, as well as a full communications suite with an option to silence the external mouthpieces altogether for more privacy. It contained her broken horn completely though, so trying to use lightning with it on would only get her a face full of it. The eyepieces offered sight deep into the infrared and ultraviolet spectrums. The skintight bodyglove promised protection from contact poisons and annoying minor injuries. The armor itself was of good make, reasonably light for the protection it offered and resistant to blasterfire and blunt trauma. It left only her mane, tail, and wings exposed. Still, it was very different from any armor she’d worn before, and Luna wasn’t quite sure if she liked it or not. But going on this sudden mission without it would be a potentially fatal insult to Vader.

Perhaps, she wondered, seeing how she adapted to sudden and unexpected changes to her circumstances was itself part of the Sith’s test for her?

Not very long afterwards, the princess met the cyborg in one of the Star Destroyer’s many docking bay. Alongside Vader were a dozen men in white armor much heavier than standard with T-shaped visors glowing blue. Imperial Commandos, her helmet computer told her, and quite likely clones left over from the war. Guns and grenades were strapped across bandoliers and belts, while their backs featured twelve identical light packs with thrusters. Vader was outfitted as he always was, and had no such device.

Come to think of it, neither did she.

There wasn’t a word of explanation, of course. The moment she drew near, Vader simply turned and strode into the waiting gunship, and the commandos followed in a perfect lockstep. The princess suppressed a sigh, and then moved quickly to join them. To her complete lack of surprise, almost the moment that she stepped inside the doors slammed shut behind her and the engines whined as they fired up.

There were no seats in this craft, she noted as they lifted out of the hanger bay, only overhead straps a humanoid could hang on to. The commandos availed themselves of these during the brief flight through space, though Vader apparently saw no need. Luna couldn’t reach them, and her four legs afforded her plenty of balance anyway.

The transit became rougher, though no more talkative, as their gunship entered Kashyyk’s atmosphere. The gunship rattled around her, the commandos bumping into one another or the walls around them slightly. But soon this too ended, as reentry gave way inevitably to a more stable cruising speed. The minutes ticked by as the altitude dropped, still without a word being said. The alicorn began to wonder why the Empire hadn’t just built itself a droid army, since it seemed so determined to make sure that its organic soldiers behaved like them anyway.

“Pilot.” Darth Vader broke the silence without warning. “We have reached the drop zone. Commence unloading procedure.”

“Copy that,” came a voice from the cockpit.

The door beside Luna slid open, exposing them all to the howling winds outside. Vader’s cape and Luna’s mane whipped easily in the wind, but no matter. Looking down, she saw the legendary wroshyr forest with her own eyes for the first time. The data files did not do it justice. Directly below them grew a single massive tree that was easily the size of Coruscanti skyscraper if not taller, sprawling out in all directions in a lush field of green hundreds of feet across. The vast branches and leaves greedily soaked up all the sunlight, and even her eyes could not go down far before blackness consumed all things. And that was just one wroshyr tree. There were hundreds of them just in the area that she could make out, and they seemed to go… more or less forever in all directions. You could pack all of Equestria into these things and still have room for more.

Now she understood why the Empire had such a vast fleet here.

“Prepare to disembark,” Vader commanded.

Luna looked down, then back up again.

“Where are we to land?” she asked.

“Land?” one of the commandos seemed to snicker.

“Then what are we-”

Luna turned back towards Vader – just in time to see him leap right off the gunship’s edge.

50: The First Hunt (II)

Luna couldn’t help but gasp a little as Darth Vader, bereft of any apparent means of survival, simply leapt from the edge of the now-hovering gunship. They were hundreds of feet above the vast forest, undoubtedly thousands from the planet’s true surface, but apparently that meant nothing to the Sith Lord. Nor, evidently, to the twelve commandos accompanying them. The white-armored men simply leapt right out the opened door after their master, heedless of the obvious dangers. The last man paused at the edge and glanced briefly at the alicorn.

“Eh,” he shrugged a little apologetically. “You get used to it.”

Then he sprang right out the door.

Luna paused, cursed her nonfunctional wings, and looked out the doorway at the rapidly-shrinking dots that were the Imperials. She gritted her teeth, took and deep breath, and leapt.

The air whipped madly against her armor as she plummeted, almost painfully cold against her exposed wings. The sheer force of drag seemed like it could pluck them clean at any moment, or rip her flowing mane from her head. But pain was something she was used to by now, pain fed her anger. Now regretting keeping her growing collection of lightsabers under her wings, she folded them tightly into the sides of her armor.

Far below, the princess could make out the black and white dots that were her supposed comrades approaching the treeline with uncomfortable swiftness. A small part of Luna hoped Vader had overestimated himself and would simply be dashed to pieces against the woshyr branches, but the larger portion told her to tuck her body in as much as possible to avoid drag. She even called on the Force a bit, hastening her descent and bringing the rearmost Imperials into better view.

Her cynical outlook was vindicated a moment later by a surge of dark side energy. Below, a portion of a tree branch directly in the path of the black dot shattered as though hit with some godlike hammer, punching a hole into the leafy canopy. A targeting reticle in her helmet’s right eyepiece immediately zeroed in on it, but she dismissed that with a blink. She didn’t need a computer to tell her how to aim.

Ahead of her the Imperial Commandos were vanishing into the hole that Vader had made. Concentrating on her frustration, her anger, and her hatred for the man in black and all he stood for, Luna seized her own body and none too gently threw it at the opening. Sunlight was virtually cut in half the moment she crossed passed the treetops. Her helmet’s eyepieces swiftly moved to compensate, but she wasn’t paying attention to them. Instead, her mind was locked onto the mighty nexus of dark power below her, plummeting fast and unleashing pulses of raw destructive force on anything unlucky enough to be in the way. She kept her metaphysical gaze on him, following the ripples he left in the dark side.

The alicorn plunged thousands of feet into the forest, the light growing dimmer and dimmer the whole way. Ahead of her, commandos began firing their jet packs, little blue pinpricks of light against the enshrouding darkness. Luna wrapped herself in bubble of invisible energies as she fell, sensing her descent beginning to slow against increased air resistance. She redoubled her efforts, drawing on memories of pain and rage, and felt herself slow even more.

Then, abruptly, it was over.

Luna hit the ground roughly, the cushion of Force energy she had created bursting against the sheer speed of her impact. Branches and leaves and soil flew in all directions at the miniature thunderclap. It felt, for an instant, as though she was being crushed between two vast elemental forces far beyond her comprehension.

And then the moment passed, and the panting, sweating princess looked up from the miniature crater of her own creation. From above she could see the flare of slowly-descending jet packs and the soft blue t-visors of the commandos. But there was no sunlight to be seen, not even the faintest pinprick from the hole so far above them. She could hear a slight patter of bits of wood raining down around her. And she could hear Vader’s breath.

As Luna rose, and the commandos touched down, she turned her helmeted gaze on the Sith Lord. Darth Vader simply stood where he was, all but invisible to the naked eye in the darkness. His own helmet was focused outwards and away from her, at something only he seemed to be able to see. If his efforts had done anything to drain his own energy, he gave no sign of it.

“Come,” he said, the moment the last trooper touched down. “There is work to be done.”

Former Jedi Knight Jelee Almar knelt in a small hut built into the exposed roots of one of the titanic woshyr trees. At her feet, spread out on a rough mat, was a large, brown-furred Wookiee by the name of Keshirrro. A veteran of the Clone Wars and an intensely devoted father, he had been fighting since almost the first hour that Imperial ships had touched down. Along with countless thousands of other Wookiees, he had fallen back into the jungles to strike back at the Imperial troops occupying Kashyyyk’s tree cities. But a recent skirmish with Stormtroopers had left him badly injured, and so his comrades had brought him here.

The Mirialan sighed. She wanted nothing to do with war, not anymore. The Clone Wars, and what followed, had seen to that. All she had hoped to do was find a quiet place to bury herself in and meditate. The darkest sublevels of Kashyyyk’s forests had seemed the perfect locale, uninhabited and far from the Empire. But war had followed her here all the same. And she couldn’t turn away from a being in need.

Clearing her mind and closing her eyes, Jelee reached out with one green-skinned hand. Life, though vicious, was abundant in this place, and the Force was strong. The light side, though now eclipsed, was still present. She reached out into that vast ocean of energy, tapping into but a small portion. The Jedi simply willed Keshirrro’s cells to multiply, and that they did, at an exponential rate. Bathed in the soft, benevolent glow surrounding her thin fingers, the Wookiee’s charred flesh began to knit. His low moans of pain began to die away as minutes ticked, replaced by the slow, steady breathing of sleep.

At last, Jelee lowered her hand and wiped a few beads of sweat from her brow. Once the art had taxed her severely, and to mend such grievous wounds would have left her bereft of energy for hours. The Clone Wars had seen to that, delivering a never-ending tide of wounded clone soldiers for her to practice her skills and refine her technique on. Right up until her own former patients had turned their guns on her.

She shook her head with a grimace to clear away the traumatic memory, then turned and walked past the two other Wookiees occupying the hut, and strode out into the darkness outside. It was cool out here, no sunlight having touched this earth for a hundred generations or more. The only light came from the torches the natives had lit to scare away predators from this small, secret collection of huts. One of many thousands of such nameless settlements dotted across the planet, it gave these people a tiny refuge against the rapacious Imperial slavers and a place from which to strike back.

Jelee had visited many of those hidden villages during her time on Kashyyyk, drawn by the lingering vestiges of Jedi compassion. These people had endured so much, lost homes and family and friends to Imperial treachery after the Clone Wars, that she could not in good conscience simply bury herself and ignore their pain. And so she travelled from place to place, granting what healing she could where it was possible, and doing her best to soothe the minds of those too far gone. Occasionally she had even raised her lightsaber in their defense. But she was no military leader. Not any longer. Never again.

She sighed again, more wearily this time. It seemed a hopeless effort, for there were far more wounded than she could ever hope to reach in time even if they all lay in one vast medical facility waiting for her. The Empire’s war against Kashyyyk continued unabated, hundreds of thousands of Wookiees dragged off in chains or gunned down like animals. Their cities were occupied and the space above teemed with Imperial warships. Even the light side of the Force itself seemed muted, distant, as if permanently cast into an ever-growing shadow. Yet, for all that, she was determined to shine what little light she could.

“But no more,” boomed a synthetic bass voice.

Jelee whirled around, eyes wide. Her heart skipped a beat, as a distinct mechanical breathing that no Jedi could fail recognize seemed to rise up out of nowhere. From the endless gloom into the feeble torchlight stepped a figure out of nightmare. Towering over the Jedi, on eye level with the Wookiees, his suddenly-revealed presence in the Force seemed a vast, smothering, hungry shadow stretching forth to devour them all. The implacable, soulless mechanical face regarded her impassively.

One of the Wookiee sentries howled an alarm, raised his bowcaster, and fired a shot. Vader didn’t even take his gaze from Jelee, he simply stretched out a gloved hand and absorbed the shot harmlessly. Then he clenched his fist, and she heard the sound of a massive neck snapping like brittle twig.

“No, wait!” the Mirialan threw out her hand. “I know why you’re here!”

Vader said nothing.

“I know what you want, Sith,” she fell to one knee, head low. “I surrender. Take me and do what you want. Just leave these people be, they’re innocents. Merely refugees. There are children here, Lord Vader.”

This cyborg before her was rumored to have spearheaded the sacking of the Jedi Temple. It was certain that he had killed Jedi more powerful than Jelee before. Even had she not known that, the sheer magnitude of this monster’s presence in the Force alone told her that she was no match for him. She was no coward, but there far more lives than her own in the balance here.

“I am well accustomed to killing children,” said Darth Vader, after a moment had passed. “Massacre them.”

“NO!” Jelee screamed, jumping to her feet even as blaster bolts began to fly from the darkness.

Red bolts fell first on the second sentry, his bowcaster barely managing to get a single shot off before he crumpled under the barrage. Jelee’s green lightsaber flared to life even as they began to impact on the small collection of huts and the Wookiees now emerging from them. Falling back on her training, the Jedi intercepted several blaster shots, turning most aside but opportunistically swatting one towards her best estimate of a shooter’s location. A cry of pain from an intimately familiar voice was her reward.

“Scatter!” she called out to the Wookiees, even while she tried to shield them. “He’s beyond any of you! Run for your lives!”

Some, wiser than others, did so. Some of those even made it, fleeing this way and that among the confusing tangle of roots and into the dubious safety of the darkness beyond. Some were gunned down before they had the chance, accurate shots slipping past the Jedi’s blade and burning through fur and flesh. And some, braver or more headstrong or simply tired of running, stood their ground with their own weaponry. In the omnipresent darkness, they lacked a clear target for it, save one.

Their last mistake.

Vader’s lightsaber ignited in a blaze of crimson energy. Blasterfire glanced off of it easily as the dark lord strode unhurriedly forwards. Several bolts found their way back to the very beings that had fired them, eliminating those unworthy of so much as tasting his blade. Though she knew it meant certain death, Jelee Almar raised her lightsaber and rushed to meet him.

“Inquisitor,” Vader barked. “Take her!”

Jelee barely had time to blink before a second crimson lightsaber roared to life, and another figure burst from the gloom. She fell back into the ingrained defensive patterns of Soresu as the red clashed against her green, rapid and precise. The Jedi gave ground before the assault, calling on the light to bolster her defense and reactions. This newcomer was an armless quadruped encased in deep blue armor, save for its equally blue wings and hair. It controlled the lightsaber with telekinesis, sticking close by but staying comfortably out of her blade’s reach. It seemed to be primarily relying on some variant of Makashi, if she was any judge.

But it wasn’t the being’s strange appearance or unusual fighting style that truly shocked the Jedi. It was the sheer, all-encompassing, mind-numbing hatred she should sense emanating from this being’s every pore. Why? What had she done to this creature to make it feel so? The quick offensive pressed Jelee back further and further with each passing second, but only half of her attention was on defending herself. The rest of her was stretching out, trying to get a feel for this creature’s mind.

“Why?” The onslaught was forcing her further and further from the Wookiee village, the torches were barely visible now. “Why are you doing this? Why are you working for him?”

There was no answer beyond a filtered growl and a redoubling of her bladework. The Jedi retreated yet further before the creature and its telekinetic lightstaber, quick thrusts from unusual angles affording her precious little time for a counterattack.

“You hate this… you hate the Empire,” Jelee breathed, batting off a swing meant for her face. “It doesn’t have to be like this!”

“You have no idea,” it spoke for the first time, voice filtered but obviously female. They were beyond sight of the village now, red and green blades the only source of light amidst the endless dark.

“Then tell me!” the Jedi leapt backwards, the Force propelling her outside the blade’s reach. “I am a healer. I can sense your pain. Your fears. You’re a wounded creature, aren’t you? In more ways than one.”

“As I said,” she growled, taking a step forward. “You have no idea what you are talking about.”

“I know how it feels to lose… everything.” She paused. “But lashing out isn’t the answer. The dark side isn’t the answer. It won’t bring you any peace. It won’t bring you any healing. It will only feed off of your pain and hatred until it consumes you completely. Like Vader.”

“You know nothing of what I feel.”

“It doesn’t have to be like this. You don’t have to help that monster. I’m a healer, and not just for the flesh. I can help you.” Jelee reached out one green hand.

“Healer? Healer?!” her voiced hissed through the helmet. “Healer?! Does this village look healed to you? This world? This galaxy? Your Jedi Order was said to protect peace and justice in the galaxy. Where is peace and justice now?” Her red lightsaber brandished itself above her head. “You failed! All of you! You failed your Republic, you failed your Order, you failed your galaxy! And most of all…” Jelee could sense hatred, elemental and raw. “You have failed me.”

“What?” The Mirialan blinked.

“I don’t need your pity, Jedi,” she spat the words. “What I need is power.”

Then she charged with a speed that should not have been possible. There were no more words passed between them, no proud boasts or offers of sympathy. For the next thirty or so seconds, there was only the frantic clash of twirling blades, green and red, amongst the endless gloom of Kashyyyk’s underworld.

And then, there was nothing at all.

Darth Vader stood amidst the smoking ruins of the small, nameless Wookiee village, lightsaber long since extinguished. Around him, his commandos handled the mop-up, going door to door to execute those too wounded to walk and setting fire to what homes were still standing. In truth, he felt nothing for these wretches. They were unworthy even of the least of his anger. No, his thoughts were elsewhere.

It wasn’t long before a figure returned to the edge of the torchlight – just as he’d known she would. With a slight grunt, she tossed something at him. It hit the ground long before it reached him, rolling through the ashes to come to a gradual halt at his feet.

The severed head of Jelee Almar, her last expression a mask of terror and pain.

“As you commanded,” Luna bowed her head. “My lord.”

“Well done.”

51: The First Hunt (III)

“Sargent,” Vader commanded. “Bring the box.”

One of the white armored commandos pulled a flat grey square from his pack and pushed a button. As Luna watched, it unfolded out into a cube that promptly popped open to reveal a soft blue interior. Gingerly, the man reached down and picked up the Jedi’s severed head. Holding it delicately, he lowered it into the container, which promptly slammed shut. He hit another button, and there was a hiss of escaping air as the cube vacuum sealed.

“We will ensure that the unruly elements of the population find this. Let them see for themselves what it means to defy the Empire,” the black cyborg continued.

“Her lightsaber makes a fine addition to my collection,” Luna added. “Perhaps we should display it in battle somewhere?”

“A worthy suggestion.” Vader nodded. “Sargent, take your men and hunt down the survivors before they spread too far. Kill most, but allow at least a few to escape. Let the Wookiees hear of this from the terrified lips of their own kind.”

“It will be done, my lord,” said the man. He turned to his men and nodded. “All units, with me.”

All eleven surviving commandos activated their jet packs simultaneously, lifting off from the smoldering village and vanishing quickly into the surrounding darkness. Their advanced helmets would provide them with all the sight they needed, while the survivors would be virtually blind. Luna watched them go with a neutral expression and once they were out of sight, turned her gaze back to Vader.

“We didn’t come here because she was a threat,” the alicorn said.

“No,” Vader answered. “We did not. Jelee Almar was an undistinguished general, a mediocre duelist, and an abysmal pilot at best. Her only real skill lay in the healing arts. She spent the Clone Wars defending secure worlds and medical stations in the Inner Rim from Separatist raiders. Little more than a glorified nurse with a few skirmishes to her name.”

“Then why?”

“To make certain.”

“That I would kill for you?”

“That you would kill someone that you did not know, who had never raised a finger against you, simply because I commanded it. Even when what I told you was a lie.” He paused. “Your vendetta against Cia could simply have been a purely personal affair, your survival against Maul demonstrated nothing beyond the capacity for self-defense. I needed to make certain you could call on your hatred without hesitation or restraint, no matter the target or circumstances. And you have passed that test.”

“But…why? What was the point?”

“You are not an unintelligent woman, Inquisitor. Perhaps you might explain the reasons we came so far.”

“We’re… alone,” Luna said, looking around as if noticing the endless gloom for the first time. “Far from any prying eyes or technological surveillance.”

“Correct.”

“We have an excuse to be here for a time, and proof to offer.”

Vader gave a small nod.

“But that is still avoiding the central question. We have an excuse to be here, and we are safe from anyone who might wish to spy on us, but how does that benefit you? What could you possibly have to say to me that you could not say somewhere… else…” The alicorn stared up at the cyborg, eyes wide.

Vader stared down at her for a moment, still and silent but for his breathing, as if considering a moment longer.

“The Emperor,” he began, “is a blight on the galaxy. In his arrogance he fails to see dissent building under his very nose. In his conviction that he has already triumphed for all time, he sows the seeds for a bloody and destructive conflict to wrack this galaxy yet again. I would see those seeds uprooted, and true order brought to the Empire.”

“And you… want my help?”

“Your fighting skills are raw, but your potential is great. Enduring the Valley of the Dark Lords and coming back alive, surviving against swordsmen on the level of Darth Maul and General Grievous.” Vader looked at her. “Don’t look so surprised, princess. Did you think I had not learned of your little planet’s history? Your history? Your potential has long gone to waste, but with proper training you could make a powerful warrior in service to the dark side.”

“And in service to you?”

“Now you begin to see clearly. I have need of an apprentice, Inquisitor. An agent of the dark side to hone and to shape,” here he paused. “And one day, to thrust through the Emperor’s heart.”

“I’ll do it,” Luna declared without hesitation.

“So eager, Inquisitor?” Vader paused. “Yes, I can sense your hatred. Your hunger to plunge your blade into my master’s flesh. If he were here, now, you would cut him down without flinching. That is good. But it is not enough.”

“My lord?”

“It is not enough that you simply possess the will to end him. You must be willing to end his life on my behalf. And it is here that I find you… lacking.”

The alicorn could feel sweat tricking down her face, and not just from the heat of the fire. How much could Vader sense? What did he know?

“Bonds of loyalty must be forged, joined, and put to the test. All that you were and are must be broken down and remade into a vessel for the dark side. In order to triumph, even your name will be forfeit. In my service, you will learn to hunt down what remains of your old self and murder it.” Vader paused again. “As Anakin Skywalker was murdered. Only then will you bet fit to join me against the Emperor.”

Luna’s eyes were wide as dinner plates. She may not have been involved in wider galactic affairs for long, but even she had heard of the legendary Hero With No Fear. A great Jedi war hero, some said the greatest of them all. He had vanished during the chaotic aftermath of the Jedi’s attempt on Palpatine’s life, and was presumed dead. To think that he was standing here before her, right now…

“He is not.” Vader interrupted her thoughts. “Anakin Skywalker is dead. I killed him.”

“As you say, my lord,” Luna hastily bowed her head.

“Perhaps right now you do not fully understand what that means. In time, and with training, you will. You still cling to something of the weak, broken creature that you were. Do not deny this, I can sense it. Your feelings for home… for friends… for sister… all of these must be destroyed. Only then will you truly come into the power of the dark side, and only then will you be ready. Do you understand?”

“I…” Luna hesitated.

Her helmeted head turn first to look at the ground, blue eyes staring at the ash-choked earth at her hooves. Next, she looked the smoldering homes and the broken corpses of those the Jedi had tried, so nobly, to defend. She beheld the futility of the light. And she made her choice.

“I understand.” Luna knelt amidst the ashes. “Master.”

“Good. Then before we kill the Emperor,” Vader crimson blade flared to life, held merest centimeters from the alicorn’s neck. “We will kill all that is left of Princess Luna.”

52: Apprenticeship (I)

“I understand,” said the all too familiar hologram of Fulcrum. Even through the synthesizer, the voice was noticeably pained and worn. “You need time.”

“Yes…” Twilight nodded slowly, uncertain of exactly how much to say. “You recall what happened in the hanger? And what I was told?”

“Naturally. And what happened afterwards as well,” there was a faint bitterness to the words. “I assume this has something to do with that?”

“You’re right, it does. And I know there’s still so much to be done, but still I think this could be something really important for the future.”

“Normally I hate indiscipline and unpredictability.” There came a weary sigh. “But I don’t think I have the right to stop you after what you went through on Coruscant and Corulag. How long do you think it will take?”

“I have no idea,” Twilight shook her head. “I’ll try and make it as quick as possible, so I can get back to you guys.”

“It would be appreciated.”

“Thank you,” the alicorn said, sincerely. “How’s he doing, by the way?”

“Well as can be expected. I think a world like Alderaan can do an old man a lot of good. Our friends there are taking good care of him, don’t worry. But he does keep asking about you.”

“Maybe I can visit sometime.”

“Yes well…” it paused. “Please, whatever you have to do, do it quickly. The galaxy waits for no being."

“I understand.”

The cool air of Kashyyyk crackled with the clash of lightsabers in the deepest jungles. Twin crimson blades, one whirling like a maddened dervish, the other deceptively slow, slashed at one another in the darkness. Sparks flew as the burning plasma nicked earth, trees, or corpses.

“Your technique is amateurish,” Darth Vader said. “Who told you this was the way to fight? If the good Inquisitor Cia was not dead I would kill her myself for this.”

Luna, blue coat matted with sweat under her suit, hissed through gritted teeth and redoubled the attack. Her blade twirled in a bewildering pattern meant to dazzle and confuse, before jabbing out at joints in well-timed and surprisingly precise thrusts. It wasn’t enough. It never was.

“No!” the cyborg snapped, parrying half a dozen such thrusts while barely seeming to move. “Clumsy, predictable, and most of all wasteful. I am beginning to think I am wasting my time with you.”

Her anger flared, and her blade swung for his head with all the energy she could muster. Vader met her power blow with a one-handed strike of his own. His strength was that of an avalanche, and he swatted her lightsaber aside. It spun wildly towards the ground, and before she could recover it he stormed forwards with surprising speed. Without the slightest hesistation he raised his sword for a deathblow.

A second red lightsaber shot out from beneath the alicorn’s wing as the blow fell, just barely racing up in time to prevent her skull from being carved in half. Vader pressed down mercilessly, and inevitably the locked blades descended like a guillotine in slow motion. Frantically, Luna ducked and rolled, forfeiting the contest and just barely avoiding being carved in half. Vader’s saber carved a long, glowing furrow in the ground where she had stood, but he did not pursue.

“Clumsy and stupid,” he said, even while she called both lightsabers back to her. “There is no strategy in your style, no tactics, and no thought. How do you expect to beat a child like this, much less the Emperor?”

“Lord Vader…” Luna breathed heavily. “We’ve been at this… for three days straight…”

Abruptly her windpipe sealed itself shut, and she was hurled headfirst into the nearest woshyr tree. She smashed into it with enough force to audibly crack wood. Before her ringing, oxygen-starved brain could even think of doing anything she was slammed into the ground with just as much force. Then there was a tug, and she was dragged none too gently across the dirt to lie in a heap at the cyborg’s feet, a red plasma blade held between her eyes.

“Explain to me what you did wrong, Inquisitor,” said Vader. “And perhaps I’ll allow you to live.”

Only then was she allowed to breathe.

“I…” she managed, between frantic gasps for air. “Didn’t… I didn’t…”

“Didn’t what?”

“I didn’t… go for the first blade… stab you in the back…” Luna panted.

“You failure to do so is indication of your poor training. You are not taking advantage your greatest strengths. Tell me what they are.”

“Distance… I can attack… outside of arm’s length…”

“You can.”

“Angles…” Luna took a deep breath, still struggling to calm her racing heart. “My lightsaber… isn’t bound to a hand. That means I can swipe at angles most opponents aren’t used to.”

“Yes. Now explain the weakness of your condition.”

“Lack of native strength…” Luna rubbed her throat. “Every strike is an act of will and focus, the more powerful it is the more I have to focus on one blade. Power blows require special concentration. And I use more energy to maintain the blade’s position than a humanoid uses simply holding one.”

“And concentration can be broken,” said Vader. “So explain to me what this tells you.”

“My greatest strengths are unpredictability and range. My weaknesses are strength deficiencies and the need for constant concentration.”

“So are you likely to win a straightforward contest of strength?”

“No.”

“Or a prolonged endurance duel?”

“No.”

“Then how are you to win a duel?”

“Overwhelm them…” Luna breathed. She looked up into Vader’s masked face. “Take advantage of the unorthodox movesets this style allows and blitz through their defenses before they can recover.”

“And is one blade, no matter how much you wastefully attempt to twirl it, in a set style such as Makashi likely to succeed at this?”

“Against a practiced master? No.”

“And what will you do if the enemy focuses their own telekinetic powers on your weapon? Even if they lack the strength to tear it from you entirely, perhaps they can disrupt your control of it for a time and slice it in half.” Finally, the cyborg withdrew his sword. “Then what becomes of you, Inquisitor?”

“I…” Luna rose unsteadily to her hooves. “Die.”

“Then solve this problem.”

She considered for a moment.

“Deny them the ability to focus all their efforts on one blade. If they want to fight over one, another stabs them in the back.”

“And how do you accomplish this?”

In wordless answer, Luna flared her now-grimy wings. A quartet of lightsabers, three red and one green, blazed to life in the deep darkness.

“At last you begin to see.” Vader’s red blade rose up. “Now come up at me again.”

“Dantooine,” said the holographic representation of Bastila Shan. “A beautiful world, really.”

Twilight held the holocron up over a seemingly-endless field of green, flat and nearly featureless for as far the eye could see, save only a few distant gentle hills. The sun overhead was pleasantly warm but not hot, the few clouds were soft and white, and there was a gentle breeze carrying the scent of wild grains. The Harmony had had no trouble finding a place to put down far from what passed for civilization on this lightly-populated planet.

“I’d say you’re right,” the alicorn nodded.

“Heck yeah she is!” came a voice from near her ankle. Spike took a deep, satisfied breath of the fresh air. “Warm sun and open space. Beats the heck out of Coruscant. And I never even got to see Corulag!”

“I told you before, it was too dangerous.”

“That's what you say about every world!”

“But not this one,” Bastilla’s image cut in. “At least, not here. Why don’t you enjoy a sun little sun and fresh air while we’re here? She and I have our own things to discuss.”

After weeks cooped up in a ship or a small Coruscanti apartment, Spike needed little excuse to stretch his legs. The young dragon bounded off eagerly swiftly disappearing into the surrounding fields of tall grass and wild grain. Twilight watched him go with just the slightest tinge of guilt.

“It’s not that I mean to seem overbearing, it’s just…” she trailed off.

“Trust me,” the Jedi Master’s image said with a sympathetic smile. “My originator once raised a child. I know.”

“So why did we come here, anyway?”

“Because this world is too remote to ever truly be the subject of substantive colonization.” She paused. “Or at least that was how it was in my time. It’s peaceful here, and quiet. A good environment for practicing meditation.”

“Alright… where exactly?”

“Here is as good a place as any, I think.”

Obediently, Twilight sat down, legs crossed.

“Begin by simply closing your eyes,” Bastila said. “They can deceive you, and should not be trusted. The first step in any Jedi’s path is to learn to perceive the Force around them, and a tranquil like this is rich in the light. Even in this era of the so-called ‘Galactic Empire’, the Force is still present. So for now, simply reach out and touch it with your mind.”

“Like… this?” Twilight’s face scrunched a little.

“Don’t think, feel. A Jedi does not seek to exert her will through the Force, rather, she allows its light to flow through her.”

There was a pause. The breeze blew gently through Twilight’s hair. Some form of bird chirped from somewhere in the fields.

“Not thinking is kind of hard for me,” Twilight admitted.

“You’ll get the hang of it.”

“Don’t be discouraged,” Bastila said, many hours later, as the sun slowly set overhead. “It certainly wasn’t the most inept display my thought-pattern has ever seen.”

“Thanks… I think?” Twilight said, from where she lay on her back in the soft grass. “Do you think there might be some kind of more… academic style of meditation? I mean, I’ve always found a sort of peace with my books back home. Do you know of anything like that?”

“I can consult my memory crystals,” said the gatekeeper. “You aren’t the first trainee of a more scholarly disposition. I’m sure I can find some exercises that are more appropriate.”

“Maybe…” Twilight considered. “A different world? Or at least a place with more civilization around? We have to keep a low profile, but I’m barely even able to touch the Holonet out here. Maybe a small-town library or something?”

Bastila’s image frowned. “Well, I hadn’t planned to bring it up until later stages, but I did choose this world for more reasons than just how peaceful it is.”

“Hmmm?” Twilight sat up a bit. “Why?”

“Well, during my time Dantooine was also a source of rare Adegan crystals, which from what you’ve told me about this new Empire I doubt will be very available. Of course it has been almost four thousand years since then, so I admit the odds are rather against us. But perhaps once you learn to sense the Force more clearly, we can-”

“Hey guys!”

Spike’s voice interrupted the Jedi Master’s and both females turned to look at the baby dragon. He waved cheerfully with his free arm as he emerged from the tall grass, walking casually towards them. His other arm had a small bundle tucked away beneath it.

“This place is great!” he said. “Warm sun, blue skies, and cool breeze. And some tasty treats too!”

Spike fished around in the little improvised cloth bag beneath his right arm, extracting a shimmering yellow gemstone. Before anyone could say a word, he popped it in his mouth with a flick of the thumb.

“Kinda tiny I admit,” he pronounced as he chewed. “But they’re really sweet, and they have this great aftertaste that leaves you feeling like you’re on cloud nine! As good as anything I’ve had back home.”

Twilight couldn’t help but giggle a bit.

Bastila looked like someone had slapped her with a live trout.

“What?” Spike blinked.

53: Apprenticeship (II)

“Well…” said the holographic representation of Bastila Shan, “I have to admit that this was somewhat more convenient than anticipated. Perhaps the Force led us here.”

“Or my stomach,” said Spike, earning him a glare. He scratched the back of his head. “Okay, bad joke, but can’t I just eat a couple more? They’re so good.”

The three of them were clustered around a small hole in the earth, not a few hundred yards from where the Harmony had touched down. The night sky was clear overhead, soft white moonlight offering plenty of illumination even had the holocron itself not been glowing as it always did. Together, the blue and white light illuminated a little gap in the earth, not more than a foot wide, but descending further into the earth than either beam could penetrate. Inside, jutting obviously from the walls, were a number of small crystal formations. Mostly blue and green, with the occasional yellow, they glittered like tiny underground stars.

“Absolutely not. Adeegan crystals were rare enough in my creator’s time, for all we know these may well be the very last in all the galaxy outside the Empire’s grasp.” She looked at Twilight. “These rare gemstones react to the Force inside you, all around you. They can even bond to you, given time, such that the crystal almost becomes a part of your body. A true wonder of nature, and of the Force.”

“So, uh… what do they actually do?” he asked.

“That’s a lesson for another time, I think,” Bastila declared. “One must take the first steps before one learns to run.”

“Do you think these things could help with meditation?” Twilight asked, though she suspected they had an altogether different use.

“Most likely. But I feel that it would be best to develop your own ability to sense the Force around you, before experimenting with outside aids.”

“If that’s what you think,” she answered. “You know this better than I do.”

“I like to think so.”

“There is no emotion,” Twilight rolled the words over her tongue, “there is peace. There is no ignorance, there is knowledge. There is no passion, there is serenity. There is no chaos, there is harmony. There is no death, there is the Force.”

The alicorn knelt in the grasses of Dantooine, eyes closed and mind mulling over these words, this “Jedi Code”. The sun was once more warm and pleasant overhead, the breeze still soft and carrying the rustic scents of nature. Spike, after promising not to consume any more crystals should he find some, was off simply enjoying the planet’s seemingly-perpetual good weather.

“That doesn’t make a lot of sense,” Twilight opened her eyes, looking at the holocron sitting before her. “Emotion, ignorance, passion, chaos, death… these things all exist. I know, I’ve seen them for myself. Felt them for myself. Denying them makes you seem like some sort of lunatic cult more than anything else.”

“Ah,” it flared to life, projecting the familiar image of the long-dead Jedi Master. “But you are looking at it in a far too literalistic manner.”

Twilight blinked.

“Think on this, young one. What is it that makes a Jedi?”

She considered it. “The light side of the Force?”

“That is correct.” Bastila nodded. “So tell me then, what does it seem to you that our code would describe?”

“The… Force?” Twilight frowned. “I mean, I could maybe see that. The last line reveals the meaning of the others, is that it? The Force is peace, knowledge, serenity, harmony… and itself? That still doesn’t seem terribly logical.”

“The Jedi Order has always been most concerned with the spirits of its members, with their inner peace. It is from this inner peace that we channel the will of the Force, and it is through the will of the Force that we gain our power. It can be a difficult lesson to master. Even the high and revered among us have stumbled here, believing that we best hear the will of the Force through shutting ourselves away from others rather than connecting with the life from which it flows.”

“I’m still not sure I get it.”

“You will, in time, when you learn to tap into the Force more directly. I mean no offense to the traditions of your homeworld, but ritual and incantation and arcane traditions can sometimes put us at a distance from the simplicity of the light. It is for that reason the Jedi have never been magicians.”

That rankled. “Magic doesn’t distance us from harmony, it’s an embodiment of it! One of the six elements.”

“I would be fascinated to learn more about your world’s views,” said the holocron. “But was I not first called here to educate you?”

“True,” Twilight nodded.

“We can debate philosophical concepts another time, but for now, simply try to relax. Let go of thoughts, preconceptions, disagreements. Open yourself up to the fundamental harmony that underlies the universe.” Bastila said. “Remember, apprentice, peace-”

“-is a lie,” boomed Darth Vader.

“There is only passion,” echoed Luna.

“Through passion I gain strength,” the cyborg clenched his fist.

“Through strength I gain power,” the alicorn flared her wings.

“Through power I gain victory.”

“Through victory, my chains are broken.”

“The Force shall free me,” Vader finished.

The two stood amidst dozens of still-cooling corpses, remnants of the latest wave of jungle predators to through themselves at the Sith in a suicidal frenzy. Drawn near by the powers of the dark side and simultaneously driven mad by it, the beasts attacked with no regard for their own lives. And yet their lives, taken in anger, only served to fuel the hungering darkness all the more.

“To truly break your chains, you must understand the meaning of these words,” Vader said, beginning to pace. “Simple to hear, powerful to grasp. And yet the Sith Code is no simpering, fey, otherworldly philosophy like that espoused by the weakling Jedi. It is direct, practical, and deadly as the dark side itself.”

“Our passion fuels our power, and our power grants us freedom,” said Luna. “It does not seem terribly-”

“Still your tongue before you insult my ears with ignorance,” Vader said, cutting off her air supply with a gesture. “You only grasp the surface of it. It is true that passion with throw off the chains you wear outside yourself, yet that is only a small part of the truth. To conquer the chains beyond oneself, one must first conquer the chains within. Do you understand, apprentice?”

He released his fist, and the alicorn gasped frantically for air.

“Doubt. Fear. Regret. Materialism. Compassion. Attachment. All of these things are but their own form of chain,” Vader lectured while Luna coughed. “And they will bind you to slavery and destroy you just as surely as any cruel master’s whip. You must destroy these things within yourself. The code tells you how. Through your passion, your hatred, your rage, and your craving you can destroy these things and set yourself free to the power of the dark side. With nothing to hold you back, there will be nothing that you cannot do. And then you will see the truth of it.”

“The… truth?”

“That nothing matters beyond the power of the Force. Planets, peoples, ideals, loves… all of these are meaningless and transitory. The Force alone is eternal, and through the dark side alone do you become its master. Once you have freed yourself of all sentiments and attachments, secret doubts or mewling remorse, you will feel the surety of power flowing into the void, and you will never need anything else. Power will be your perfection, your lover, your child, your friend, your joy, your craving, your sorrow, and your hatred. So it must be.” Vader folded his arms. “All the universe is but a means for you to gain, and to keep, the only thing that matters.”

“Power,” whispered Luna.

“Perfection is not gained through power,” Bastila said, “but power through perfection. I am aware that the need to meditate, to open oneself to the fullness of the Force, can at times seem tiring. Why, you might ask, is she not teaching me to throw waves of energy with my hands, to read the minds of the others, or to swing a lightsaber like the heroes of old? And in truth, I could teach you to do these things. And in time, I will. But first you must grasp this most important of lessons.”

Twilight said nothing as she knelt there in meditation, eyes closed to the beautiful starlight overhead.

“I know part of you must feel frustrated at how slow this must seem. Days and weeks pass by in a blur, yet all I ask you to do is meditate. Yet you must understand why. To be a Jedi is to seek perfection. The Force is perfection. The light is the Force. It surrounds us, binds us. We must learn to feel it, to become one with it in body and soul. From this union, from this perfection flows the whole of a Jedi’s power. Without this cornerstone nothing can be accomplished, and so there is nothing I can teach you.”

There was a silence for a time.

“Yes…” Bastila whispered. “Reach out with your feelings. Seek peace in that which surrounds us. Embrace the Force, and feel it embrace you as its child. Let it flow through your mind and your soul and your body. Allow it to-”

The holocron fell silent as the alicorn’s body rose slowly, painfully, haltingly, yet inevitably all the same. Sprinkles of dirt and blades of grass, the product of hours of kneeling in the soil, fell away from Twilight’s clothing like a gentle rain. Gravity had lost its hold on the young one, replaced by something far more transcendent.

Bastila smiled.

“Very good.”

54: Apprenticeship (III)

“Discipline of the body is second only to discipline of the spirit,” Bastila was saying.

Before her, on yet another pleasantly-warm Dantooine morning, Twilight was running through a series of martial arts exercises with a simple wooden staff. Though her face and bare arms were sheened with sweat, the alicorn’s face was serene. The staff twirled and spun nimbly in her hands, though she routinely threw punches, kicks, chops, and as well as abrupt thrusts into the sequences.

“Your ability to consciously control your own musculature is a rare and formidable asset, but it is not unprecedented. The Jedi have trained rare apprentices from shapeshifting species, such as Shi’ido, in the past. They too had the power to alter their shape at will. And as they discovered, there’s little need to build muscle when you can simply will it to grow as you require.”

Twilight tossed the staff high into the air, spinning at a slight angle. The princess did a backflip, landing gracefully a few yards back. She reached up and caught the descending staff in one hand. Then she opened her eyes.

“How’d I do?” she asked, a little breathlessly.

“Very good,” Bastila smiled and nodded. “Your natural connection to the Force is formidable. When you let it flow through you, you’re capable of a great deal.”

“That’s what Princess Celestia always said. Well…” Twilight scratched the back of her head a little. “Maybe not those exact words.”

“I daresay you must have been one of her greatest pupils. Raw strength in the Force and a potent academic mind must make you quite the magician.”

Twilight blushed a little, but said nothing.

“But there is a danger,” the hologram frowned a little. “Too many times in the Order’s past, natural talent has lead certain pupils to fall into laziness, or worse, arrogance. More than one Jedi failed to develop on their abilities and met a poor end because of it, or sometimes even came to believe that their gifts made them inherently superior to other beings.”

She sighed a little more wearily than Twilight had seen before, though the alicorn resisted the temptation to ask. The holocron’s gatekeeper would tell the story when she felt it was time.

Bastila looked back up. “These pitfalls are why it is important to practice discipline, and to hone your body and your mind. Constant use keeps your skills sharp, and awareness of your limits helps to prevent overconfidence. More practically, your focus could save your own life or the lives of others. In combat, where the difference between victory or death can be millimeters, it is vital you have absolute mastery over every aspect of your being. Therefore, even if you don’t need to build your muscles, you must not be negligent in training your body or succumb to the temptation to simply coast on your talents.”

“I understand,” Twilight nodded. That bit of Jedi wisdom she had no issues with.

The holocron’s projection smiled at her. “I am glad to hear it. And be assured that all your efforts are not in vain. I sense we are fast approaching a… milestone.”

“There is no substitute for live combat,” Darth Vader said, as the shuttle rocked beneath his boots. “No training program can adequately simulate the battlefield, no practice routines or martial drills will ever teach you half as much as a lightsaber in your hand and corpses at your feet.”

Luna looked up at the Sith Lord.

“It is when blasts fly and the difference between a glorious triumph and an ignominious grave is a split second that the power of the dark side is at its purest. The rage, the terror, and the hatred fuel its potency, burning away the doubt and weakness. Kill and be raised up, or die and be forgotten, these moments best exemplify what it means to be Sith. Let cowards skulk in the shadows and fence with words, mystics mutter over cauldrons and seek fortunes in visions and dreams, the battlefield is where true power is forged.”

“I understand,” Luna nodded.

Their shuttle began to slow down. There was another bump, then a shudder. And then the landing ramp before them lowered onto a wooden Wookiee platform. The racket was immediate. Blasters and bowcasters firing, shouted commands and alien growls, screams of the dying and barks of pain, bombers soaring overhead and explosions rocking the great forest, all combined into one deafening, horrific, glorious symphony of destruction. The princess felt her heart beating faster already.

“Go then,” Vader said. “Prove your understanding in the only way that matters.”

She bowed her head, called on the Force and ran. Four lightsabers flared to life, and Luna proved her understanding.

Proved it most thoroughly.

The stars shone brightly through a crystal-clear night sky. Spike lay curled up aboard his bunk on the Harmony, the fire he had started for his friend long since died away to embers. The holocron lay on the dirt amongst the flattened grasses of the prairie, pristine as ever yet still and silent. A princess sat, legs folded yet not touching the earth, eyes closed and face utterly serene. The night was chilly, and her head and arms exposed to the wind. Her clothing was thin, yet she was sweating.

She’d been here for hours, though time had lost had lost its meaning to her. Immersed deeply into the light that flowed through, and from, all living things, her mind was focused deeply on the task at hand. Mechanical parts danced in a merry circle about her head, as though she was a star in her own right. One by one each part was analyzed, considered, fitted, rejected, and joined the dance again. It had been this way since before the sun had set.

“The crystal is the heart of the blade. The heart is the crystal of the Jedi.” Twilight could hear the mantra in her mind, relaxing in its own way despite its irritating combination of sense and nonsense the extinct Order had so loved. “The Jedi is the crystal of the Force. The Force is the blade of the heart. All are intertwined. The crystal. The blade. The Jedi.”

It was exactly the three hundred and seventy-second time the mantra had passed through her head. Not that she was keeping count or anything.

Hours continued to pass as the princess meditated there, allowing the Force to guide her through the steps. The process was messy, intuitive, and dominated by trial and error, the smallest discrepancies forcing extensive refits and adjustments. It went against all her instincts do this so blindly, but she supposed that this was half the reason for it.

The process was lengthy, laborious, and physically uncomfortable, though in truth Twilight felt none of it. Her will, and the Force, sustained her body and dulled her mundane senses. She would sit here for hours, days, weeks – however long was required. This had to be done, and done right. For the sake of the galaxy. For the sake of her home. For the sake of her friends.

And it was done.

As the sun slowly rose on the planet of Dantooine, Twilight opened her weary eyes at last. As little night creatures scurried back to their burrows, she reached out a shaky hand and grasped her handiwork, scarcely daring to believe that it might actually be finished. She thumbed an activation button, and as the sun’s first golden rays touched her sweat-soaked head, a brilliant blue blade erupted to greet them.

Twilight stared for a moment at the humming lightsaber blade, mystified and almost breathless. She had never held a weapon like this before in life, yet somehow it felt… natural. Like it was less a weapon, and more and extension… no, an expression of her. This was the first time she had so much as touched it, but it already fell into the palm of her hand like an old friend.

The princess couldn’t help but grin proudly as she savored the moment, taking a few soft, experimental swings at nothing at all Nothing but the soft chirping of birds was there to applaud her, but she didn’t care. After a few swings, she reached down and fingered the second activation stud, and watched triumphantly as a second sapphire shaft came into being.

55: Apprenticeship (IV)

“Speaking from my creator’s experiences,” said the hologram of Bastila, “the saberstaff is a very rewarding weapon, but a difficult one to master.” She stared up at the artful silvery hilt with a raised eyebrow. “And one seldom deemed appropriate for beginners. Are you certain that you might not be pushing things a little quickly?”

“I thought of that,” Twilight nodded. She hit another button on the hilt and gave it a twist. In flash, there were two lightsaber hilts in her hands, and with a flourish she activated both at once.

“Ah, a flexible blade, made with versatility and practicality in mind, is that it? Yes, very wise… by switching the blade configuration mid-battle you could surprise an enemy that thought they had your measure. A staff becomes two blades, two blades become one, one becomes a staff, in whatever combination is required.”

“And two smaller blades, or even one, are easier to hide than one larger one,” Twilight elaborated. “Plus, I put the vital components away from the center, and towards the blades themselves. I know the larger hilt makes a larger target, but that way even if the hilt were to be cut in half I should still have at least one working blade.”

“Let’s hope that it doesn’t come to such extremes,” said Bastila with a slight smile. “All the same, I do congratulate you on the successful construction of your first lightsaber. That weapon will be a part of you now, linked through the Force bond you created when you shaped it with your mind’s eye. In many senses it could be said to be your life.”

“…I don’t know if I’d go quite that far,” said Twilight, stealing a slight glance at her handiwork.

“Nonetheless it is a significant milestone for any Jedi trainee, and you are to be applauded for reaching that stage of competence after only a few weeks of training. And to successfully execute such an advanced design so early bespeaks a considerable technical aptitude.” Here there was a pause, the holocron’s gatekeeper giving the alicorn a moment longer to enjoy her accomplishment. “However, I believe that there may be one thing that you failed to fully consider.”

“Hmmm, and what’s that?”

“That since you have installed such a variety of modes into your lightsaber, you are going to have to learn to master all of them before I’ll teach you anything else. I won’t have you cutting off your own arm in the midst of combat.”

“I’m guessing that takes… a little while?” said Twilight with a feeble attempt at a grin.

“Well, that considering you’ve asked for training as quickly as reasonably possible, that every day you are here this Galactic Empire tightens its grip, and that I can feel the dark side waxing ever stronger…” Bastila paused. “Let’s just say I hope you enjoyed sleeping while it lasted.”

Hanhraar, warrior of Kashyyyk, crawled slowly across the wooden village. He moved as swiftly as he dared, recalling all the lessons his uncle had taught him about moving silently through underbrush. Though his leg might be broken, his mind was sharp. This thing, this monster the hated Empire had unleashed on his village had started its surprise attack with the Wookiees closest to the village’s transceiver array. That meant they didn’t want a warning getting out. If those murdering, slaving vermin didn’t want everyone on Kashyyyk knowing, he did.

He was almost there, crawling past the limp bodies of his kin with a determined expression on his face. Just a little bit further now. The door was ajar, the equipment right in his sight. He just had to crawl a little ways further, ignore the pain just a minute more… that was when he felt an iron clamp descend on his neck.

“Inquisitor to Lord Vader,” Luna said as the Wookiee began silently tugging at his throat. “Mission accomplished. No survivors, and no weapons. As you commanded, my lord.”

“Make certain there remains no evidence of your passing that could appear to be technological in origin,” the Sith Lord’s mechanical voice came through her commlink a minute later. Blasters and soldiers these beasts understand, but let them behold the broken remains of an entire village slain without a shot fired and perhaps they will understand how futile resistance is.”

“The unknown is often the greatest source of terror,” the princess repeated one of Vader’s own lessons. “For it speaks to the terrors within.”

“These weeks of campaigning are bearing fruit. Tens of thousands of Wookiees lie dead, and five times that number have been captured for Moff Tarkin’s project. The resistance is losing cohesion, and momentum. With every battle, the foes of the 501^st are fewer and quicker to route. Soon they will be nothing but scattered bands hiding in the wilderness and waiting their turn to be enslaved. Kashyyyk will finally have learned its place.”

“Very good, my lord.” Luna nodded. “What are your orders?”

“Return to base and prepare for a new mission. There are some indications that our offensive is poised to draw another Jedi out of hiding. If it is who intelligence believes, perhaps he might pose an actual challenge.”

“As you will,” she said as the link terminated.

The princess looked around. This had been easy, a mere thirty or so of the alien beasts taken by surprise and without the slightest defense against the Force. Even barred the use of a lightsaber there was nothing they could do against her. She had made a quick end of their suffering, though they were just another meaningless tribe of savage aliens standing between her royal personage and the Emperor. Their actions delayed the training she needed to slay the monster, yet she granted them all quick ends. Was she not merciful?

With a thought, Luna snapped Hanhraar’s neck and turned to leave.

Far away from peaceful Dantooine and war-torn Kashyyyk alike, another figure peered into the depths of the Force. Alone amidst his throne room, guards dismissed and shutters blotting out the sun’s light, Darth Sidious sat and meditated. The galaxy’s conqueror immersed himself into the rich currents of the dark side, now and forever ascendant thanks to him. The powers it granted him had already increased with the destruction of the Jedi Order, and observing the bewildering array of possible futures had never been easier. The path to his eternal triumph stretched wider than ever, eclipsing the inconsequential futures of the galaxy’s myriad lesser beings. Yet still there was a problem.

The dark side of the Force was a raging wildfire as much as it was a shadow, fueled by undying passions to consume all that it touched. Weak, mortal flesh could only bear such attentions for so long before the unnatural flames burnt out one’s body from the inside. Even he, undoubtedly the greatest Sith Lord ever to live, was not immune to this slow but inevitable degradation. It would not be today, and not tomorrow, but eventually, he foresaw, his body would become so weak he would have to rely entirely on the Force to defend himself from even a crippled wreck of an apprentice like Vader.

But as ever, the dark side had provided a solution. Immortality, true immortality of the sort Plagueis had wasted his life chasing, had simply shown itself when the time was right. He had but to reach out and claim it for himself, but he knew that it would not be simple. Something of the Force would attempt to resist him, and like all others it must be taught its place. Sidious peered down the innumerable paths that lay ahead, his mind well-practiced in finding the way forwards amidst the spiraling madness. Minutes turned to hours as the dark lord schemed to claim everything that ever was or would be.

At last, he was ready. Emperor Palpatine reached out a single hand, activating the commlink built into the arm of his throne.

“Contact the fleet at Kashyyyk,” he commanded. “I think it is time that Governor Celestia was reunited with her dear sister.”

56: Reunited

The Star Destroyer Devastator was a place Luna had grown, if not comfortable, then at least familiar with over the preceding weeks. Whenever Vader wasn’t on the front lines massacring any and all who stood before him, he haunted this ship to plan his latest assaults on the dwindling Wookiee resistance. At the moment, she knelt before her cyborg “master” in Vader’s personal chamber, while he employed a holoprojector in his latest lecture.

“The campaign on Kashyyyk is drawing to a close,” he said in his booming bass voice. “Our foes numbers dwindle, and their hearts grow heavy with fear. Every day brings them news of a fresh slaughter, every night brings proton bombs raining down upon them. There is no rest from the Imperial onslaught, there is no sanctuary that our forces cannot find, there is no brave leader that we cannot cut down, and there is no beloved home that we cannot put to the torch. As these fools have discovered, there is no hope in opposing the inevitable.”

Luna felt nothing but vindication at Vader’s words. Here then, was concrete proof of all that she had said to the wretched, defiant whelp. The Wookiees had had every possible advantage in their bid to push the Empire from their homeworld. They had a great familiarity with advanced technology and veterans forged in the vicious Clone Wars. They had terrain utterly ideal for guerilla warfare, and an Empire unwilling to simply burn their pathetic planet to the ground. And yet, for all that, for all their bravery and defiance, for all their skills and martial prowess, the cold hard reality was that they had lost. Badly. In a mere handful of weeks.

This was the might of the Galactic Empire. To crush all that opposed it without compromise or pity, while barely noticing that they were there. Then to enslave the broken survivors to build yet more weapons for their war machine. Thousands of Imperial soldiers had died throughout this campaign, hundreds of fighters and bombers had gone down in flames, and the burnt-out shells of walkers and armored vehicles littered the forest floor. Yet such was the merciless grind of its machine that, unlike her own devastated homeworld, it would emerge from this war stronger than ever. The ability to simply power through where her own people had been brought to their knees was, in its own way, admirable. Equestria had a lot to learn.

“But the war itself is of less relevance than the opportunities it presents to us,” the cyborg continued. “The presence of another Jedi has been confirmed.” The holographic display shifted from an image of the planet to an unremarkable human male. “This discovery presents an opportunity to test your skills against a true foe, not a glorified nurse or a tribe of primitives. You will seek him out and destroy him.”

“I won’t fail you, master,” Luna bowed her head.

“Good. You leave at once.” Vader already had his back to her. “Return with his lightsaber for proof.”

“As you wish.”

As the alicorn turned to leave, the holographic display changed one more time. This time it displayed Orion, the ship’s captain. He stood ramrod straight and tried to appear businesslike, but Luna could sense his fear.

“What is it, Captain?” said Vader without turning.

“My lord…” he swallowed. “We have received a transmition. A summons from Imperial Center.”

“I see.” The massive black cyborg faced the officer’s projection. “Inform the Emperor that I am on my way.”

“Beg your pardon, my lord, but… the summons… was not for you.”

“Then who?”

“The Lady Inquisitor, Lord Vader. The Emperor commands her presence.”

Luna felt her heart skip a beat, as instantly Vader’s soulless masked face focused all its attention on her. She could well imagine the thoughts racing through his head, wondering if she had betrayed him, or was about to. Undoubtedly, he was weighing the benefits of simply killing her on the spot. Seconds passed, but it felt like hours.

“Very well, Captain.” Vader said, and Luna let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. “Inform the Emperor that the Inquisitor is on her way.”

“Yes, my lord.” Orion’s hologram exuded relief as it saluted and vanished.

“Go,” Vader said to her. “It would not do to keep my master waiting. See to it he hears what is appropriate for him to hear. And keep your mind under guard.”

“Of course.” Luna hesistated. “And… the Jedi?”

“I will deal with Kento Marek personally.”

The Imperial Palace on Coruscant made a powerful statement. To the ordinary beings of the galaxy, the Emperor’s residence was a symbol of the triumph of reason over mysticism, a strong leader over a cloistered order of fanatics, and of an ordinary human from Naboo over secretive magicians. To Luna, who understood a bit more of the deeper truths, it stood as a symbol of the triumph of darkness over light. She sensed a faint electrical undertone to the air, felt a shiver run down her spine. Just to be so close to such a monument to the dark side was energizing.

The two red-robed Royal Guards that waited at the bottom of her shuttle’s ramp said nothing as the armored princess strode down. They merely flanked her and, force pikes in hand, silently herded her through the vast rows of ships that were also touched down in the vast landing field. There were hundreds, perhaps thousands of dignitaries from across the galaxy represented here, some being shuttled back and forth by Stormtrooper or Royal Guard escort, most already inside.

Luna allowed herself to be swept along, mentally rehearsing her story for the thousandth time since leaving Kashyyyk. A small part of her brain, and the computer system in her helmet, devoted itself to the guards escorting her, analyzing what little she could see of them, measuring strengths and calculating weaknesses. Neither were Force sensitive, though, and so posed no real threat to her. But envisioning the best ways to kill them if necessary calmed her nerves as they marched up a great stairway towards the entrance.

As the great archway opened before her, Luna swallowed, plucked up her courage, and prepared to meet the most evil being in the galaxy.

“I do apologize for the delay, Governor,” Emperor Palpatine said kindly. “You may rise.”

“Think nothing of it, your majesty,” Celestia said as she rose to her hooves. “I understand that these things can take to accomplish, especially when there is an entire galaxy to oversee.”

“Nonetheless, you have been quite cooperative over the preceding months, and it ill becomes a man to fail to keep his word in a timely manner. I do hope none of our experiments have been uncomfortable or inconvenient.”

“None at all,” the princess assured him, truthfully. While they had been uncomfortably sterile, invasive, and more than a little bit creepy, none of the procedure had yet been painful or debilitating.

“That is good to hear.” Palpatine smiled a little, then let it fade. “Though the lack of results thus far has been disappointing, I am certain that we shall find this secret.”

“I’m certain we will in due time, your majesty,” Celestia said, though in truth she doubted it.

“Yes… Well, enough with these unhappy subjects. I called you here today to honor my side of our agreement. It would not do to keep you waiting any longer.”

“She’s here?” Celestia couldn’t quite keep a note of excitement from her voice. “Now?”

“Oh yes,” the Emperor nodded. “In fact I’ve been informed that my guards have collected her from her shuttle already. Your sister should be arriving shortly.”

“I…” the princess swallowed, unable to keep her eyes from growing moist. “Thank you from the bottom of my heart, your majesty.”

“I do not see what is so extraordinary about simply keeping one’s word, Governor,” he replied. “The corruption and dishonesty that plagued the Republic were a large part of what necessitated its reformation into the Empire, and I will not see my own system fall prey to such vices while I yet live. Still, I accept your gratitude in the sincere spirit in which it is offered.”

And it was sincere. Celestia had been half expecting that she would be betrayed, for what could she do if the Emperor of the galaxy decided to go against her? The other half had been expecting to hear that Luna was dead, for Vader did not seem the type of man who would long tolerate a crippled alicorn amongst his ranks. To find out that Lulu was not only alive but about to be restored to her after paltry months of waiting was far more than she had allowed herself to hope for.

“Ah,” said Palpatine as the office door chimed softly. “I believe that is her now.”

The door slid open. Celestia blinked.

“Sister?”

57: Sisterhood

Celestia wasn’t entirely certain exactly what condition that she had expected to find her sibling in, but it wasn’t this.

The alicorn’s entire body was covered in suit of blue armor over a black bodyglove, leaving only her wings, mane, and tail visible. A mask covered Luna’s head, skull-faced and soulless. Her wings and hair were clean enough but showed signs of serious wear, feathers broken or ripped away altogether and hair cut short and frazzled. An Imperial symbol was prominently displayed on her shoulder.

But it wasn’t her sister’s physical appearance that truly drew Celestia’s attention, it was the way she felt. Luna wasn’t carrying herself like an ordinary pony, or even princess, of Equestria. Instead of a moderate trot, her sister was moving with one hoof almost directly in front of the other, legs slightly bent as if to pounce at any second. Her wings were folded far too tightly against her body, as if carrying something underneath them. The helmet concealed her face, but there were minute twitches this way and that as if scanning for threats. She seemed closer in aspect to some predatory jungle cat than a pony.

More than that, Celestia could feel the wrongness radiating from her sister. Telepathy had never been her strong suit – she’d always viewed the sanctity of the mind as too important – but it didn’t take a master mind reader to sense the change of disposition. The last she had seen of Luna, her sister had been sullen and morose. Now she just seemed… perversely energetic, as though transformed and empowered by something terrible.

“…Luna?” Celestia asked again a moment later.

“Sister.” The voice that came out of the helmet was filtered, mechanical, and emotionless.

“Come in, come in,” Palpatine’s voice interjected. “It wouldn’t do to lurk in doorways, especially on such a happy occasion.”

“Forgive me, your majesty,” Luna said immediately, moving forwards and past Celestia. She sank into a deep bow. “Inquisitor Luna, presenting myself as commanded.”

“Celestia you fool!” Luna thought from her position on the ground. “What are you doing here? With him?!”

She was more grateful for Vader’s gift than she had ever been before. The masked helmet had concealed her wide eyes when the door opened, as it now concealed her gnashed teeth. Her sister wasn’t here under duress, at least not knowingly. Celestia didn’t seem afraid from what she could sense, though she’d gone from happy to shocked in the space of a few seconds.

“Rise Inquisitor,” the Emperor commanded in a soft, almost pleasant tone. “We aren’t here to dwell on formalities.”

“As you wish,” Luna suppressed the emotion in her voice, aided by her helmet. She rose easily to her hooves, the last few months having given many opportunities to practice. “How may I serve?”

What was Sidious playing at? Unlike her sister, whom she could feel as a beacon of light and warmth, Luna sensed nothing at all from Palpatine. No powerful aura of dark side energy, no stray thoughts, not even the slightest read of his emotional state. As far as the Force seemed to be concerned he wasn’t even there, though her helmet’s computer was tracking his vitals easily enough. She could only hope that using that power interfered with his ability to read her own feelings, for her hatred was simmering.

There he was, the author of all her torment, just sitting right there all but alone and seemingly defenseless. It was so tempting, just to flair her wings, draw her sabers, and throw herself at Palpatine. He didn’t seem to be carrying a lightsaber himself, and he wasn’t more than a dozen paces away. She could cross that distance in a heartbeat, drive her sword through his chest and vindicate everything that she had done and become. The Royal Guards stood too far away to reach her in time to do anything.

But… no. No, she mustn’t. Though he looked a feeble old man, before her sat the greatest living Sith Lord, perhaps the greatest ever to live. There was no question he had some unseen means of defending himself, be it a lightsaber up his sleeve, lightning storms from his hands, or something more esoteric her could conjure. And her terminally naïve sister would no doubt move to defend him as well. And then everything would be lost. And so, with great difficulty, she swallowed her rage. For now.

“Actually, I had called you here for a different reason altogether.” Palpatine smiled. “You see, your sister there had been most worried for you. So worried in fact that she risked the anger of Lord Vader for your sake, and when that did not yield results, petitioned me directly.”

“You did what?!” Luna’s mind screamed at her sister, who seemed totally oblivious.

“Such was her concern for your health and safety she was prepared to do almost anything to secure it. You could not ask for a more devoted sister.”

Luna said nothing.

“The Governor and I talked briefly, and we came to an arrangement. Today, I honor my end of it. Luna of Equestria, by my authority as Galactic Emperor, you are hereby formally discharged from the ranks the Inquisitorius and from the service of Lord Vader, and are free to return to your home planet as soon as you leave this place.”

Luna could feel her sister’s heart leap. Her own sunk.

Return to Equestria? And do what, sit and wait until the next demented Inquisitor or slaving officer came to the solar neighborhood? Oversee a ruined nation of broken souls tasked with making the rest of the planet an open-air prison? Give up the powers she had acquired and resume her place as a powerless figurehead, the very moon itself mocking her impotence every passing night? Live the wretched life of a slave… forever?!

There could be only one answer.

“I thank you for your generous offer, your majesty,” came the filtered sound of Luna’s voice after a moment had passed. “But I am afraid that I must decline.”

Celestia’s eyes widened, her blood became ice in her veins. She couldn’t help but gasp a little. On his throne, Palpatine’s own expression was one of incredulity.

“And may I ask why?” said the Emperor, a moment later.

“As great as my duties to Equus are, it is but one world of this Galactic Empire. My duties to the Empire, to the galaxy as a whole, vastly outweigh them. There are still remnants of the Separatist insurrection that devastated my homeworld, the surviving Jedi traitors still stalk the darkness between stars. I cannot in good conscience leave the galaxy in a state of chaos and lawlessness simply to attend to the needs of one small world on its fringes.” Luna paused. “I therefore request to continue in the service of the Empire.”

“Your patriotism is to be commended. If only all our people were so dedicated to the galaxy’s well-being.” Palpatine’s eyes fell on Celestia. “Yes, Governor? You have something to say?”

“I do, your majesty.” Celestia stepped forward, directly beside her sister. “Might I have a moment… in private, with Luna? I’d like to…”

Like to what? Ask her what in blazes she was thinking? Demand to know what Vader had done to her? Beg her to come home?

“Of course, of course,” Palpatine smiled benevolently. “I realize that this must be something of a personal moment for the both of you.” He looked up at one of the guards. “Escort them to an available antechamber and give them some privacy. Return them to me when they are ready.”

Luna said nothing as the red-robed man came to collect the both of them. Celestia tried to think of something appropriate for that moment, but came up with nothing. Both alicorns allowed themselves to be lead from the Emperor’s audience chambers, down a turbolift, through a hallway, and to a simple side chamber bereft of anything but a few chairs and a simple table. Throughout the entire journey Luna remained absolutely silent. The helmet made it impossible to say for sure, but Celestia didn’t think her sister so much as spared her a glance the entire way.

It was only after their robed escort nodded at them and backed out of the door as it resealed itself that the façade was broken. The two alicorns whirled to face one another in the blink of an eye.

“What are you doing?!” both sisters hissed simultaneously.

“Why would you seek to stay with Vader?!” Celestia continued.

“What madness drove you to make a deal with the Emperor?!” Luna shot back.

“Madness? He’s the only one in the Empire who even bothered to do anything for us, ever!”

“You fool.” Even through the mechanical filter, Luna spat the words. “I will not go back.”

“So, it’s your wish to be a slave to a monster like Vader for the rest your days? Open your eyes, Lulu. You’re nothing but a pawn to him, and he’ll kill you without hesitation the instant he wishes to.”

“So says the blind mare.” There was an embittered chuckle from inside the armor. “Open your eyes, Celestia. A return to Equestria is nothing but a return to a miserable life of a slave overseeing other slaves. A wretched and powerless position, at the mercy of all the cruelties of the galaxy. I refuse to accept such a fate.”

“And you believe yourself to be anything more, now? You’re a weapon to be used discarded, Lulu, and I can’t let that happen to you. Not if I have any ability to stop it.”

“And yet you have none, sister. Because you are powerless, because you can do nothing before the might of the Empire. You grovel on your knees just to send me back to our ruined homeworld. What secrets of our people did you sell him? What did you give Palpatine?”

“Nothing he couldn’t have taken at any time. Medical scans and tissue samples, nothing more.”

“Why would he want…” there was a sudden hiss. “You told him, didn’t you? You idiot!”

“I told him of our species lifespan, yes. For your sake.”

“My sake? My sake?! If anything was for my sake you’d want me to do this! You’d care that I would be powerless and miserable back home, just as I was before! All you care about is yourself!”

“What?!”

“Admit it, Celestia! All you wanted was for me to return so that you would feel better! You never cared that everything I had was stripped from me! My magic, my dreamwalking, my flight, my moon! All were taken from me, and you didn’t care one bit! I was a powerless wretch, and you did nothing!”

“That’s not true at all! I did everything I could to care for you, to comfort you in the face of the apocalypse! I was there in Canterlot the day it fell, just as you were. I would give you my own horn without hesitation, Luna, if only I could!”

“Self-serving memory and useless hypotheticals, bah! I have learned much in my time away, dear Celestia, and I will never be powerless again!”

“You think yourself powerful? You’re nothing but Vader’s tool!”

“I am more powerful than you can possibly imagine, sister.”

“You don’t-”

Celestia’s voice died mid-sentence, an iron band suddenly affixed to her throat.

“Shut up and listen. For all our lives you’ve been the older, wiser, more powerful sibling. For all our lives you have been the valiant hero or the noble martyr. But not this time.” Luna’s voice was a snarl, and the clamp on her sister’s windpipe tightened. “This time I will save our planet, our nation, our people! I will not return home a failure! I will not cower in the shadows like a whipped dog! I will become the most powerful being in all the galaxy, and I will use that power to make everything right! Do you understand me?!”

There was no sound from the white alicron, but her eyes told the story.

“Everything I do, every life I take, every service and dark deed brings me closer to the ultimate power I need! I will never tire, never give up, never cease to strive! Let the universe conjure a hundred more Vaders, an arsenal of superweapons… nothing will stop me! And I will allow no one to stand in my way!” Her mask was now less than an inch from Celestia’s muzzle. “Not even you.”

A wave of invisible energy blasted Celestia from her hooves. The princess went soaring across the room, blowing over a chair and slamming hard into the wall. She collapsed to the ground, gasping for air as the stranglehold over her throat vanished. Luna made no effort to assist her, the soulless lenses of her mask regarding her coughing sibling with mechanical indifference.

“Shut your fool mouth and stay out of my way,” she said, tone colder than frozen wastes of Alzoc III. “Sister.”

At that exact moment, something inside Celestia cried out and died.

58: Farewell

The door to Palpatine’s audience chamber reopened only a few minutes afterwards, and a pair of alicorns. The armored sister carried herself with what she imagined to be a dignified yet deferential air – as if he couldn’t sense her petty and ill-concealed hatred. But let her hate, so long as she feared. As to the other one… the state of her soul reminded Sidious of the broken woman he’d spoken with after the razing of her homeworld.

Excellent.

“Ah, you’ve returned,” he said in Palpatine’s kindly old man voice. “I do hope that everything went well.”

Both siblings knelt in that awkward fashion that quadrupeds did, and Sidious felt the dark one’s resentment spike. That was amusing.

“It did indeed, your majesty,” Luna said to him. “My sister and I had a very productive discussion, and came to the only reasonable conclusion.”

“I am glad to hear it. Discord between siblings is always a little saddening. And of course you may rise.”

“Yes, majesty,” said Luna as both did. “Celestia and I talked it over, and we had decided that it was best if I remained in the service of the Empire. Our world does not need my services so greatly as the larger galaxy, and I fully trust my fellows back on Equus to manage our rebuilding.”

“Are you certain?” he feigned surprise. “If this is about potential repercussions from Lord Vader or his allies, I give you my personal assurances that no harm will come to you or your system as a result of your decision today. I am, after all, a man of my word.”

“I am sure, your majesty,” she replied almost immediately. “I’ve seen what happens when the galaxy is left in the disorder of the late Republic. I know I must do my part to prevent that from ever happening again. Perhaps in a few decades, when things have more completely stabilized and the dangers of war are far behind us I shall seek to return home, but not before then.”

“As I said before: your patriotism is truly an example to us all.” Sidious nodded slightly at her. “Very well, if you are absolutely sure that you wish to remain in service to the Galactic Empire, I cannot in good conscience turn you away. Not when there is so much still to be done.”

“My thanks,” she bowed her head once again.

“And Governor,” Sidious turned his head towards the hollow-eyed sister, “I must thank you most sincerely for all your assistance, and your willingness to part with your own blood for the sake of all beings. I do apologize if you were surprised or felt in any way let down by what occurred today.”

“Think…” she said in a low voice. “Think nothing of it.”

He didn’t even need to see her thoughts to know how empty that was.

“I thank you both, again, for your services. I regret only that I don’t see more dedicated citizens like yourselves. However much as I hate to be brief, I do have many other matters to attend to.” Sidious sat back in his chair, nodding to his Royal Guards. “See to it that the Governor and Inquisitor are seen safely off. Return the Governor to her quarters and the Inquisitor to her ship.”

As the two alicorns were escorted out the door by two guards, Sidious swiveled his chair back around to face the window. When the doors closed behind them, the Sith Lord allowed himself a short peal of soft laughter.

Luna strode purposefully down the palace hallway, Royal Guard in tow. She was eager to be away from this place, to return to Vader and continue her training. She had no idea what Sidious was playing at with apparently calling her here simply to crush her sister’s spirit, but the further she was from him the better she’d feel.

Behind her, at a far more sedate pace, walked Celestia. Her sister’s gaze was downcast, her eyes strangely empty. Her aura in the Force was at a similarly low ebb, radiating melancholy. Had she really been such a fool as to pin any hopes on the word of Palpatine? Even if she had no idea the man was a Sith, surely only a naïve idiot would place any trust in the man who led the system that enslaved their nation. And to be so psychically crushed by the mere news that her sister would not go back to a wretched life of powerlessness? Luna felt her lips curling.

The two of them soon reached an intersection, and the guard with Luna indicated that they should proceed to the left. The one with Celestia indicated right. The dark alicorn followed the direction without question or hesitation.

“Luna!” she heard Celestia calling out after her. “I… goodbye…” Her voice seemed to die in her throat.

“Go home, sister.” Luna did not spare so much as a glance backwards. “You’ve done enough.”

As the two sisters parted ways once more, she could hear the soft sounds of sobbing from behind her. Luna felt, for the briefest of instants, an odd and painful constriction in her chest. A feeling that she couldn’t quite identify took shape in the back of her mind, but she knew that she didn’t like it. A moment later, she gritted her teeth and forced her memories of Celestia willingly aiding the most evil being in the galaxy search for immortality to the forefront. Her anger surged, drowning the unwelcome sensation in a torrent of familiar dark side power.

Shaking her head to rid herself of the last of such distractions, Luna pressed on without a another thought of it.

Minutes later, Luna was walking briskly towards her craft, eager to be away from this place. There were dozens of shuttles and small ships parked in rows on palace’s vast landing platform, and a number of dignitaries from far more worlds than she had ever heard of, though a clear majority were human. Her teeth bared in a snarl as she recognized one of them.

There, walking down the ramp of a shuttle with what she supposed to be the human idea of a pretty young woman on his arm, was a man she could hardly fail to recognize. Once an Admiral, now a Moff, Wilhuff Tarkin positively exuded confidence. And why shouldn’t he? After threatening a helpless species with genocide for failing to comply with his demands quickly enough, he’d been rewarded with a promotion and oversight of some “special project” she had heard nothing about. But from the way his mind felt, it was going well.

It was only when the man’s eyes wandered her way that Luna realized she had stopped, and was staring. The human halted himself and raised an eyebrow, brushing off his paramour with the flick of a wrist. Despite the armor, it only took him a moment to blink in recognition, then smirk.

“I’m pleased to see you’ve made the wise choice,” he said, eyes flicking pointedly to the Imperial symbol on her pauldron.

“I’m… pleased to see that you are doing well for yourself,” she forced through gritted teeth.

“Oh yes, quite well.” Tarkin brushed an imaginary bit of dirt from his sleeve. “And here to deliver a report to his majesty in person.” He eyed the still-silent Royal Guard behind Luna. “As I see were you.”

“We must not keep the Emperor waiting.”

“No. We mustn’t.” The Moff folded his hands behind his back and began to walk on. “Oh,” he paused, “and give my regards to your home planet.”

It was all Luna could do not to throw her lightsaber at him on the spot.

Many hours later, in the familiar if not homey confines of her appointed apartment, Celestia finally let the last façade of control die. Tears trickled down her face for but a few moments before becoming a flood. The white alicorn buried her head in a pillow, and allowed herself to weep. Her soft sobs muted by the soft shimmersilk, she simply surrendered control and allowed her emotions to pour free?

What had Vader done to her sister? What kind of cruelties and deprivations could drive Lulu back into his arms willingly after only a few mere months? How could he have twisted her so quickly, that she would attack her own sister so easily? Or… even worse, what had she done to her sister? Luna had accused her of being selfish and neglectful? Had she been? Had it been Celestia’s own failures that had opened up an old fault line between them?

Was this all her fault?

The solar princess lost track of time, drowning in a sea of guilt, fear, and worry for her poor sister. Just imagining the kind of thing Luna must be going through was enough, even the possibility that it might be her doing only made it worse. Minutes became hours as the sun set in the window, but she took scare notice.

It wasn’t until, many hours later, the princess heard a very gentle cough that she finally bothered to look up. It was Stormy Skies, one of the two pony honor guards that had accompanied her to Coruscant and stayed here these months, one of her few links to home. Celestia brushed a tear aside with her wing.

“Yes?” she sniffed. “What is it?”

“A thousand pardons, your highness, but…” he hesitated. “We’ve received a gift for you. It’s from the Emperor.”

59: A New Focus

“Bring… bring it in,” said Celestia, wiping away yet another tear. “We mustn’t be… rude.”

The stallion bowed his head and retreated from sight, allowing the princess a moment to collect herself. The tears still dribbled down her cheeks, but now she was at least striving to blink them away and clear her watery eyes. She was drained and weary, in far more ways than one, but she did feel obliged to at least try and pull herself together to receive this gift with all due courtesy. Palpatine had been the only one to show her a hint of sympathy or kindness this whole time, she surely owed him that much.

As she waited, Celestia began to think a little. What was she to do now? The Emperor had honored his end of the agreement – it wasn’t his fault Vader had driven her sister insane – so obviously it was incumbent on her to do the same. But she doubted the droids and doctors would find anything they could use, and it wouldn’t be long before they ran out of places to poke her with sensors. Perhaps a few more months, a year at most. What would she do then?

Go home, obviously. Equestria needed her. Her subjects, her niece, her star all needed her. But what about her sister? Would she ever even see Lulu again? And what about Twilight? She hadn’t been able to write her former student in months, how was she faring? Should she ask the young princess to return home as well? Or to break off from any militant efforts and simply seek diplomatic and trade ties with other worlds? So many questions, and she didn’t yet have any good answers.

A moment passed, and Stormy Skies returned with a simple grey metal box encased in a magical glow. The princess took it off him with her own magic, then nodded. He bowed his head and left the room, door shutting behind him. She sat the package down atop a nearby table.

Celestia took a look at the container, drying the last of her tears with her feathers. It was a simple thing, grey and sharply-jointed, unadorned save for a simple red button located conveniently on the very top. Without much else to do, she reached up and gently pressed it. Immediately, the grey metal split and fell away, clattering onto the table to reveal the contents.

Inside was a simple statue, perhaps two feet high and made of what looked to be bronzium. A hood, humanoid figure clutched a heavy-looking tome up to his chest, peering eagerly over it with a craned neck. The book had no words on the open pages, yet seemed… profound simply to look at. The humanoid wore a decorative frame about his jaw and a dangling gold circlet on his head. His face was framed by shadows from the hood, but what she could see bore the mark of a man both afraid and yet hungry for more.

“I hope this gift finds you well. It is called Ruin’s Enlightenment,” said a small device at the base of the statue, in Palpatine’s voice. “The artist’s name has been lost to time, but message has not. This statue represents that knowledge and growth that can sometimes arise from periods of profound crisis, in ways that we could never expect. When I thought of what happened between you and your sister, it seemed like a most fitting message. It has been among my personal collection for many years, but after what you gave up for the Empire today I felt it would only be appropriate to present you with some small token of thanks. I know that it will not replace your sister, but it is my hope that you might find some small place for all the same. I wish you well.”

The recording died away, leaving the apartment in near-total silence. Celestia stared at the statue and felt her heart speed up, though she didn’t quite know why.

“What did he tell you?” demanded the towering hologram of Darth Vader. “And what did you tell him?”

“He told me little, save only that my sister had made some manner of deal with him to assure my return to our homeworld,” said Luna from where she knelt. “And asked me nothing at all. I told him that I would rather remain in Imperial service, that is all.”

“The Emperor does not honor agreements without reason.” Vader folded his arms. “What manner of arrangement did he make with her?”

“Insofar as I was able to determine, simply permission to perform medical studies on her in return for my release from the Inquisitorius.”

“He asked… permission?” Vader repeated.

Luna grimaced a bit beneath her mask. “Yes, Lord Vader. My species is believed to be clinically immortal. I assume that is the secret he searches for.”

“Believed to be? How old are you?”

“Tens of thousands of years old. To be entirely honest I stopped counting my birthdays after the first few millennia, so I do not know my exact age.”

“And yet you never so much as developed powered spaceflight in all that time. Your kind has much to learn.”

“Regardless…” Luna choked down a retort. “I doubt he shall find the secret, for I do not believe it lies in any measurable biological cause. Many have tried to replicate it, and all have failed.”

“You underestimate the threat of the Emperor at your peril,” said Vader. “With Darth Sidious, nothing is ever as it seems, and it is when you believe things to be most straightforward that his manipulations have entangled you the most of all. This you must always understand. My master always has a hidden agenda. Keep your eyes out for it at all times.”

“Your wisdom is impeccable, Lord Vader,” she bowed her head.

“Describe what took place.”

“I landed near the palace, was escorted to the Emperor, only to find my sister there as well. He announced that in accordance with his arrangement with her I was free to leave and return to our home. That would mean abandoning my studies of the dark side. Abandoning you, my master.” Luna paused but the cyborg did not respond. “My sister wished to speak with me in private, so we were allowed a small side chamber to converse in.”

“It was undoubtedly under surveillance the entire time,” he declared. “You refrained from incriminating statements, correct?”

“Yes,” Luna lied slightly, remembering how heated she’d gotten and her declaration that she’d be the most powerful being in the galaxy. “Nothing about the Sith, or your name, came from my lips. An observer would simply believe myself to be completely addicted to the power of the dark side and reluctant to leave because of that, just as the Emperor would want.”

“Continue.”

“After my sister failed to persuade me to return home, we reentered the Emperor’s audience chambers and I told him as much. He then dismissed us both, and I left the planet without delay.”

“And your sister?”

“Returned to her quarters in a despondent state of mind.”

“Then likely that was his goal all along, although why I do not know. It is possible that is related to this quest for eternal life, or perhaps he seeks to break her mind altogether.” Vader paused. “Regardless, the war on Kashyyyk is won. Kento Marek is dead. You are no longer needed here. And we cannot be seen together too often. Tutoring promising Inquisitors personally is excusable, training an apprentice is not. Therefore, it is time I sent you on another mission. Be warned that while I gave you some leniency considering the circumstances of your first trial, I will not do so again.”

“I understand, my lord. What am I to do?”

“What you trained for, Inquisitor. You are to hunt Jedi.”

60: The Quarry

Twilight’s blue lightsaber crashed into a red blade, and sparks flew. Standing before her was a black-cloaked man in armor and mask, red lightsaber humming with energy. He came at her lightning-quick, ducking beneath a swipe from her single blade and stabbed up towards her head. The alicorn backpedaled furiously even while sidestepping, allowing him to overextend himself. She spun around and made a chop for his wrist, but the dark warrior was quick on the uptake and blocked it. Twilight took another step backwards.

The princess called on the Force, springing into a nimble backflip that put a good few yards of distance between her and him. The man studied her for a moment, then charged again, eating up grassy terrain far faster than should have been possible. He swung an overhanded power blow towards her head, and Twilight met him head on.

His strength was tremendous and gravity was on his side, but her arms contained a surprisingly dense musculature for such a light physique. The two blades locked together, and for a moment neither side could make any headway. Then, without warning, Twilight abruptly released all pressure. She spun out of the way of the blade as the suddenly overextended man staggered, and then completed the twirl by driving her blade directly through his chest.

The man stopped, looked down at the lightsaber punching through his body, and simply nodded. Twilight let out a small sigh, and wiped the sweat from her forehead.

“Well done,” came the voice of Bastila. “Not entirely representative of actual live combat, but a fine demonstration of skill nonetheless.”

“Thanks… I guess.” Twilight snapped her fingers, dismissing the illusionary Sith. “I don’t you realize just how hard it is to give an illusion the ability to act and fight, much less maintain a solid field over his lightsaber the whole time. Doing the same for his whole body wouldn’t leave me with much to fight with.”

“I don’t mean to sound overly critical,” she answered. “Simply to be realistic. In an actual fighting scenario there were many occasions where a true combatant might have punched, kicked, or otherwise lashed out with physical combat. And an illusion cannot throw lightning or unleash waves of dark side energy at you. All these things must be considered.”

“I guess you’re right…” Twilight trailed off, unable to sound entirely sincere. She’d been dueling this thing over and over, on and off, since well before the crack of dawn.

“Please don’t take it personally, my creator simply had access to far more regular sparring opponents than we do now. I’d gladly demonstrate it myself if I could, but…” she gestured at her holographic body with a wry smile. “All the same, it’s clear to me you are picking up on the basics of the single blade remarkably fast, and for that I have nothing but praise.”

“So… what’s next?”

“Isn’t it obvious? Form VI lightsaber drills.”

“Again?” Twilight’s face fell a bit.

“Yes, again. And again and again and again and again and again.” Bastila nodded. “The first and most critical lesson is that there is always room for improvement.”

“Am I going to be doing these until the day I die?”

“Yes,” Bastila answered, with an utterly straight face.

“…But my species doesn’t die naturally,” Twilight squeaked.

“All the better,” the Jedi smiled. “You’ll have all the time in the world to practice!”

A glittering cityscape shone brightly beneath the Starry Night’s sensors, countless thousands of buildings that covered the entire surface shimmering like stars with the rising sun. Billions of beings below were just beginning their routines, or perhaps returning home after a long night. In space, thousands of ships crisscrossed every which way under the watchful eye of an Imperial Star Destroyer, the system’s fortuitous confluence of trade routes bringing it many fortunes every passing day. Denon, they called this world.

“It’s a second-rate Coruscant,” Luna thought scornfully.

Nonetheless, this world was playing host to a suspected Jedi. Or at least it had been as of a few days ago, if one believed the Imperial Security Bureau. After their miserable performance on Corulag, the alicorn trusted them as much as she trusted Sidious. Their report was inconclusive, the evidence circumstantial at best.

To hear them tell it, exactly four and half standard days ago a squad of Stormtroopers had been dispatched to arrest or eliminate a small band of dissidents gathering on the planet’s surface. It was expected to be a simple job, for none of the chosen targets had any history of violence or known combat skills. Instead, the troopers had gone out and utterly failed to report back. Follow-up teams had discovered their bodies not far from where they had been due to make the arrests. Most appeared to have been killed with blasterfire, but one man had a short gash burned through his armor and across his heart. Analysts had concluded that it bore enough resemblance to a lightsaber wound to be worth reporting in, and so the Inquisitorius had been contacted.

That was it. No visual or holographic evidence, no witnesses, and very few solid leads. The time it had taken her to arrive was more than enough time to get off the planet, assuming that there had ever been a Jedi here in the first place. Even if there were a Jedi still here, how was Luna to find them? Denon held billions of souls in its planet-wide ecumenopolis, and she didn’t have any clues as to her alleged target’s name, appearance, age, gender, or even species.

Sighing wearily, the alicorn turned her gaze away from the viewport and towards the holoprojector behind her. A young human male in an all-too-familiar white uniform was taking form there.

“Imperial Security Bureau Commander Neeri reporting as ordered, Lady Inquisitor,” he gave her a crisp salute.

Luna studied him a moment. Black-haired, green-eyed, and in the prime of youth with well-defined facial features, the man would probably have been described by human females as handsome. Much more important from her perspective was the Imperial’s mind. Compared to the frustrating tangle of Celebraine’s mind, Neeri positively oozed ambition. She could tell immediately, even without the Force, that he had answered her call so quickly out of a desire to appear prompt and useful to his superiors. Simply being the ranking officer on a prominent world in the Inner Rim wasn’t good enough for him, not by a long shot. That was good. She could use that.

“Commander,” she acknowledged him with a nod of her helmeted head. “Let us start our relationship off on the right foot. Do well and prove yourself in this investigation, and I will see to it that your name comes up before your masters.”

“I would be… most grateful, my lady.”

“I’m sure that you would. But on the other hand, the last officer of your organization whom I dealt with proved a coward and a fool. He suffered dearly for it. I should hope you will redeem the ISB in my eyes, yes?”

“I will,” he said with a quick bow.

“Good, or you shall find yourself losing far more than limbs,” she told him. “In the meanwhile, inform me of the progress you have made since your organization reported to mine.”

“Yes.” Neeri had the decency to openly swallow and look nervous. “After the incident, Imperial forces locked down the immediate area and conducted a full sweep, though we found little of note beyond our dead men. We began searching for the dissidents immediately to round up, of course, but it seems that they have either scattered or left the planet.”

“You searched their residencies?”

“We did, though little was found beyond crude and treasonous propaganda. We have also established tails on known friends, family, and associates, but as of yet we have not caught sight of any of our original targets.”

“And have you any evidence they have left the planet?”

“Tens of thousands of ships leave Denon daily, my lady. It is a trade world. We have of course alerted our traffic controllers and port operators to be on the lookout, but we frankly lack the resources to thoroughly inspect every ship, still less to lock down space travel. It is entirely possible they have fled.”

“And our alleged Jedi? Have we any evidence of them? Anything at all beyond our dead Stormtrooper?”

“My apologies, but no. There is simply too little to go on to narrow down a suspect via conventional means. We believe they were located in the Coresca district four days ago, but it was more than an hour before the area was locked down. Beyond that there are no clues, for nothing recovered from the dissidents’ quarters suggested that any of them knew anything about the Jedi, much less were in contact with one. That is why we called for assistance.”

“I see.” Luna considered the problem for a moment. “It seems apparent to me that if there is a Jedi stupid enough to still be on the planet, we will not find them via any kind of crude sweep or conventional manhunt. The planet is simply too large, the details too vague.”

Neeri’s face visibly fell.

“Instead, if we are to eliminate this enemy of the Empire,” she continued. “We must make them come to us.”

61: The Bait

When next Celestia returned to her penthouse after another long day of medical testing, all she felt was drained. Ignoring the salutes from her guards, the princess simply slunk back to her room, curled up on the sofa by the window, and stared outside. Beyond the table and the statue resting atop it, she could see miles out into the vast cityscape of Coruscant. Millions of beings lived in those skyscrapers, tens of thousands of them were being shuttled this way and that by an army of speeders. But the princess had a mind for none of it.

Luna was the only subject she had a mind for right now. How could she do this? Celestia asked herself the question for the thousandth time. How could her little sister do this? How could she stand to remain in the service of a being like Vader? Couldn’t she see what her absence was doing to Equestria? Doing to her sister? Celestia had nearly been killed by Vader for daring to try to get her back, and Luna slapped that away like it was nothing? After she had waited a thousand years, welcomed her back after her attempt at nothing less than planetary extinction, her sister just rejected her after a mere few months under Vader? What would drive her to do that? How could she be so unrepentant, so ungrateful?

And, as Celestia stared past the statue and out the window beyond yet again, a new question came unbidden to the princess' mind.

How dare she?

“In my creator’s time, there were many amongst the Jedi Order who considered personal attachments to be unbefitting of a Jedi,” said Bastila’s image. “Moreover, they considered it to be dangerous, leading to selfishness, possessiveness, and even the dark side.”

“That’s…” Twilight wheezed from where she lay sprawled out on the plains. “That’s completely wrong!” She forced herself to sit up, muscles aching with the effort of nearly eighteen hours of nonstop exertion. “Friendship, attachment, love… those aren’t negative influences. They’re what make our lives worth living. I’d never have discovered what harmony was really all about without them!”

“Fortunately, my creator was not among them, and so I agree with you,” the hologram nodded. “She married, and had a child, even though it cost her reputation with the Order to suffer greatly. Some even called her a heretic for it, even after her long service against Darths Revan and Malak.”

“That’s horrible!” The alicorn took another deep breath. “Did they ever… manage to reconcile?”

“I… don’t know,” the gatekeeper said, looking down a little sadly. “When she created me Bastila Shan was not on good terms with the Jedi High Council, and because of that I rarely saw use. She was decades dead by the time I was invoked for serious training, so I never found out how it all ended. Regardless,” she looked up again, “The reason that I bring that perspective up is to offer my own. I do not believe attachment to be some crime or stigmata. The Force flows from all life, as we draw close to it, it is natural and healthy that we should seek to draw closer to our fellows. To deny this is cut ourselves off from an essential part of the Force, no different really than lopping off an arm.”

“No matter what they said, I wouldn’t trade my friends for any amount of Force power.”

“And I wouldn’t expect you to.”

“Then why bring it up?”

“Because, though I believe their answer to the problem was incorrect, the old Masters were pointing out a legitimate difficulty. Attachments can go awry, leading to jealousy, possessiveness, festering hatred, or lust for vengeance. This can be a struggle for beings oblivious to the Force’s call, for those who hear it plainly the consequences can be most dire. Not a few have fallen to the dark side when, out of fear or desire, they’ve called on it to try and possess or to save the ones they love.”

“That sounds a bit more like greed than love.”

“Perhaps, but at the same time one should not be entirely unsympathetic towards them. Stalwart in opposing them, yes, but not completely unfeeling. They cry out to it for power, oblivious to the costs. The dark side will give them the power they seek, but take everything from them in return.” Bastila frowned. “You must understand this: the dark side will never allow its adherents to be happy. Simple things like joy, peace, or even contentment are anathema to it. Whatever happens, whatever love was once there, it will perish in flames and leave those poor souls with nothing but ashes.”

“Why…” Twilight looked thoughtful. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because it seems like a lesson that would be relevant to you.”

“You think my friends are in danger?” Twilight sat bolt upright, previous exhaustion forgotten.

“Not in any immediate sense, no,” Bastila shook her head. “But you had mentioned that your species can live indefinitely. Does this include all the inhabitants of your world? Does it include your friends?”

“Well… no,” she answered slowly, looking down a little.

“That is why,” the gatekeeper answered softly. “My creator knew well the pain of losing someone dear to you, the temptation to call upon dark powers to try and call them back. She also knew how important it was not to surrender to that temptation.”

“And what exactly was her solution?” Twilight frowned, contemplating a subject she really would rather have not. “How did she deal with the problem?”

“She learned to trust in the Force, and its will. I know that that perhaps sounds like a mere platitude, but it is true. The Force surrounds us, binds us, moves through us and through all living things. Jedi allow themselves to become conduits for the will of the Force, and through that we come to understand that our loved ones are not truly gone. They move on to greater things, becoming a part of that which is all around us. In that way, they never truly leave.”

Twilight just frowned harder. She’d never been one with much time for religion. Then again, death had been a stranger until not so long ago, and ever since she’d had a constant stream of activity to keep her mind busy. She wondered if she’d truly ever thought that hard about it.

“Grief, sorrow, and mourning for the lost are all perfectly natural processes, and far be it from me to deny them to anyone,” Bastila continued. “But at the same time, one cannot allow sorrow, when it comes, to dominate your mind. You are a being with a great deal of latent power, and I am certain there will come a day when you are at your lowest and temptation will reach out to you. It is vital you understand that even the most powerful beings cannot save everyone, and that giving in to temptation will only bring you misery.”

“That’s… a pretty heavy lesson.”

“I know. But it is a necessary one.”

“You mind if I go and consider that for a little while.”

“By all means,” she spread her arms, “go and sleep, eat, meditate, or whatever it is that you require. I will be here for you, when next you are ready.”

As Twilight rose to her feet, the hologram vanished.

“I need three things,” Luna said, as she scrawled through a long list of beings. “First, I need someone who knows how to swing a sword around, at least well enough not to cut off their own arm.” She could only skim at the lightest of paces, allowing the Force to guide her instincts, as she browsed through a list of the millions of people in prison on Denon for various offenses.

“I don’t think arranging for a martial artist should be terribly difficult,” said Commander Neeri, walking beside her. “While it’s true Denon has never been famed as a warlike planet, when you gather enough beings in one place you’ll inevitably get some who take a fancy to the art of combat.”

“Second,” Luna continued, not looking up. “I’ll need at least three or four squads of Stormtroopers. Well-disciplined men, who know how to shut up, do as they’re told, and ask no questions.”

“Easily done,” said the ISB man. “We have tens of thousands of Stormtroopers garrisoning this planet, it should be no difficulty to pull a few squads for your use.”

“Make sure that they are up to snuff. The last ISB personnel assigned to me were dreadfully below par.”

“Of course, my lady,” he nodded hastily.

“Thirdly, and most importantly, I need a Force-sensitive. Someone a Jedi could sense. Ideally, I would prefer that they bear a resemblance to the martial artist, but I am aware we cannot be too choosy in this field.”

“A… Force-sensitive?” The Commander looked aghast.

“Did I stutter?”

“My lady, we of course would comply with your request, but…” he fidgeted a little. “We turn over all captured or suspected Force-wielders to our superiors, be it to Lord Vader or to your organization. We don’t simply keep them lying around.”

“And you are telling me that on this entire planet containing billions of souls, there is no one you even suspect of being a Force user? Not a single, solitary soul?”

“Well…” the man considered for a moment, as the skull-faced helmet turned to stare up at him. Neeri gave a slight shudder, before hastily continuing. “The closest that we know of is an Iktotchi who runs a gambling establishment in the Spirtal district. There’s been a persistent rumor that he has the ability to read minds or see the future to ferret out cheaters, but there’s never been any hard evidence of that. In any event he’s been quite scrupulous in abiding by Imperial regulations, so we’ve never had any cause to investigate further.”

“And now you do,” Luna finished for him. “Round him up without delay. Make certain you confirm his presence and secure all possible vectors of escape before moving in. Then bring him to me, I will know if he can touch the Force.”

“And if he can?”

“Then I wiill have everything I need.”

“What is the meaning of this?” demanded the Iktotchi, not an hour later.

He had been carrying out his normal midday work, reviewing profit reports and ensuring his premises were clean before the sundown rush, when a squad of Imperial Stormtroopers had pushed their way past his security, cuffed him, and dragged him off without a word of explanation. Now here he was, alone and cold in a gloomy black detention cell, without the slightest pretext of legality or hint of he was being charged for. Most people would have been afraid, and he was, but he was also indignant. He’d always done everything the authorities had asked of him, be they Republic or Empire, and keep his establishment far from trouble. And now he’d simply been randomly seized and unlawfully thrown in detention!

“Shike Roan,” said the strange, armored quadruped that had just entered. “Owner and proprietor of Roan’s Roulettes for some twenty-nine years now, am I correct?”

“Yes, and a law-abiding citizen that whole time! I demand to know on what charges I’ve been imprisoned for, and I demand to speak with a lawyer at once!”

“You are in no position to make demands,” it said in that filtered, mechanical, presumably female voice.

“You can’t just pull a man off the street and throw him in prison for no reason!”

“Can’t I?” She relaxed one of the wings folded against her armored side slightly, and a small cylinder floated out. There was a deep hiss as a red blade flared to life, brilliant in the cell’s gloom. “You don’t seem to have any idea of just who you are dealing with.”

Shike recoiled franticly from the crimson lightsaber, eye wide, but in the tiny cell there was nowhere to go. Backed up against a wall and with the blade a mere few feet from him, his face quickly began to acquire a sheen of sweat.

“Please,” he breathed. “I d-don’t know anything about Jedi, I swear! I’ve never met one in my life and I would n-never give harbor to-”

“Oh, I know,” she cut him off. “You would already be dead if you were suspected of that. No, I called you in here because I need you for something else.”

“…need me f-for what?” he managed.

“The specifics are not important. All I require is that you sit in a cell for a few days, and meditate when I tell you to.”

“Meditate?” he blinked. “I’m… not exactly a monk, ma’am. I-I don’t know much about-”

“I do not really care how proficient you are with it, that you have a dim, weak, but recognizable presence in the Force is enough. Simply do your best when commanded, and I will see to it that you are well-rewarded for your efforts. Does that sound agreeable?”

“I-I…”

“Oh, and please keep in mind that if you say no, I will have to execute you as a threat to operational security.”

Shike stole a quick glance at the humming lightsaber, swallowed, then nodded quickly.

“Excellent.”

62: The Trap (I)

The recently-renamed Palpatine Park of Denon’s Sinsun District was well-known as a place of peace and quiet. One of the very few remaining preserved spots of green in the planetwide city, it had long been a place where those looking for a little respite from the stresses of urban life could go to relax. Amidst the tall green trees and colorful flowering plants, citizens could relax and enjoy a small slice of nature in relative safety. Nothing of note had happened here even throughout the chaos of the Clone Wars, and people had come to expect that nothing much ever would. That was why it came as such a shock when a trio of Imperial gunships descended from on high.

The repainted Republic craft soared down swiftly across the length of the park, giving passing civilians plenty of time to look up and point as they approached their destination. Some of the more paranoid or perceptive simply scattered right away, ducking into the well-maintained forests. Many just gawked as the three ships came to rest over a grassy hill replete both lone visitors and families with children, all wide-eyed and frightened. The side door of one ship opened, revealing the familiar white armor of Stormtroopers and a less familiar quadruped in dark blue.

“Citizens of the Empire!” the blue figure roared through a speaker above the engines’ noise. “For your own safety, flee! A dangerous traitor hides among you!” She looked almost directly down. “Jedi.”

The appearance of armored military forces was alarming enough to those civilians just looking for a pleasant afternoon in the park. The announcement that a member of the treacherous mystics was there as well was enough to send most of the crowd into a state little better than blind panic. They squirmed, shouted, grabbed children, and simply ran almost randomly in all directions. It should have thrown off anyone’s sight, yet the blue figure’s gaze remained firmly fixed on one human in particular. Without warning she leapt out the opened door, plummeting more than forty feet to no visible effect.

“For conspiracy and treason,” she declared, “for evasion of justice and the brutal murder of Imperial personnel, I hereby place you under arrest, Jedi!”

The human that she was staring at rapidly became fully visible, those civilians not already running for their lives giving the doomed fool a wide berth. He was tall and well-built, with an athletic frame and slightly-thinning hair about his temples. He wore simple dark clothing that said nothing, but the expression on his face… that said everything.

Eyes wide and skin pale, the man didn’t even try to deny anything. He simply turned and ran in the opposite direction as swiftly as he could, darting away from the remaining civilians and towards the beckoning safety of the trees. He wasn’t fast enough – the other two gunships descended in front of him, disgorging squads of white-armored troopers. Behind the blue figure, her own gunship touched down with its own reinforcements.

The man’s eyes and head flicked this way and that, as if frantically trying to discover an escape route. But it was no good, he was surrounded by far too many men with guns and the treeline was too distant to have any chance of making it. With a resigned look on his face, the man reached down one sleeve and swiftly pulled out a small cylinder. The lightsaber hissed as its green blade flared to life.

The quadruped drew her own weapon from beneath a wing, its solitary blade a brilliant crimson. What few onlookers remained scattered for the trees as she flung herself at the Jedi. The exchange that followed was brief and to the point. Lightsabers clashed in spectacular flares of light, green and red locking against one another for a moment. Then the red blade broke the exchange and took a swipe at the man, which he parried. Swinging his green blade right back, he made to cut the enemy hilt in two.

A seasoned lightsaber duelist might have noted that the human was putting more power into his swings than necessary for such a lightweight weapon and overextending himself, as if used to dealing with the weight and balance of a physical sword. As there were none present, it was instead awe and fear that greeted the little duel. None questioned it as the blades clashed once, twice, three times more. The man lunged for the blue figure, but she caught his attack on her blade. He swung at her, she locked her lightsaber to his and followed the swing with such grace and fluidity that it tore the green blade right from his hands. It went flying, landing softly amidst the well-cut grass.

Before the Jedi had a chance to retrieve it, before he even had a chance to blink, he was caught in the back by a blue ring blast from one of the Stormtroopers. Several more stun shots followed from the man’s comrades, inundating the already-downed traitor with paralyzing energies. To the cheers of the more patriotic or savvy of the crowd, the man fell flat on his face and did not get up again.

After a moment, the blue figure nodded and her red blade vanished. The still-active Jedi lightsaber on the ground twitched, then flew straight to her. She deactivated that one as well, both left hovering beside her head. Two Stormtroopers strode forwards while their squads kept the traitor covered, seizing his limp body by the arms. They slapped a pair of handcuffs of the man, then dragged him none too gently toward the quadruped’s gunship. She watched them go carefully, and it was only when the man was chained to the floor and covered by half a dozen blasters that she deigned to follow them inside.

Almost immediately, the doors closed behind her. The troops deposited by the other transports were returning from whence they came as well, and as soon as the last trooper was aboard engine roared. Without a further word, all three gunships rose into the air and began soaring quickly to the east, leaving nothing but gawking onlookers with quite the story to tell.

“Well done,” said Luna to the Stormtroopers as their gunship lifted off and the doors around them closed. “Well done. A good show all around, I think.”

The unconscious human was lying in a heap at the troopers’ white armored feet. The alicorn took a moment to return her green and red lightsaber trophies to their place amidst her feathers, as he slowly groaned. The stun bursts had been at the lowest possible setting – it shouldn’t take more than a few minutes for a fit man to get back on his feet.

One of the troopers had a chime at his belt. The man reached down, checked his portable holoprojector, and then held it up to face Luna. The princess nodded, and her minion pushed a button. A moment later, the image of Commander Neeri appeared.

“We’ve received your signal,” he said. “And our agents have the footage that you ordered, my lady.”

“Good,” Luna nodded. “See to it that it is appropriately nonprofessional in appearance. Touch it up if you have to. Then I want it circulating amongst every lowlife and underworld element that you know of within a day. Every two-bit criminal on this world should know the Empire captured a Jedi today.”

“It will be done.”

“Begin the rumor campaign a few hours after the first footage hits. I’m sure some will start on their own, but ours should be largely consistent in at least one thing: the Jedi is being held at Akorage Prison not far from Imperial Security Bureau headquarters. Beyond that we should include something suitably horrifying being done or planned. Brainwashing, torture, imminent execution… use your imagination. Be inconsistent with the purported timetables.” The princess waved a hoof. “The important thing is that any Jedi who hears about this should feel like they have not much time before it is too late, and so must mount a rescue of their poor brother before the horrible Inquisitor makes a gruesome end of him.”

“Do you think they’ll come out hiding for that?” Neeri asked. “Is it possible they’ll consider ignoring the issue?”

“Trust me, Commander,” Luna said with a sly grin, “I know how would-be heroes think. If there is a Jedi still on Denon, their conscience will not allow them to simply abandon a fellow to a torturous and gruesome end. Not if there is anything that they believe they can do about it.”

“Your wisdom is great indeed, my lady.”

“I know.”

Akorage Prison was a broad, squad complex surrounded by no less than three solid and smooth walls in all directions, any part of which could be electrified at will. Built to house maximum security prisoners who did not yet warrant a transfer to a dedicated prison planet, it was buried deeply in a district controlled entirely by the Empire’s military and intelligence agencies. Dedicated troopers patrolled the exterior courtyards and the space between the layers of wall at all times, antipersonnel turret guns were mounted atop all four corners of the innermost and outermost walls. By design, there was no cover offered between the main building itself and the inmost wall. Few beings here were allowed outside of their cells, none for very long. There were no visitors.

There were also no gates or portals on the outermost wall, as that might present an avenue of escape. Instead, the broad roof featured a number of landing pads for gunships and supply shuttles, which represented the only way in or out. As the Imperial military had strictly locked down the surrounding airspace, only authorized craft were allowed anywhere near the prison complex. No one had ever left the place alive, or so the stories went. There were a hundred Stormtroopers on site meant to ensure that it stayed that way.

Yet, one dark and stormy night three days after the dramatic spectacle in the park, a regularly-scheduled supply shuttle arrived bearing a figure who meant to change all of that

63: The Trap (II)

As the rain poured down onto the dark grey prison roof, a Lambda-class shuttle began its descent perfectly on schedule. As it approached the landing platform, the two wings on the supply craft’s underside folded up and landing gear descended. It touched down without ceremony or comment, automated systems having long since accepted its authorization codes. No one was there to greet it save four particularly luckless troopers assigned to stand out in the downpour, and none of them wanted to leave what little shelter that they had. It was of little interest to them when uniformed men began to hurriedly push gravsleds laden with heavy boxes of food and machine parts down the shuttle’s ramp and through the rain.

Those men raced as only soaked and miserable men can, coming quickly to the dedicated cargo turbolift. One of them punched in a quick code, then held his eye wide open for a biometric scan. The computers processed the information for what seemed to them like an eternity, as they stood there and shivered in the rain. In reality, the reinforced doors opened not more than fifteen seconds later. They rushed inside with their hovering pallets, breathing hard. Neither bothered trying to maintain a dignified appearance as the doors closed again behind them.

Moments later, the smooth and silent descent came to an end and the doors opened up again. This time they revealed a sterile and brightly-lit room filled with neatly-stacked crates of supplies, food, and weaponry. Well-practiced, but not in the mood to hurry back outside, the Imperials took their time with sorting and unloading their gravsleds. Bulk loader droids were there to assist, dim and slow but very strong.

In the midst of the hustle and bustle of cargo being unloaded, no one noticed a shadowed figure break away from the group, disappearing amidst the rows of crates.

The shadow made its silent way through the prison hallways, seemingly almost invisible despite the stark red and white glows illuminating everything. Everywhere it went cameras seemed to be perpetually at just the wrong angle to witness its approach, pressure sensors found themselves buoyed by invisible energies, and keypads depressed in their appropriate codes without a finger being laid upon them. The living guards, patrolling the corridors on their endless vigil, reported nothing out of place.

Sure, one or two of them were occasionally struck by the urge to look in a particular direction or to avoid a certain turn of the hallways, but such impulses were hardly out of the ordinary. No one thought anything of them. No one was thinking much about anything that night, save how dull, tedious, and generally unpleasant it was to march in randomized circles about the broad prison complex. None of the prisoners were outside of their cells, the interrogation rooms were empty and silent. Dinner, such as it was, had already been served to the unfortunates rotting here and most were asleep. No one expected to see anything, and so no one did.

Despite this, the shadow was ever vigilant. Its mind felt almost like it had been shattered to pieces engaging in so many different tasks at once. All at the same time it had cloak its own signature in the Force, keep a continuous lookout for security alarms or guards, cloud their minds or dull their senses, interfere with the sweeping cameras’ angles, and of course keep a firm lock on the very thing that had brought it here in the first place. A lesser mind might indeed have fractured under the pressure and ruined everything. As it was, the shadow touched a cloth to its forehead after a few minutes of slowly making its way around. It couldn’t keep this mad juggle up forever – it needed to hurry.

The shadow made its way through hallways and corridors, down side passageways and ducked in and out of alcoves as the situation demanded. Once it even pinned itself to the ceiling, willing the Stormtroopers that marched below it to ignore their peripheral vision. And that they did. Its target was close now, the shadow could sense that much.

The Force presence of this individual was weak, barely registering as more than an ordinary being, but it was still undeniable. If it hadn’t been able to sense that same presence from beyond the building when it had first scouted it from the outside, the shadow would never have come near this facility in the first place. Regrettable as it was to say, many here genuinely deserved to be in prison, and there was only so much even the most powerful of beings could do. The shadow could taste the prisoner’s lingering fear, anxiety, and mounting claustrophobia. It could hear the echoes of threats in the slowly unravelling mind, and the subconscious plea for help.

As the shadow crept ever closer, it doubled down on concealing its own Force signature. In this it did even better than it knew, for there was another here actively looking. Buried deep in a central command room and ensconced in deep meditation, the Inquisitor was cloaking her own signature as she had been for many hours, simultaneously stretching out her mind to seek others like her. It spoke volumes to the intruder’s ability that, for all her efforts, Luna had not been able to detect any of its uses of the Force while remaining concealed herself.

Down the last hallway the shadow crept, ducking into an alcove in the wall as another patrol marched past. Yet another exertion of will and the two men spent the whole way eyeing what was directly in front of them and paying no attention to what they walked right past. When they had turned the corner and vanished, the shadow allowed itself a quick sigh of relief, dabbed off a few more beads of sweat, and hurried down the way.

Ducking under the broad view of the nearest security camera and rolling nimbly, it at last came before the cell it had come for. A hand stretched out, allowing the Force to guide its actions. Not a finger was laid on the keypad, but the appropriate sequence was input all the same. The cell door slid open, and immediately the shadow realized that something was very, very wrong.

The spotty footage the shadow had seen had hardly been of the best quality, but there was no mistaking that it had portrayed a human as the mysterious Inquisitor’s opponent. The cell’s occupant was a horned, middle-aged Iktotchi in a clumsy kneeling pose atop his bunk. His eyes snapped open almost as soon as the door did. The moment his gaze fell on the shadow, she sensed a wave of realization, followed swiftly by guilt. The prisoner buried his face in his hands.

“I’m sorry,” he half-whispered. “I-I didn’t know why…”

The shadow looked around franticly on both the physical and metaphysical planes. In spite of the man’s words, the surrounding area didn’t erupt in wails. No guards came running, no gasses flooded the room. It didn’t sense any newfound alertness in the minds of the guards still marching about. The door didn’t even make an attempt to seal itself off behind the shadow. It seemed as though it had triggered no alarms at all, and indeed it hadn’t.

No audible ones at any rate.

Luna’s meditation was broken by the soft sound of buzzing. Her eyes immediately snapped open at the long-expected sound. Ignoring the painful cramps developed over hours of kneeling in one spot atop a hard metal floor, she quickly turned her gaze to the vast array of monitors behind her. They depicted an undisturbed Imperial prison complex, guards blissfully unaware of what was happening. She ignored that, focusing in on one screen in particular. She’d chosen a cell with an internal security camera to hold her bait, of course, and even while she cursed her failure to sense the intruder was glad that she had.

The Iktotchi’s cell was open to the world, the prisoner’s face buried in his own hands. He was saying something in a soft voice, but the alicorn had no attention to spare for him. Lingering in the doorway, seemingly uncertain of what exactly she should do, was her intruder. An orange-skinned Togruta female in dark clothing, with a pair of lightsabers peeking out near her belt. She was young, the alicorn wouldn’t have gauged her as much older than her early twenties at most.

Luna stared at the screen for just a moment, getting a good eye for her target’s appearance, before turning and bolting.

64: The Trap (III)

“Come on,” Ahsoka Tano urged the seated Iktochi. “Now.”

“I- what?” the man looked up, blinking. “I can’t-”

“You’re not who I thought I was coming here for but I’m not just going to leave an innocent to die if I can help it,” she cut him off. “We don’t have a lot of time, so get up.”

“I-I can’t, master Jedi,” he answered. “The Lady Inquisitor… she promised I’d be let go after this… I have a business, a life to return to…”

“Are you an idiot?” the Togruta scowled. “Do to you really believe that you’ll be allowed to leave? After being used to lure in someone like me? At best, she’ll keep you stuck in an out of the way prison somewhere to be pulled out to repeat this scam. But I think she’ll just kill you when this is over. Can’t have you blabbing about this little trick. Oh, and I’m not a Jedi.”

“K-Kill me?” the man’s horned face was pale.

“Yes. It’s how the Empire operates when it feels like keeping secrets,” Ahsoka cast a quick glance over her shoulder, but the hall was still clear. “Look, we don’t have a lot of time before someone comes along, so come with me if you want to live. Or you can sit here and leave yourself to the mercies of one of Vader’s dogs. Your choice.”

“I…” he looked down at his hands.

Ahsoka sighed, then turned to leave.

“I’ll go.”

“Good,” she didn’t look back. “Get up and follow me. And try to stay quiet.”

“Too late for that.”

Luna couldn’t help but feel a little smug when both the Togruta and Iktotchi jumped a little, the latter looking around wildly while the former’s eyes jumped immediately to the nearest speaker mounted in the hallway. Her hands went to the twin lightsabers on her belt.

“Did you really think I was not aware of your coming, Jedi?” the princess said into her helmet’s commlink. “I knew you were here from the moment you first set foot inside this prison.”

The Togruta seemed to be ignoring her little lie, gesturing for the prisoner to follow her. Shivering, the man got to his feet, and the Jedi raced down the hallway almost at once. She was fast, but constrained by the need not to get too far out ahead of the man she bizarrely hoped to rescue. Luna switched channels on her helmet commlink while continuing to watch the cameras’ feed through her helmet lenses.

“Lock down the hallway,” she ordered. “Initiate toxin dispersal.”

“At once, my lady,” came the reply.

On the feed in front of her, Luna watched with a slight sense of pride as the blast doors at either end of the prison’s hallway sealed themselves shut. Yes, you cut through them with a lightsaber, but that required time. As the local ventilation sealed itself as well, that was time they simply didn’t have. Pale green mist began to seep out of vents in the floor and ceiling across the length of the hall.

The Togruta female’s eyes widened, and she raced to the nearest blast door without delay. Activating one lightsaber in her right hand, she plunged the bright green blade into the reinforced durasteel. The grey metal turned a molten red around her sword.

“Are you afraid to fight me yourself, you cringing coward?!” she barked, using one hand to yank Shike closer with the Force.

Luna switched her commlink’s channel back. “Foolish risks are just that, foolish,” she said through the speakers in the walls. “I learned long ago that honor is of no use to the dead.”

The Jedi’s lightsaber was carving through the blast door, but the thick and heavy metal did not make for easy cutting. The circle she was obviously intending to make was only around a third complete, and the fog was creeping close to her dark boots. She turned, left hand extended, and unleashed a Force wave that pushed the gas cloud back a ways.

“Besides, you ought to be thanking me,” the alicorn continued. “Choking to death on your own blood is considerably more merciful than the alternatives.”

“Gee, thanks,” she murmured.

Still guiding her lightsaber in a broad circle with her right hand, the Jedi closed her eyes and reached out with her left. With two fingers outstretched, she began to twirl the whole arm. Slowly at first, but with increasing speed as the gasses drew near once again. For a moment Luna didn’t quite understand what she was doing, until the pale green mist nearest to her suddenly stopped drifting forwards and instead swirled upwards. Just as swiftly as it came, the gas was sucked into a swirling and static vortex covering the entire breadth of the hallway. She was using the Force to manipulate the air itself into a defense. Clever, Luna had to give her that much.

Moments later her lightsaber’s circle was complete. Gathering her energy, the Togruta unleashed a powerful wave that swept the roiling cloud back halfway down the hall, then turned and without pause blasted the metal circle she’d carved out the opposite side of the blast door. Luna could see the perspiration on her head.

“Come on!” she yelled, tumbling nimbly through the semi-molten opening in the blast door.

Almost the moment that she hit the other side, her green lightsaber was in motion. The Togruta was caught in a t-intersection, a sealed blast door on one side and ten Stormtroopers on the other. The hallway was filled with red blaster bolts as the Imperials opened fire, several glancing off the Jedi’s lightsaber. Quickly she drew a second, smaller one, placing herself between the Iktotchi and the men as he scrambled awkwardly through the opening, sustaining several burns in the process.

Luna observed the girl’s lightsaber technique through the cameras, analyzing the style as best she could. The reverse grip she was using pointed to the Shien variant of Form V, a style primarily focused on turning defense into counterattack. The way her main saber and smaller shoto flew about seemed to confirm this, redirecting several shots into the Stormtroopers positioned near the intersection. Her application wasn’t perfect though – a red bolt slipped past her blade and caught her compatriot in the right horn. He cried out, toppling over backwards.

The Togruta reacted immediately, thrusting out both hands in yet another display of raw Force power. The Imperials that were still standing were bowled over by the wave, and she didn’t waste any time in closing the distance. A pair of rapid leaps, one after another, set her down in the midst of them. Before the Stormtroopers still scrambling to get back on their feet could do much of anything, she cut them down one after the other in a series of continuous sweeps. It was rather un Jedi-like, the princess noted, she wasn’t even trying to go for disabling hits.

Once the Stomtroopers were down, the Jedi looked around quickly. No other enemies immediately presented themselves, so she shut down her blades and ran swiftly towards her stricken companion. The Iktotchi was struggling to sit up, clutching the right side of his head. A substantial chunk of his horn’s tip was missing, and his cheek was burnt. It was clearly more pain than the middle-aged casino proprietor had experienced in a long time, if ever.

“Are you alright?” the Togruta asked, getting down on one knee. “How bad is it?”

“I’ll… live,” he managed through gritted teeth.

“Not for very much longer if we stay here,” she said offering him a shoulder. “Come on.”

The man took it with one arm, and together they rose. The two of them set off down the hallway the Jedi had just cleared, albeit at a much-reduced pace.

“Your concern is truly an inspiration to us all,” Luna said drily through the wall speakers. “But ultimately quite pointless. Surely you realize that neither of you are ever going to get out of this place alive?”

“Come out and fight me you spineless worm!” the Jedi called out. “I thought Inquisitors were supposed to be warriors!”

“Let me think about that,” the princess answered. “No.”

The blast door in front of the duo sealed itself shut.

“There are thousands of Imperial troops in this district, and I am perfectly willing to crush you to death with the weight of their corpses if that is what will be required. But I doubt it will come to that. You will exhaust your reserves long before I do.”

“You coward!”

“I would not waste my breath were I you,” she continued. “For you will soon have need of it. No one has ceased the toxin’s dispersal.”

“That cowardly schutta!” Ahsoka thought as she plunged her lightsaber into a blast door for the second time that night.

This wasn’t going well. This mysterious Inquisitor could have, and no doubt had, mobilized hundreds of troops and ratcheted the prison’s defenses to high alert. The Jedi she had come to help didn’t exist, and the man she was helping had no skills in combat. She was being forced to exert yet more energy to maintain another swirling barrier of air between them and the ever-growing pale green cloud. Her Iktotchi cohort was leaning against a wall, struggling to bring his breathing under control.

When this circle was complete, Ahsoka paused a moment to catch her breath and wipe a bit of sweat from her brow. The next moment, she stretched out her hand, and blasted the carving she’d made out with maximum force. Before anyone had a chance to fill the hole with blasterfire, she leapt through it. Landing nimbly on her feet, she looked up and saw another group of Stormtroopers a good twenty five yards down the hallway, just as expected. Now she just-

Acting on sudden instinct, the former Jedi threw herself hard to the tight, just in time to avoid a hissing red blade that seemed to spring out of nowhere. Instead of removing her head from her shoulders it nicked the side of her left montral, though that was painful enough.

She slammed roughly into the wall, but recovered almost immediately. Her two lightsabers formed a cross guard, catching a follow-up swing of the red blade. The three swords crackled against one another, but Ahsoka sensed that there wasn’t a lot of pressure behind the floating sword’s blow. Rallying despite the pain and her mounting fatigue, she pushed back and sent it hurdling into the opposite wall.

Abruptly, the Force about her seemed to change as her opponent abandoned her efforts at concealment. Ahsoka could sense the Inquisitor’s darkness as she rounded a corner not far behind the Stormtroopers. The lightsaber that had nearly taken her head suddenly deactivated, then shot back towards its owner like a bullet. The troopers themselves had their blasters leveled but did not fire.

Ahsoka took a moment to get a good look at the other woman. She was a quadruped of a species the Togruta had never encountered or even heard of before, with visible wings, hair, and a tail poking out from under her armor. Her visible parts, like her armor, were varying shades of dark blue. A skull-faced mechanical mask stared her down.

“I thought you said you weren’t coming out to play,” Ahsoka breathed, conscious of the Iktotchi clambering through the blast door behind her.

“It seems that I lied,” the Inquisitor answered, striding confidently through her Stormtroopers. “Lord Vader will be more impressed when I bring him your head this way.” The white-armored men parted to let her through. “You were a fool to come here tonight, Jedi.”

“I wasn’t there the last time someone needed me,” Ahsoka retorted. “I won’t make that mistake again. And I’m no Jedi.”

That earned a chuckle, sounding mechanical and soulless through the helmet.

“If you say so, little girl.” She flared her wings, and four lightsaber hilts of varying design hovered about her head. They blazed to life, three red and one, to Ahsoka’s grief, green. “You will not be the first of your feeble kind that I have ended.”

“That’s funny,” the former Jedi answered, “I was just thinking the same thing.”

Then the clash began.

When Ahsoka moved, it wasn’t so much as a person as a blur. The Force guided her steps, crossing the distance to the Inquisitor in the blink of an eye. The Togruta leapt into the air and came down with the force of an avalanche, lightsaber poised to split her foe’s face in two. But a pair of red lightsabers rose up to form an X in front, catching the blow though they quivered under the strain. The green lightsaber came swiping from her right-hand side, the third red blade came stabbing upwards at her chest.

The Togruta batted away the stab with a sideswipe from her shoto, broke the blade lock, and then ducked beneath the green blade. She tumbled gracefully, coming up on her foe’s left flank and stabbing experimentally at it with her shoto. A spinning red blade appeared to knock it aside. Before the Inquisitor could bring any more to bear Ahsoka flipped easily over her back, landing perfectly and immediately swiping at her opposite side. With most of her lightsabers caught out of position, she had to give ground, backing up several steps. But before she could refocus on an attack Ahsoka had already moved again, this time leaping back to the quadruped’s front.

She had her foe’s measure now, or at least thought she did. The Inquisitor’s quadrupedal nature hurt her as much as it helped. While it offered greater stability, it denied the use of most forms of acrobatics. While lacking arms did allow her to pull off unusual angles of attack, she suspected it was also the reason that every blow her enemy tried to land felt weaker than those of more conventional opponents. Unable to rely on her body, she was having to juggle four lightsabers purely with her mind. Her primary tactic must be to confuse and overwhelm opponents with unusual and unorthodox swordplay, rather like Grievous once had. But she couldn’t do that if Ahsoka denied her the ability to focus all her blades at once.

The nimble Togruta flipped back and forth across the prison hallway in the acrobatic sequences of Form IV Ataru. Ahsoka was everywhere and nowhere at once, constantly adjusting her position to appear at one of the Inquisitor’s flanks, or behind her, or in front of her while her head was turned. She rained down a series of light jabs, slashes, and thrusts, one after another. Her sheer speed meant that her foe couldn’t whip all of her lightsabers around to try and overwhelm her, her constant probing attacks and feints meant that she had no choice but to split the four up for maximum defensive coverage.

Seizing an opportunity when it presented itself, Ahsoka leapt over a swing at her legs and delivered a roundhouse kick to the side of the Inquisitor’s face. Enhanced by the sustaining powers of the Force, her gymnast’s leg muscles delivered enough impact to crack the armored helmet she wore. With a cry, she staggered back, though her quadrupedal nature kept her from falling over. Ahsoka rushed in to press the advantage, but suddenly had to throw her arms in front of her face to defend against a surge of power from the foe. The energy wave washed over her but was intense enough to force the ex-Jedi to take several steps backwards to avoid falling over.

“Blast her!” the Inquisitor barked.

The Stormtroopers behind her, until then inactive spectators, immediately obeyed. Red blaster bolts flew at the Togruta, and her green sabers rushed up to meet them. The Force guided her blades, and she quickly sent one back into the helmet of a trooper. But the remainder continued to fire, not doing enough to injure Ahsoka but holding her back long enough for the Inquisitor to catch her breath.

Without warning, the quadruped exploded back into action. She surged forward with a wrath-filled cry, four blades whirling in a dizzying array of lightning-fast sequences. All four came at different heights and were spread throughout the hallway, widely enough to deny Ahsoka a space to slip past them. None of the blows were committed power attacks, but they were as constant and unrelenting as a thunderstorm. The blades constantly altered their positions and angles of attack, and there was never a moment where at least two of them weren’t swinging. Spread so widely across a comparatively narrow space, there was no way to jump around them. And the Inquisitor was standing far enough back from the hurricane she created that none of Ahsoka’s limbs or swords had any hope of reaching her from there. Forced onto the defensive, she had no choice but to give ground. She could sweat trickling down her body, her muscles now beginning to ache.

“I told you,” the Inquisitor hissed, “that you were a fool to come here.”

“And you were a fool,” Ahsoka thrust out a hand, twin fingers raised, “to face me!”

The Force push staggered the Inquisitor and broke up her lightsaber sequences. The Togruta wasted no time in surging forwards, both sabers swinging down for a double-handed power blow. All four of her blades raced to meet it, and then all six were locked in one brilliant contest of strength that blazed like a newborn star. Through that blaze a grim, determined face stared at a soulless mechanical mask.

“This…” whispered the Inquisitor, barely audible above the crackle, “is personal for you, is it not? You lost someone to the Empire… someone you cared for deeply.”

Ahsoka’s only response was to bare her teeth, displaying her species’ prominent canines, and push down harder.

“I can sense your pain… your anger… you want revenge. Who was it then, little girl? A friend? A partner? A… master?”

That word felt like salt rubbed in an open wound. With a primal cry she lashed out with the Force, blowing past the other’s defenses and sending the quadruped hurdling down the hallway. She hit the ground rolling, continuing a little ways until she bumped into one of her own Stormtroopers. They trained their guns on Ahsoka once more, but did not fire.

“Touched a nerve, did I?” the Inquisitor chuckled slight as she regained her feet.

“Master Anakin was a good man,” Ahsoka pointed one of her lightsabers. “And your kind killed him!”

“Anakin?” there was an emotion the Togruta couldn’t quite comprehend through the filter, not that she was trying.

“You or that monster Vader,” the ex-Jedi went on. “I know my master, he wouldn’t have run and hide when the Empire sacked the Temple.”

“Heh heh heh…” there was a quiet, mechanical chuckling. The mask looked down at the floor. “Hah hah hah hah hah…”

“Are you mocking me?” Ahsoka’s expression tightened, as did her grip on her weapons.

“You fool,” the Inquisitor looked back up, her lenses boring into Ahsoka’s eyes. “Anakin Skywalker is Darth Vader.”

65: The Trap (IV)

“You lie,” The Togruta hissed through clenched teeth. She leveled her long green lightsaber at the alicorn. “You’re lying!”

“Search your feelings, little girl,” Luna answered, calling her own lightsabers back to her. “You know that I speak the truth. Anakin Skywalker, your master, and Darth Vader, mine, are one and the same. Stretch out with the Force. Touch my mind if you will, and discover that there is no deception in this.”

Warily, humming lightsabers held close to her chest, the Jedi lifted two fingers. Her eyes didn’t close, but Luna could feel the first hints of a mind probe. She shrugged off the outermost layer of her mental defenses, allowing her opponent a faint glimpse into her surface thoughts.

“I tell you no lie,” she continued. “Darth Vader is Anakin Skywalker. Anakin Skywalker is Darth Vader. Your master realized the futility of the light, its empty promises and moralizing pieties. Through the dark side he was reborn into a being of true consequence. A Dark Lord of the Sith.”

“That’s not true!” Her fore insisted, slightly less emphatically. “That’s impossible.”

“But it is true,” the alicorn said with a grin. “Your master came to understand the great truth of the universe, that only beings with power have meaning. The dark side alone bestows such power, the light merely reduces you to a puppet dancing the whims of the cosmos. The Jedi fell because they could not see this. They could not see that only by embracing that darkness could the universe be made right.”

“No…” she whispered. “No…”

Luna felt the Togruta redouble her efforts at probing her mind, searching for the slightest hint of a trick. In response the alicorn’s grin only broadened, and she lowered her barriers even further. She cast her own mind back to Kashyyyk, to the many things Vader had said to her there. The memories bubbled to the surface, right where the other woman could see them.

“Peace, justice, and righteous order do not come from succumbing to cosmic whimsy, from allowing yourself to be made into nothing more than an agent for the Force,” she declared. “They come when a being of great power imposes their will on the Force, and from there on the galaxy. Your master realized the quest of the Jedi was futile, and endless struggle to hold back an infinite avalanche. That is why he is what he is now.”

“It can’t be…” the other woman muttered, almost pleadingly.

“But it is. If your master were here, now, he would tell you the same things that he told me. He would ask you to join us. Since he is not, I will,” Luna’s eyes met hers, even through the helmet. “Join your master, Ahsoka Tano. Be a part of our crusade to set everything to rights, now and for all time.”

“I…” Her eyes were drifting down towards her own feet.

“Would you like to speak with him?”

Her head jerked upright. “What?”

“It can easily be arranged. Lord Vader is but a holocall away. My ship contains a direct route to his. Lower your weapons, shrug off this wretch, and I can take you right to him. I am certain your master would be most pleased to see his old apprentice once again.”

“You wanted to take my head a minute ago and now all you want is for me to talk to your master?”

“I… confess I had intended to simply eliminate you,” Luna said. “But that was before I knew who you were. I thought you were simply another simpering, self-righteous fool who needed to be destroyed before she damaged the galaxy yet further. Now I understand that you are so much more. Lay down your arms. Simply walk out of here with me, and I swear your master will welcome you back.”

The silence lay thick about that moment. All else in the prison seemed to dissolve away around the two of them. The Iktotchi, the Stormtroopers, the humming blades, the sterile lights… all of them meant less than nothing right then. It was only Luna and Ahsoka, dark and light, that mattered. The alicorn felt that this was her moment, a reward greater than any she could have imagined awaiting her on the other side. All the other woman had to do was lay down her arms, and the writhing sea of darkness that swarmed about her would sink its tendrils in. All she needed was a moment of weakness, a lone doubt, a small chink in her armor and the girl would be Vader’s not long afterwards. And the Dark Lord would be well pleased indeed. Luna felt as certain of that as she had anything in her long life.

“No.”

The moment passed.

“No,” Ahsoka repeated with more conviction. “I won’t go with you. I saw what you did on Kashyyyk, you and Vader. Wiping out entire villages… killing children… my master could never be so vile. And I heard it from his own lips. Darth Vader murdered Anakin Skywalker.”

“His dramatics aside, fact remains that my master and yours are one and the same. And he would want you back.”

“Even if you were telling the truth,” Ahsoka said with a grim expression. “My master is gone. What’s left is an imposter walking around in his body and desecrating his memory. And you’re nothing but his puppet. A tool, not a learner.”

“You are making a dire mistake, girl.”

“No, you made the mistake,” she answered. “All I came here to do was help someone. Because of you, I know I have something even more important to do.”

“And what would that be?”

Ahsoka held her green blade up between her eyes. “Avenge my master.”

“If that is to be your final word,” Luna’s sabers flared back to life. “Then you will simply have to die.”

“No,” Ahsoka said quietly. “You will.”

One moment the orange Togruta was standing there, lightsaber held aloft in a kind of salute. The next she was hurdling towards the alicorn like a bolt of lightning. Twin blades rushed up to meet the incoming blow, but the sheer impact of the attack forced them down. Ahsoka didn’t let the moment go to waste, spring a flip off Luna’s blades that put her directly behind the alicorn. She swung, and Luna dodged, but not fast enough to avoid losing the very tip of her tail. By the time she’d had a moment to cry out, Ahsoka was already gone.

If the alicorn had thought she’d seen fast before, she discovered that she had seen nothing yet. The Togruta seemed almost to be in two places at once, darting in and out from every possible angle at a speed nothing short of miraculous. The Force was with her, and the withering rain of blows felt every bit as relentless and unstoppable as the thunderstorm outside. Luna’s four sabers wheeled about franticly, spinning and swiping, but offense was the last thing on her mind. The blows rained down thick and fast, just as they had from Grievous, but unlike against the cyborg she couldn’t focus on one point of origin.

Wherever Luna didn’t want Ahsoka to be, there she was. Wherever she expected her to be, that space was empty. She was elusive and nimble, impossible to lock down for a counterattack, continuously probing and feinting and lashing out with her swords. Under such circumstances, even the defense that had held off the legendary Jedi-hunter’s assault for a time couldn’t avoid leaving gaps.

The first hit had cost her a few centimeters of tail and a good deal more hair. The next struck her front left leg near the joint, but for all the shower of sparks it raised it was glancing at best and the armor plates did their job. The third raked along her right flank as Ahsoka darted past, drawing a long but shallow streak across her blue armor and searing a few inches of wing. Luna jumped reflexively at the pain, her concentration slipping for just a moment.

All at once Ahsoka was directly in front of the princess, shoto slipping up and underneath her weakened guard. Luna twisted her head quickly as the green blade met blue helmet, carving a length furrow from the middle of the cheek to the bottom of the forehead. Her eye felt the contained heat of the plasma blade as it came within a millimeter of putting the yellow orb out.

Roaring with fury and pain, the alicorn lashed out viciously in all directions with a pulse of dark side energies. All around her, bodies went flying as the unprotected were caught in the emotional storm and tossed about like so many laves. The Togruta had her arms thrown over her face, but couldn’t entirely avoid being pushed back a good few yards, black boots scrapping against the cold metal floor.

“Backup!” Luna shouted, both through her mask and into her commlink. “Now!”

Whatever else one could say of Imperial Stormtroopers, one could not fault their dedication. Even from where they still lay sprawled out on the ground, those that still had a hold of their blasters immediately opened fire. Her green blades rose to meet the red bolts almost immediately, but it was enough to throw off her offense. For those few seconds that Ahsoka busied herself with blaster bolts, Luna gave ground, lightsabers hovering protectively about her head. Her helmet was losing function, sensors thrown off by the destruction of of on the lenses and a good deal of the internal electronic.

It didn’t take the Togruta long to finish off the initial handful of troopers that had begun shooting at her, reflecting their own bolts back at them with a practiced ease. She sent a few the princess’ way, but Luna had little trouble batting them off herself. But by the time that she was done the other Stormtoopers had regained their feet, and weaponry. The hallway echoed with the sounds of heavy footfalls.

Luna grinned as another squad of white-armored Imperials rounded the nearest corner, wasting no time in opening up on Ahsoka. Anakin’s old apprentice lunged forwards to meet them, plunging her twin blades into the nearest Imperial, then following up by slashing across another man’s chest. But she hadn’t even finished off the squad the alicorn had originally brought with her yet, much less the one that had just arrived. And there were two more racing to the scene that Luna could physically see, and even more rushing in from further away.

While Ahsoka cut the legs out from another Stormtrooper, the alicorn turned and bolted.

Blaster fire, crimson and brilliant amongst the sterile lighting of the prison, came first in a trickle. Downed men and new arrivals took aim at the Togruta, and she aimed their own bolts right back at them. Some troopers fell, but more were rushing to take their place with every passing second. The closest men ducked to the side or fell flat on their stomachs, the next ranks dropped to their knees, giving their rapidly-arriving comrades room to shoot. Fifteen Stormtroopers became twenty-five became forty became fifty, and the trickle of fire became an onrushing flood.

But if the Imperials were the storm, the Ahsoka was its eye. Her lightsabers seemed to be everywhere at once, green blurs more than solid weapons. Blasterfire exploded into sparks all around her, scorching walls, ceiling, and floor but somehow not touching the woman herself. The ex-Jedi didn’t merely weather the storm, she advanced with the slow but relentless stride of a being who knows exactly what needs to be done. Inch by inch, step by step, she made her way closer to their firing line. The Stormtroopers nearest began to attempt to inch backwards, only to rapidly discover the weight of their own line wouldn’t allow it.

Then Ahsoka took a deep breath, drew heavily on the Force, and became the storm.

Heads and limbs began to roll the moment she hit the Imperial lines, green blades carving through white armor like it was nothing more than paper. Swinging both blades in wide, sweeping arcs, the Togruta showed no hesitation in wading directly into the thick of them. In such confined quarters there was nowhere for the men to dodge, no gaps they pinpoint in her style, and so their only option was to die. And that they did.

Ahsoka’s advance was slow, but relentless and all but unstoppable. The Force flowed freely through her, showing her every bolt a split second before it was fired. Reflexes honed across dozens of battlefronts of the Clone Wars saw her sabers rising up to meet those that posed a danger even while they cleaved through armor and flesh. Stormtroopers for all their training were still human enough to scream as they died, and while she was not cruel nor did she show any mercy. Some cried out in the all-too-familiar voice of Jango Fett’s clones, but she didn’t allow herself to pay them any heed. Her lightsabers severed arms and heads alike, piercing the Imperials’ chests or simply slicing them in two. She left no wounded behind her, only piles of smoldering corpses.

The Stormtroopers’ numbers were thinning rapidly, blasterfire dying off as they did. Almost before Ahsoka herself was aware of it, she was through to the rear of their lines. A desperate man lunged at her. She pinned him to the wall with the Force, then ended his life with cut across the chest. Two more, brave or stupid, continued trying to shoot her. She deflected each of their shots into the other, aiming for the vulnerable area about the neck. The last man turned to run. She threw her lightsaber into his back.

The whole thing had lasted less than a minute.

When the last of the Imperials were dead and it became apparent that no more were coming for the moment, Ahsoka shut down her sabers. She breathed heavily, allowing the mounting fatigue to catch up with her, just for a moment. When that moment had passed, she turned back to the nearly forgotten Iktotchi, pressed as far back into a wall alcove as he physically could get and staring at her with wide, fearful eyes.

“Come on,” she motioned. “That should keep their security down for a little while. There should be a way out I can show you, but you need to move.”

“W-What about y-you?” he managed, voice little more than a frightened whisper.

“I have one more thing to take care of.”

66: The Trap (V)

The pouring rain felt soothing on Ahsoka’s orange skin, cool and pure, washing away the layer of sweat and easing the sting of her wounded montral. On the artificial planet, it alone seemed natural to her. The wind and the cold did nothing to impede her, if anything they served as a refreshing contrast to the sterile air inside the building’s confines. Here on the prison’s long rooftop, she felt liberated.

The Inquisitor was waiting for her.

Back turned, water racing down the gaps in her armor plates, she was regarding the empty prison landing platforms curiously. She didn’t move when Ahsoka first stepped from the turbolift shaft, not even an inch. When the wary Togruta took a step forwards, she spoke.

“You have come to kill me,” she said, voice barely audible above the thunderstorm. “Why?”

“Because you’ll warn Vader I’m still alive if I don’t.”

“That is a lie and you know it. Do you suppose that this prison’s security systems do not have redundancies, links to elsewhere? Your image has already been captured on holocams, Lord Vader will know you live before the night is out. The Imperial Security Bureau will see to that, whether I fall here or no. And you are not so foolish as to be unaware of that. So I ask again, why?”

“Because you’ve kill innocents, you showed me as much yourself. If I don’t end you here, the body count will only grow. And I won’t let that happen, not if I can do anything to stop it.”

“Must you be so dishonest?” The Inquisitor turned to face her, regarding her with one bared yellow eye. “We both know that your endurance is flagging. You have called on the Force and your body to perform much tonight. You are hopelessly surrounded in this district by thousands of Imperial troops, your little display in the hallway changed nothing in that regard. Between that and your dwindling strength, it would have been far more sensible to use this opportunity to flee. Yet you did not.”

“No,” said Ahsoka. “I didn’t.”

She took a step forward. “You are here to kill me, simply because you hate me. Is that not the case?”

“…You’re a perversion.”

“Of you,” she finished. “You fear that you would have become me, had you remained by your master’s side. That is why you seek to end me, deluding yourself that it will somehow bring you peace from what you now know.”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about, witch.”

“Of course,” she continued. “You will not kill me. Not today, not ever.”

Another turbolift at the opposite side of the roof opened, and ten more white-armored men marched out into the pouring rain. They leveled their guns.

“Stormtroopers? Really?” Under other circumstances, Ahsoka might have found it almost funny. “You know they can’t do anything to stop me. And neither can you.”

“Vengeance is a powerful motivator. They have friends and comrades to your hand.”

“Because you threw them at me as cannon fodder,” the Togruta turned her gaze briefly to the men, sensing the hate burning in their hearts. “Your cause is hopeless. If you want to live, don’t interfere.”

“Such threats are not the Jedi way.”

“I told you before,” Ahsoka snarled. “I’m no Jedi!”

“Yes, I can see that,” the Inquisitor shrugged. “Since you have already seen that empty façade for what it was, why not join us? Why not tread the road your master treads?”

“Because the Force is greater than you, or them,” Ahsoka bared her teeth again, lightsabers flaring to life. “Now are you going to talk or are you going to fight?”

The Inquisitor stared for a moment at the pair of shining green blades, steam hissing off of them with every raindrop that fell. Ahsoka stood there, waiting, gathering the Force to her. Her foe was at least a hundred yards out, but if she could just blitz the distance and cut her down in one move before her own stamina gave out…

Her enemy reached up with one leg, touching something on the side of her helmet. Sealed unlocked with a mechanical click, and she pulled the mask off. Ahsoka’s opponent had a short but equine-looking face covered with a blue coat, a prominent scar along her cheek, a charred stub on her forehead, and oversized yellow eyes gleaming in the dark night. Her fur and ragged blue hair sagged in the rain.

“So be-”

Ahsoka launched herself at the Inquisitor.

With the power of the Force infusing her tired body, the Togruta moved at the speed of thought, covering ground at speeds considered all but impossible. The world around her became an irrelevant blur, a distraction. Only her enemy was visible, and only she mattered. In the blink of an eye she was all but on top of her, lightsaber poised to strike her head from her neck. Just an instant longer and she’d be in reach…

Then there was a blinding flash of blue and white, and the next instant Ahsoka found herself flying backwards. Her every nerve ending was on fire, from the tips of her montrals to the tips of her toes, every part of her cried out with unnatural agony. She didn’t even feel it when she hit the hard metal roof, slick with water, or when she rolled along until slamming into the side of a landing pad.

Ahsoka crumpled there for a moment, smoking despite the downpour. Everything hurt, but her muscles especially felt as though they were on fire. Her energy was drained, as though something horrifying had reached out to suck the very essence of life from her. Her already limited stamina teetered on the brink of collapse, and for a moment she felt the sweet temptation of a black oblivion calling to her. But her species was renowned for its resiliency and she had never been one to give up easily. She forced her eyes open, and saw sparks dancing along the length of her arms. She looked up, and saw similar energies crackling about the foe’s forehead, near the charred stump.

“Your skills as a swordswoman are impressive,” the Inquisitor said, “but how is your knowledge of the Force?”

That was all the warning Ahsoka got before another blazing stream of lightning burst from her opponent’s head. Reflexes honed on countless battlefields brought her lengthy green blade to bear almost before she was even aware that she was moving. The electrical storm grounded itself in blade, creating a dazzling light in the cold darkness. Ahsoka could feel the very air around her picking up charge, crackling pointlessly against her clothing and flesh. Her arm shook with the effort it took to keep the blade raised high, but at the same time conjuring this must be no easy task. The barrage ceased after a handful of seconds, leaving only swirling sparks behind.

Ahsoka breathed heavily, staring at the Inquisitor with wide eyes. She’d seen lightning before, but only from the likes of Count Dooku. It wasn’t a low-level power by any stretch of the imagination, and she hadn’t yet seen an Imperial Force-wielder able to use it. She rose to her feet, ignoring the protests from her still-burning muscles. She both lightsabers in a guard position, taking a wary step forwards.

“Still not going to try to run?” her opponent flashed a pearly white grin. “You must hate me even more than I imagined. You are not so far off from the dark side, are you?”

Ahsoka said nothing, simply taking a few more steps, drawing on the limitless energies of the Force to reinvigorate her body.

“If you insist,” four lightsabers activated, dancing elaborately about her head even as they steamed in the rain. “Come and get me, if you dare.”

The Togruta inched closer, eyes focused intently on the enemy, mind hard at work. This Inquisitor, Vader’s pet, was stronger in the Force than she’d shown before. Was lightning the only trick she’d been keeping back? How much of it could she use? Just how powerful was she, really?

“I sense your doubt, young one,” she said, slowly beginning to move herself. “Your mortal shell cannot much longer meet the demands that you place upon it. Your style drains you quickly. You have perhaps a few minutes before you can no longer raise a hand against me.”

“I don’t need a few minutes to kill you,” Ahsoka replied, the two circling one another warily.

“Is that so?”

“Yes.”

Without warning, Ahsoka reached out with the Force, seizing a heavy tool kit beside one of the landing platforms and hurdling it at the foe’s exposed head. Immediately she darted in with both lightsabers at the ready. When the Inquisitor gave the incoming projectile a fraction of her attention, the ex-Jedi unleashed a one-handed Force push. It wasn’t enough to pierce her telekinetic barriers outright, but it did stagger her and throw off her concentration. Two of her lightsabers swung about reflexively, slicing the heavy metal box in two, but that was all the opening that Ahsoka required.

Her assault was face-paced and relentless, swinging both of her lightsabers in a blinding flurry of stabs and slashing. She was committed now, it was do or die, so she held nothing back. She parried her foe’s lightsabers as they came in, but never allowed herself to think of them as anything more than something in the way. She slashed at the Inquisitor’s face as she flipped above it, but her strike was shunted to the side by an angle swing of a red blade. She struck out at her right flank, only for the stolen green saber to impale itself into the metal roof directly in the path of her sword. It was rooted firmly enough to deflect her strike, and Ahsoka jumped again to avoid another lightsaber coming in from the side at her head.

This wasn’t working. Despite her best efforts the assault was slower than it had been in the hallway. The ground was slippery and smooth, the footing uneven, and she’d been either manifesting Force abilities or in combat for too long now to fight at her absolute peak. It was clear to Ahsoka, as she batted away another counterswing, that there was no way this Inquisitor was going to win purely by lightsaber skills unless she could somehow pin her down and bring all four blades to bear. It was equally apparent she didn’t necessarily need to – all she had to do was hold out long enough for Ahsoka’s fatigue to give her an opening. She had to break the pattern.

Reaching out with the Force, the Togruta made to seize one pair of the spinning lightsabers, but the foe’s grip was stronger than she anticipated. Before it could become a true contest of strength, the other two slashed out at her, and she had to abandon the effort to keep moving. Next, she tried slashing at one of the floating hilts with her saber, but they were far more nimble than they had any right to be, and with a far wider range of motion. They could twirl in an instant to put a blade in front of hers, and without the constraints of limbs she didn’t have enough experience with the style to predict exactly how.

Ahsoka jumped over the top of the Inquisitor again, swiping at her armored back. Once again, two sabers rushed up to block the noncommittal attack, sparks flying to no real effect. The moment she landed, another saber swung at her. She caught it with a cross of her own, then finally spotted an opportunity. Her black boot lashed out under her enemy’s guard and towards her already-injured wing. It connected with satisfying strength and the audible crunch of snapping bone. The Inquisitor screamed and staggered, concentration flagging. Without hesitation Ahsoka threw off her disoriented lightsaber and stabbed for the woman’s neck.

“ENOUGH!” she roared, the Force turning her scream into a blind shockwave of dark side energies that radiated out in all directions, sweeping everything – Ahsoka, her own lightsabers, her men, tool kits and pieces thereof – up in it.

Ahsoka alone landed on her feet, reaching up a hand to shield herself from the rain of debris. Little objects, even pieces of a splintered landing platform, clattered like the rain itself against her invisible bubble. A little cylinder fell at her feet – one of the Inquisitor’s own lightsabers. She was vulnerable. The Togruta wasted no time, darting in yet again with lightsabers at the ready.

She abrupted halted halfway there, throwing her arms up in front of her head. Despite the forewarning, the invisible shove forced her back a good few feet, black boots sliding easily on the slippery metal. It was followed up by a second, then a third push in quick succession, each failing to break her barrier entirely but still sending her sliding backwards.

“I will not die a failure!” the Inquisitor screamed.

A fourth push came, and then a fifth without even giving Ahsoka a moment to try and rally herself. Her opponent looked like something out of a nightmare now, perfect teeth ground into a hateful snarl, blood trickling down her limp, broken wing like water, yellow eyes virtually lanterns as her rage and pain amplified her powers. The dark side welled up within her, and her sixth push was so strong that Ahsoka lost her footing altogether, staggering and falling painfully onto the slick metal roof.

The Togruta barely had time to try to stand back up before another barrage of lightning arced between them. She caught it with two hurriedly-raised green blades, but the sheer kinetic impact threw off her balance and drove her to one knee. This time the electricity didn’t taper off, if anything it only intensified. The white light of their collision grew almost blinding, the sheer heat of it of almost enough to blister skin by itself. And that was before the unrelenting pressure of it began to push the twin lightsabers back towards her face. Ahsoka gritted her own teeth and drew strength from the Force into her aching arms. Slowly but surely she began to push back, moving the arcing conflagration out and away, focusing all her considerable willpower on containing it until her opponent burned herself out.

That’s why she didn’t observe one of the Stormtroopers the Inquisitor’s scream had tossed about beginning to stir. She didn’t notice when the man, laying slumped against the entrance to one of the prison’s elevators, reached slowly for the E-11 lying on the roof near him. She didn’t see him taking careful aim, or hear the sound when he pulled the trigger.

She certainly felt it, though.

A blaster bolt took Ahsoka Tano in the back, and her defense crumbled. She barely had time to notice the pain of hot plasma burning into her flesh, being immediately preoccupied with the sensation of every nerve ending set alight once more as lightning coursed through her. She screamed in torment, her skeleton rendered momentarily visible amidst the darkness. Seconds passed, though to her abused body it might as well have been an eternity.

All at once it ceased, and the Togruta toppled forwards onto the rooftop, sparking and smoking like a freshly-cooked nerf steak. For a moment she just lay there, every bit of her crying out for the mercy of unconsciousness, but her mind refused to allow herself such a luxury. Powered as much by the living Force as any natural process, her spasming muscles pulled her unsteadily back onto her feet. She stretched out one feeble hand, one of her dropped sabers flew back into it. Then came a fresh lance of agony.

Ahsoka’s weary blue eyes looked down, her vision just coherent enough to perceive a red lightsaber blade spearing through her lower abdomen. She had perhaps a second to regard it before her tortured flesh at last gave out. Her eyes rolled back in her head, and darkness claimed her.

67: Strung Along

“Hrgggh…” Luna gritted her teeth. “Finish your task, you accursed machine! The pain is already returned!”

“My apologies, mistress,” said the 2-1B medical droid currently operating on her wing. “Your species is not contained in my databanks, precise calibration of anesthetic doses is difficult at best.”

“Administering,” said FX-6 in a flat mechanical monotone, before sticking the alicorn with one long needle arm. A few seconds later, the throbbing agony of her broken, cut-open wing receding to a dull ache once more.

“You may continue,” Luna nodded, and the pair of machines went back to work.

“It would be medically advisable for you to be sedated for the duration of this procedure,” the bipedal machine warned yet again.

“I have already given my orders, and I expect them to be obeyed!” she snapped.

“As you wish, mistress,” said 2-1B, before resuming the delicate task of piecing back together her shattered wing bones, sealing them together with medical adhesive.

It was humiliating, having to rely on an alien machine for healing like this. Were she at her full power the wing would have put itself back together no worse for the wear in hours, minutes or even seconds if she willed it. But now her horn stubbornly refused to regenerate, and scar tissue, which she hadn’t born for millennia, ran down her cheek. She didn’t know to what extent her biology was thrown off by the lack of magic – certainly her immortality didn’t seem affected – but she didn’t feel like sporting a misshapen lump instead of a proud wing for the rest of time if it healed improperly. So alien machines cutting her open and manually reassembling her insides it was.

“You there,” she called out to one of the room’s guards from the surgical table. “Retrieve a commlink and call for Commander Neeri.”

“Very good ma’am,” he answered, leaving the room. He returned a minute later bearing a simple disk, which lit up to display the ISB man.

“You wanted to speak with me, my lady?” the officer asked. “Is your recovery proceeding smoothly?”

“Aye to both questions,” Luna nodded. “I have been considering tonight’s events, and I have a few tasks I wish your agency to accomplish.”

“How may we serve?”

“First, find someone amongst our prisoners there that is truly despicable and unquestionably guilty. Perhaps a serial murderer or terrorist, or whomever else might elicit absolutely nothing but public scorn. Then give them a public execution tomorrow, early in the morning.”

“Alright,” the intelligence officer looked a little confused. “But what does that achieve?”

“If you knew anything about public relations, you could already guess,” the princess answered. “But since apparently such is not your forte, allow me to educate you. After they are dead, have it announced to the planet that Jedi assassins working in concert with terrorist elements staged a break-in at Akorage Prison, aiming to free this hateful creature before it could be sent to its due reward. In the process, they brutally murdered more than sixty brave and loyal prison guards attempting to stop them. The names and faces of these bright young men, cut down in their prime, should be widely distributed as another example of Jedi barbarity.”

“I see,” the man was nodding along.

“I should hope so. See to it that their families, whichever of them were not clones, are well-compensated and feted by loyalist media. Build them a memorial somewhere if the response seems positive. Make martyrs out of our losses and despicable terrorists out of theirs. Exaggerate the true number of the opposition.”

“A propaganda coup for the Empire.”

“Exactly so. We may not be able to find these dissidents the Jedi originally protected right now, but we can destroy any hope they had of finding substantial public support here.”

“A wise plan, my lady. Truly you’re an inspiration to us all.”

“You may stop kissing up now,” she answered. “I know unctuous flattery almost as well as I know the nature of public opinion. Just put the plan into action and let me know how it goes.”

“As you say,” Neeri bowed a little, the vanished.

“I just…” Celestia shook her head. “I just don’t understand how she could do this to us! To me! After everything I’ve done for her, she just abandons everypony! Just like that! Millennia of sisterhood, just thrown away like… like… like rancid garbage!”

“I’m sure your sister had her reasons,” said the small hologram of Emperor Palpatine in an understanding tone.

“I gave that mare everything I ever could!” the white alicorn went on, pacing about the room. “She tried to kill me once, almost brought doom onto our whole planet twice! And I welcomed her back with open hooves! I helped her make new friends, reintegrate into society after a thousand years of absence. I could easily have kept my sole authority over the nation, nopony would have questioned it. But the first thing I did when she was restored to me was proclaim her my equal. And now she just runs off and abandons me?! Abandons our entire planet in its time of need?!”

“Gratitude can often be sorely lacking in the places one would hope to find it,” the Emperor replied.

“That it can, your majesty.”

He, Celestia reflected, didn’t know the half of it. All that time spent preparing for Luna’s return, all those subjects and foreign leaders she’d had to convince that her reformed sister was no threat, all those private lessons on society and culture, all those carefully-arranged introductions back into the halls of power… and for what? So some monster like Vader could effortlessly warp her sister’s mind back to darkness? How feeble-minded was that mare? How could she be so blind? How could she not see that she was plainly being manipulated?!

The more Celestia thought about her sister’s sheer, base ingratitude, the angrier she felt. Luna was willfully blind to the fact that she was nothing but a tool to the cybernetic terror, and worse yet she was spouting dangerous delusions. Declaring that she would be the most powerful being in the galaxy? Arrogance incarnated. Claiming that she would use her power to set things right? Was that before or after she strangled the sister who’d never done anything but reach out to her in kindness, only to see the hoof slapped away a blink of an eye later? That mare was going to do something truly stupid and get herself, and likely a great deal of other beings, killed, Celestia just knew it. She was going to leave behind a broken-hearted sister to face eternity alone, and she didn’t even care! She was going to leave behind a shattered world, forever bereft of princess of the night. The ignorance and heartlessness galled her to no end. Hadn’t she taught her sister better?

“But I apologize if I repeat myself,” Celestia continued. “We’ve been through this before, and I’m sure that you have greater issues on your mind than my family troubles.”

“Oh, think nothing of it,” he said in a warm tone. “You have given up so much to help the Empire, a few minutes here and there is no great consequence if it helps you even a little.”

He was such a kind soul, it was difficult for her to imagine taking much time out of her schedule for a single pony she barely knew with only planet to run. Yet this man was responsible for the greater part of a galaxy, and yet had found the time for no less than four brief holocalls simply to check up on her. It hurt her to imagine that even now there were no doubt many injustices being carried out in his name that he would never hear about, never be able to remedy as he had with her home planet. He didn’t deserve that.

“Nonetheless, I fear I’m rambling. Asking you questions you haven’t any way to answer.” The white alicorn looked guilty. “Even using you to vent my frustrations.”

“As I said, I can find a little time here and there.” Palpatine smiled. “If it helps your psychological well-being, considering what you are making every effort to help me do, I am willing to be a sounding board for a short while.”

“I… don’t think it’s exactly befitting.”

“Well, one must deal with one’s emotions somehow, and yours are clearly very deep on this subject. If that necessitates a small amount of psychological practice on my behalf, it is a price I am willing to pay. Your well-being is important to me.”

“Thank you,” she said, sincerely. “I appreciate it.”

“You’re quite welcome. Whatever I can do to help you cope. I understand that you must find a way. It isn’t as though you could simply reach out and force your sister to feel differently.”

“Huh?”

“Very few people can do that.” There was a chime somewhere off-camera. “I’m sorry my dear, but I’m afraid that I must call this little talk to an end. Duty calls.”

The little hologram vanished. The white alicorn blinked.

What had he meant by that?

The Stormtrooper TK-9184, or Kal Treax to those who knew him, found himself most expectedly standing before the entrance to the office of the warden of Akorage Prison. Only hours had passed since the break-in that had left a comfortable majority of the security staff in pieces, and there was a lot of work for him to do. To be called away from essential cleanup and reorganization duties didn’t suit him, especially not now. He needed to keep his mind busy.

The door slid open in front of him, and standing there he found not the prison warden, but little blue-armored Inquisitor with one wing wrapped heavily in white medical dressing. This was the first time he’d gotten a good look at her without her helmet, and the man found his lip curling a bit under his helmet. He didn’t care much for aliens to begin with, still less after what happened last night. Still, he was a good soldier, and good soldiers follow orders.

“Come in,” she beckoned. He did so, door sealing shut behind him. “Do you care for a seat?”

“If it’s all the same to you, ma’am, I’ll stand,” he answered.

“I thought as much. I suppose you know why you’re here?”

“No ma’am.”

“I see. Then allow me to offer you some enlightenment.”

She glanced back, and a holoprojector on the warden’s desk came alive without her having to move a muscle. TK-9184 didn’t care much for magic tricks either, though he had the sense not to say anything. The image was of poor quality, constantly flickering in and out, but all the same he recognized it easily enough. It was last night, on the rooftop. A Jedi struggled on her knees, pushing back against an electrical discharge. A Stormtrooper, slumped a good distance behind her, slowly raised his blaster and shot her in the back. The scene froze there, a good capture of the shock and pain on the Jedi’s face the moment the bolt struck her flesh.

“I suppose you recognize this?”

“I do.”

“Then I am certain you are also aware that, by our records, it was you who fired that fateful shot.”

“I did what any Stormtrooper would do, ma’am.”

“Ah, but none of the others managed to do that. What gave you such strength, I asked myself.” She paused a moment, as the projector’s scene switched. “Does this look familiar?”

This time the images showed the Jedi carving her way through the prison’s guards like they were wheat before a scythe. Dozens of men fell in merest seconds, but the projector froze on an instant where the Togruta was driving her lightsaber directly through the face of a Stormtrooper’s helmet and out the back of his head. TK-9184’s fists clenched at the sight.

“That unfortunate man was TK-8253, also known as Val Treax.” The Inquisitor looked him in the helmeted eye. “Your brother.”

Treax had read the reports. He’d seen the body. He really didn’t need this right now.

“Yes…” he managed through tightly-clenched teeth. “Ma’am.”

“Fraternal twins, enlisted together, known to have shared a close bond for many years,” she went on. “Only for that bound to be ripped away from you by the Jedi.”

The man nearly had to bite his own tongue to keep from an outburst. This was deeply private family business! He hadn’t even informed their parents, yet this alien bitch was sticking her ugly snout in it!

“I believe it was that anger, the desire for revenge, that allowed you to endure where you fellows passed out. That is how you managed to take that shot. You burned to avenge your kin’s passing with her blood.” She cocked her head at him. “Yes… I can sense I am correct.”

He said nothing, for fear of cursing her out.

“I doubt you feel like listening to me talk, so I will go straight to the point. I summoned you here to give you two gifts: a reward and a choice. Firstly, you are promoted to Sergeant, effective immediately. Secondly, you are hereby relieved of duty for next three days, if you so choose, to allow you the time you require to return your brother’s body home and grieve as you would.”

The man’s jaw unclenched a bit – that was more than he’d expected. He inclined his head slightly.

“Finally, I wish to offer you a decision. After a previous mission to Corulag, I find myself short a detachment of Stormtroopers. My proposal to you is simple: if you are willing, you and a select squad will depart this planet with me when I leave to present Lord Vader a gift. After that, I offer you the opportunity to join me in hunting down and eliminating other Jedi, avenging your brother’s death in their blood. You would be well-paid, of course, and I could see to it that you received upgraded equipment, training, and armor befitting your new station. Or,” she shrugged a little, “you can choose to remain here and spend the remainder of your tour of duty watching over convicts here. The decision is yours to make.”

Go back to his routine in the very building where his brother had died, pretending nothing had happened, and spend years marching in circles and trying to pretend he didn’t notice all the lost brothers in arms? Or go out and make some traitorous bastards suffer for it?

“I’ll do it,” he said almost immediately.

“Very good,” the Inquisitor grinned.

68: Delivery

“The results are consistent?” Darth Sidious said in a level tone.

“Yes, your majesty,” said the hologram of 11-4D. “Analyses conducted over a period of weeks show a consistent degradation of activities in sections of the subject’s brain associated with conscious thought and a concurrent increase in activity in the neuropathways associated with emotional reactions when the subject is injected with our chemical formula. However, the effect is less pronounced than anticipated at the dosage she is exposed to during the course of our treatments. Her biology appears substantially resistant to chemical imbalance, and over time effects may decrease to nil. Should we increase the dosage?”

“No,” the Emperor shook his head, offering no explanation. “Maintain present dosage.”

“As you wish,” the droid answered. “I regret to report that we are no closer to uncovering the cause of the subject’s biological stasis, though we now have a great deal of data on everything from cellular structure to stress response. Unfortunately, the underlying mechanisms continue to prove elusive.”

“I see,” he frowned slightly. “Continue your work as previously directed. Inform me if anything changes. Dismissed.”

The droid bowed its head, then vanished.

Sidious’ throne rotated to give him his customary view of the Coruscant night sky as he considered the situation. Patience, it seemed, would as always be the key. Attempting to simply bludgeon the alien’s mind into submission would have been folly, extremely wasteful even if it succeeded. And if it failed, this specimen might well prove to be entirely irreplaceable. Far better to let her thoughts remain her own even as they lead her right to him. All the necessary ingredients were there. An injection to inflame her existing passions, the Force to nudge her mind subtly in the directions that he wished it. The dark side itself to cloud any precognitive powers she might possess. Slowly unravel her pretense of control, expose the emptiness and futility of that which she thought that she loved. But nothing so crude and clumsy as outright attempts at mind control or brainwashing. Such things were far less permanent.

And far less enjoyable.

When the Starry Night next dropped out of hyperspace, it was in a nameless, uninhabited system on the fringes of Wild Space. There the Arquitens light cruiser almost immediately detected three gigantic Imperial Star Destroyers encircling a planetoid on the outer edges of the system’s asteroid belt: the Devastator, Chimera, and Accuser. The massive battleships were unloading a coordinated barrage of heavy turbolaser fire across the airless planetoid. There were also what appeared to be chunks of some kind of ships floating around not far from the Star Destroyers, currently being used along with any survivors for fighter target practice.

Luna watched the spectacle from behind the lenses of her repaired helmet, watched as what had presumably been some sort of pirate or raider base was mercilessly pounded by the heavy guns. Any life that had lingered down there was no doubt long dead, but it seemed the Empire wanted to utterly erase any evidence that life had ever been present here. Why, and why this mission had earned Vader’s personal attention, were questions for another time. For now, it was enough to what these ships could do, to watch as they laid waste to an asteroid the size of a continent. Blackened chunks of it were already floating off into space, and the remainder was visibly becoming less and less stable even as they approached. She felt nothing at the destruction, save appreciation for the opportunity to see these ships in action. Knowledge, as Vader said, was power.

“My lady,” said Captain Hayes, “transmition for you.”

“Put it through,” Luna said, turning away from the demonstration.

“Inquisitor,” said Vader’s own Captain, Orion, almost as soon as he appeared. “Your presence is unexpected. Lord Vader did not put out a call for you.”

“Nonetheless, I am here,” she answered. “I have something of importance, for his eyes only. I would request an audience with him at his earliest convenience.”

“Are you certain your matter is worth bringing to his attention?” he asked. “My lord rarely cares for surprises. I would suggest dealing more directly with colleagues within your own organization unless this is truly of the direst import.”

“It is,” she assured him.

“Are you absolutely sure?” He frowned. “He does not look favorably upon interruptions.”

“I am, Captain. Kindly inform Lord Vader that I request an audience as soon as he feels that the time is appropriate.”

“So be it,” he nodded.

Rarely one to stand on ceremony or empty posturing at the best of times, Darth Vader was in no mood at all do to so on this day. The cybernetic Sith Lord simply proceeded through the bowls of the Devastator at his usual unhurried stride, but inside the armor his irritation was building, threatening to blossom into full-blown anger. The triviality of this task alone had been enough to set him on edge, now fresh idiocy from a subordinate might well set heads rolling.

Did this new apprentice of his understand nothing of tact or subtlety? For a being that had supposedly reigned over a nation for thousands of years, she demonstrated a remarkable lack of comprehension of political realities. How did she imagine it would appear to the Emperor if his apprentice seemed to be spending an inordinate amount of time around a single Inquisitor? Was she truly fool enough not to realize that his eyes were on Vader wherever he went?

Of course, he had, and was currently, training many of the Inquisitorius on an ongoing basis, but it was not often that one accompanied him the field across a multi-week campaign and then almost immediately ran back to him after completing a mission. Most among the servile organization had too much sense to court his attention. For her to do so in such a brazen manner could not help but draw the attention of the Emperor’s spies hidden amongst his ship’s crew. That alone might be enough to condemn her to death.

The woman had better have something truly remarkable to present to him, Vader had decided, for her own sake. Those who hoped to curry respect with him must show themselves to be far more than simply capable. If this prize was simply some trophy of a dead Jedi or information on an insignificant band of insurgents huddled on a distant world, she would find herself becoming intimately acquainted with his interrogation droids for the next several weeks. If it failed to even rise to that level she was obviously too stupid to be of any real use, and would be silenced accordingly.

It was strange though, what he was feeling in the Force. It was almost like a presence, a presence he hadn’t felt since…

The Dark Lord brushed off useless hypotheticals as he entered the docking bay. An honor guard of Stormtroopers was already present at the base of the ship’s ramp, including several that he senses were not from his own ranks. His anger well up yet further, the fool had had the chance to simply bring whatever it was to him without delay, but had waited for him to get there purely to make an entrance. She had better not presume to waste his time.

The Inquisitor at least had the sense not to stall any further once he had come near, descending the ramp almost immediately. She bowed low at his approach, while four more Stormtroopers appeared in the ramp behind her, guiding a hovering coffin down towards him. Was that it, then? Unless that machine contained the likes of Obi-Wan or Yoda…

No, Vader realized as he neared his pawn, not a coffin. A sealed medical capsule.

“Lord Vader,” the kneeling woman said. “May I present, for your pleasure, the former apprentice of Anakin Skywalker.”

For the first time in a very long time, Vader’s ruined eyes widened a fraction in genuine surprise. Surprise that Ahsoka yet lived. That she had been so foolish as continue operating where an agent of the Empire could find her. But most of all, that this woman had actually managed to take her. He walked past the kneeling servant without pause, running a hand over the top of the hovering medical transport, sensing the power contained inside. There was no mistaking it, not even after all this time. His helmet turned to regard her.

“You,” he said, “have done well.”

69: Master and Apprentice

Ahsoka Tano’s world was a bleary, half-conscious thing of contradictions. All she remembered was pain, yet all she felt was… curiously numb. She was floating weightlessly, flitting in and out of an infinite abyss whose nature she did not comprehend. This state, and place, seemed almost to go on forever. What passed for her conscious mind wondered for a while if she might in fact be dead, and this strangeness actually the fabled netherworld of the Force.

How long she truly spent in that state, she could never have said. Whatever the case, eventually the mists of that realm seemed to fade away into darkness, until all was black. Her body still felt numb, yet ghosts of aches danced the edges of her awareness. Gradually, she began to regain a degree of her senses. Ahsoka slowly perceived that numbed body lay flat against something, her unfeeling limbs completely unresponsive. As her senses began to return, she eventually realized that there was something affixed over her nose and mouth, pumping a vaguely sweet concoction in along with oxygen. It vaguely reminded her of some delectable sweetmeat she’d eaten… somewhere. The instant she thought of food she felt more than heard her stomach rumble, then immediately felt a jolt of terrible pain. She screwed up her eyes against it, shutting out the lingering agony by focusing her attention on her own rhythmic, mechanical breathing. No, she realized after a moment. Not her breathing.

Ahsoka’s eyes snapped open.

Immediately she had to fight the temptation to shut them again, squinting against the harsh white lights above. As her eyes adjusted, it dawned on here that everything here was white, sterile and unsettlingly familiar. With a start, she recognized a Star Destroyer’s medical bay from her time aboard far too many. And with that memories came flooding back. Denon. The Jedi. The trap. The Inquisitor. A lightsaber through her gut. Pain and darkness. Her breathing picked up rapidly, she could vaguely hear beeps indicating her rising heartrate. If she was still alive, and she was here, then that could only mean…

“Ahsoka,” came a deep, mechanical, bass voice.

Her blue eyes darted towards her feet, futilely willing her unmoving neck to crane for a better view. There, past her body wrapped tight in white medical dressing, standing at the foot of her bed, was a towering black figure out of nightmare. With an agonized reluctance, terrified of what she might see, she brought her gaze further and further up until her eyes met the soulless lenses of the terror’s mask.

She hadn’t wanted to believe it. Despite what she had seen in the Inquisitor’s mind, what she had heard from her lips, Ahsoka Tano had yet harbored a desperate hope that it might all be some kind of trick. That the Anakin Skywalker she had trained under for so long, had endured so much with, had merely died, bravely but untainted. The tiniest, most irrational part of her had even hoped that perhaps he yet lived, and she might one day see him again. One look into the mechanical monster’s mask, and those hopes writhed in agony before perishing miserably in the dirt. There could no longer be any doubt.

“Anakin…” she breathed weakly.

“That name,” said Darth Vader, “has no meaning any longer.”

“No…” Ahsoka managed, eyes watering. “No…”

“Anakin Skywalker was weak. I murdered him.”

Vader made a gesture with his hand, and Ahsoka barely heard the mechanical clicking sounds. She barely registered the bed she lay flat on rising up, adjusting and tilting towards the towering black abomination that had once been her master. Tears trickled softly down her orange cheeks, her body sagged limply against its restraints as her table brought her eyes level to the Sith Lord’s chest.

“Darkness destroyed all that once was and rebuilt something far greater in its place,” he went on. “Now destiny has brought you to me, that you too might be rebuilt.”

“No…” Ahsoka whispered. “You don’t mean that…”

“Do not lie to yourself. It is unbefitting.”

Ahsoka stretched out feebly with what Force energy she could muster. It barely qualified as a mind probe, yet Vader made absolutely no effort to muster a telepathic defense. Even in her drugged, numbed state she could sense the man’s feelings and… there was nothing there. No warmth, familiarity, or compassion, only a desire to reach out and possess, a fierce yet twisted sense of ownership that sought to have and to hold as one might a favored inanimate object. In place of love there was greed, anger, and a simmering bitterness whose source she could not identify. To feel what had become of the master she’d left behind was almost enough to break her heart on the spot.

“Now you see,” said Vader after a moment had passed. “The man you trained under is long gone.”

“Then what…” Ahsoka hissed at the murderer even as she continued to cry, “do you want with me?”

“I want you to complete your training, this time under a far wiser master.” The cyborg stretched out a hand to her. “The Jedi Order is all but extinct. The weak light gutters and fades. Soon it will be nothing more than a dim memory, and then nothing at all. All who would serve it will die. But you do not need to be among them. Join me. Become my apprentice, abandon the last craven and empty ideals you cling to, and arise from these ashes greater and more terrible than ever before.” He clenched his fist. “Together, we can cleanse this galaxy of disorder and put an end to conflict. With the powers of the dark side we can achieve what the Jedi never could, and force the universe to bow to the righteousness of our will. There would be none capable of stopping us.”

“You… already have an apprentice. I saw you two. On Kashyyyk.”

“Her life means nothing to me,” Vader answered. “Join me and you may claim her head as revenge, if that is what you wish. Under me, nothing would be denied you, neither passions nor learning nor wealth nor power. Nor would you be kept back from vengeance on those who betrayed you, who drove you from the Order.”

Ahsoka wasn’t sure what appalled her more, Vader’s sheer callousness towards the woman who’d pledged herself to him already, or the idea that her conscience could be bought off with power, wealth, and bloodshed. Anakin would have known better than to even think that could work, should have known better.

“Anakin Skywalker once thought as you do,” the cyborg said. “He was a fool to believe that, and that is why he perished burning and screaming in the fires of Mustafar. Do not make the same mistakes that he once did.”

“If Anakin Skywalker is dead…” Ahsoka breathed heavily under her clear mask. “Why do you care about me at all? I lost to your new puppet, by Sith rules doesn’t that make her the better choice? Shouldn’t you be trying to torture the whereabouts of dissidents or Jedi survivors out of me? Shouldn’t I be in an execution chamber? Why would you want to make an apprentice out of the failed student of a man you murdered?”

Vader said nothing for a moment, dead black lenses continuing to regard her impassively. But Ahsoka, through her still-tenuous mind probe, could still feel the echoes of long-distant memories bubble up. They were fading impressions, nothing more, as if from a dream long since passed. But the cyborg made no effort to stop her touching them, however briefly.

“A… child?” Ahsoka’s eyes widened. “Anakin was going to… have a child?” She’d known her master had frequently clashed with the Jedi Council, but had never imagined he’d gone against the code so brazenly.

“He was.”

“But… something went wrong. Horribly… terribly wrong…” she frowned. “Pain… darkness… grief…” Ahsoka looked up. “The child died.”

“I killed them,” Vader said, almost quietly.

“Then… what?” Ahsoka gasped, then recoiled as best she could when the pieces finally clicked into place. “I’m not them!” she insisted, futilely trying to squirm with her limp body. “I don’t know what the dark side did to twist your mind, Anakin, but I’m not a substitute for the child you lost! I can’t be!”

It hurt her to say that. Her master had been the closest thing to a father she had known in the cloistered, monastic existence that had been the Jedi Order. To learn that he had had a child and lost it to tragedy made her desperately want to reach out and comfort him. But this wasn’t him standing before her, it was a deranged, psychopathic parasite wearing her slain master’s body like a suit.

“You will become my apprentice,” Vader pointed on black-gloved finger between her eyes. “As my child would have been. And we will rule the galaxy together.”

“Never!” Ahsoka spat the word, tears raining down her cheeks. “I’ll never join you! You killed my master! You’re desecrating his body and slandering his memory! You’re nothing but a walking blasphemy! I’ll die before I serve a monster like you!”

“Brave words,” said Vader. “But I have heard them many times before. Everyone has their breaking point. Anakin did, and you are no different than your master.”

“I don’t care what you do to me, I won’t follow you!”

“You say that now. Perhaps after a few weeks locked in a cell with my interrogation droids and no food, water, or rest, you might find yourself more kindly disposed towards my offer. Or it may be that I simply have to shatter your mind altogether and begin from the ground up.” He paused. “But no matter, you do not have a choice. Destiny brought you back to me, and it is your destiny to take your place at my side.”

“If there’s anything left of the Anakin Skywalker I knew,” Ahsoka again tried to struggle, but her body was too weak and too drugged to respond, “then please, just kill me. Throw my broken body to the gundarks and give my lightsabers as a trophy to your Emperor. Just give me a clean death. Don’t try to make me into something like you. That’s all I ask, for the sake of what we once had. Please.” She looked him in the eyes.

Darth Vader paused, saying nothing. For a moment there was no sound from the Sith Lord, save the incessant mechanical breathing. Then slowly, deliberately, he turned his back on her and began striding purposefully towards the exit.

“I suggest that you enjoy your period of recuperation while you can,” he said. “Because once your danger is passed, the true pain begins.”

70: Ghosts and Nightmares

The Starry Night next left hyperspace near the many-mooned planet of Bogden. Located deep in the Inner Rim, along the Hydian Way, the planet nonetheless remained sparsely populated by galactic standards. The reason for that lay in its twenty moons, locked in a perpetual and somewhat erratically orbital dance. The complex and ever-changing pull of gravity conspired to keep the planet geologically unstable and ill-suited for any large-scale permanent settlements. Most of the population that chose to make this area its home did so on some of the more stable moons.

It was towards one of these moons, Kohlma, that Luna’s light cruiser now set its course. As the ship slowly made its way through the empty spacelanes towards the funeral moon, the alicorn stared out the bridge window and simply brooded. She recalled the words of Darth Vader.

“Once,” he had said, “the moon of Kohlma was home to death-worshipping cult, lead by a madwoman. They constructed a secret citadel on Bogden’s moon, from which they reached out to spread terror and mayhem across the galaxy. Their reign came to a close when my master deemed their destabilizations a loose end, and they were exterminated by his command. Their former base of operations fell into ruin, until I ordered it restored as a place of sanctuary. In reward for bringing me Skywalker’s apprentice, now I bestow it to you. If you are wise, you will use it as a place not just to recuperate but to sharpen your skills. Any living servants that you wish to keep should not be allowed there for long.”

“Why?” Luna had asked.

“Because it is a haunted place,” Vader told her. “Countless acts of ritual murder and torture, followed by the cult’s own annihilation, have left a shadow of dark side power hanging about the citadel. Echoes of victims and cultists, perhaps even lingering spirits, lurk in the shadows. They assail the minds of trespassers, tormenting the weak with visions of horrors past and promises of worse to come. The last organic overseer of reconstruction went mad and had to put down. Only droids dwell there now. But such a low-level mental assault should be little more than a training exercise for a true Sith apprentice. An assurance that you do not allow such skills to atrophy.”

The princess scowled beneath her helmet as her ship plunged through the storm clouds in Kohlma’s atmosphere. Bring Vader his old apprentice, receive a haunted citadel in thanks. No doubt the Sith genuinely thought that being continuously assailed was good practice, but must everything with these aliens be a test? Did they have no concept of rest, ease, or relaxation? How had any managed not to drive themselves mad?

The skies overhead were a deep grey when the Starry Night touched down on the mountaintop landing pad, but no rain was yet falling. Luna stepped down the boarding ramp accompanied by an honor guard of Stormtroopers, eying the complex skeptically. Her gift was a large, grey citadel built atop and into a tall mountain. Numerous domes and towers burst forth from the rock, some half-collapsed or evidencing disrepair, most refurbished with new metal and stone. Hovering black probe droids patrolled the exterior, while she could see heavier construction models working inside some of the dilapidated areas. Closer to hoof, a dull copper-colored droid with a long head and almost comically thin silvery limbs was making its way towards her.

“Greetings, mistress,” it said in a flat, mechanical monotone as she approached. “I am EV-T3R, supervisor to Imperial droid forces here and coordinator of reconstruction efforts. I was instructed by Lord Vader to expect you. Welcome.”

“I am Inquisitor Luna,” she announced herself. “I own this place and everything in it now. Is that understood?”

“Of course, mistress,” the machine said.

“And these are my men, Orphan Squad,” she gestured at the Stormtroopers. “And this is my ship, the Starry Night. I suggest you commit those name to your databanks.”

“As you will,” EV nodded. “Would you care for a tour of the facilities? While not all of the citadel has yet been restored to working order, we are more than prepared to offer all the amenities an organic could desire.”

“Yes, show me around,” she ordered. “I take it that there are tunnels connecting these buildings?”

“Oh yes, there is a considerable network of tunnels dug deeply into the mountainside. Some are interlinking between various parts of the citadel proper, others simply lead to empty chambers or underground mausoleums. All organic remains have of course been incinerated,” it said as though that were self-evident, “lest they introduce potential contaminants into the air.”

“Of course,” Luna nodded.

The droid led her and her party across the lengthy landing pad, towards a durasteel door bored into mountainside. It slid open at their approach, revealing a dark hallway dimly lit by eerie blue lights. Luna made to follow the supervisor droid inside, but halted at a sudden premonition. At lightning speed she whipped around, crimson lightsaber flaring to life.

The move came just in time, her blade moving by instinct and training to catch and bat away several incoming blaster shots in rapid succession. Her eyes darted upwards, seeking the source and almost immediately finding it. A black probe droid, a gaggle of thin limbs hanging below its body, hovered high above the landing platform with a blaster rifle extending below its photoreceptor. Witnessing the failure of its initial attack, the droid attempted to back up. Luna was having none of it, reaching out through the Force to seize the machine where it was. Her Stormtroopers were returning fire as well, red blaster shots exploding into sparks against the droid’s hull. The alicorn exerted her will, and the probe droid crumpled as though a mere can squeezed by a giant fist. Then she let go, and the smoking, sparking machine plummeted towards the earth. It was dashed to pieces against the duracrete.

Luna’s eyes darted around, looking from one of the other patrolling probe droids to the next in rapid succession, but none of them moved to join in the attack. Indeed, they didn’t seem to have noticed anything unusual at all, continuing their patrol patterns as though one of their number hadn’t just gone rogue and attempted to assassinate an Inquisitor. When a good half minute had passed and nothing more happened, the alicorn shut down her lightsaber’s blade, though she did not put it away. Her head turned back to EV-T3R, whom she was vaguely surprised to see hadn’t even attempted to run away.

“My apologies for the unpleasantness, mistress,” he said. “But Lord Vader has programmed a select number of our droid pool to periodically attempt to assassinate any specified owners or guests within the citadel as a means of, and I quote, ‘preventing them from growing lax’.” The droid’s voice then matched the cyborg’s almost perfectly. “But don’t worry.”

“And why should I not?”

“We can always import more droids.”

Luna simply sighed.

“…and here are your quarters, my lady,” said EV more than an hour of wandering through dim, lifeless halls and chambers later. “We believe that they once belonged to the leader of the religious fanatics previously occupying this facility. Now they belong to the master – or mistress – of the citadel.”

Luna took a look into the broad room, easily three times the size of the one she had occupied back in Equestria. Located at the pinnacle of the tallest tower, its vast blue-tinted windows offered a commanding view of the mountain range beyond. Yet beyond a bed easily large enough to fit half a dozen sentient beings and a simple nightstand beside it, the room was all but barren. Simple stone walls were unadorned, the soft blue carpet showing no interruptions. It looked as though it had barely been used, if ever.

“Get your droids to installing a holonet transceiver in here,” Luna ordered without a moment’s pause. “Holding cabinets and cleaning supplies for my armor, and display cases for my trophies. And install some shelves, I may wish to add reading material. If I am to make this a home, I expect it to be properly equipped.”

“Of course, my lady,” the droid bowed his head. “I shall begin preparations as soon as we are finished her.”

“Then do so now, because we are,” she said without bothering to look at him. “Bring me what options you have available and I will select my preferences.”

“As you will,” the machine nodded, before wandering past the Stormtroopers and back the way the group had come, vanishing within moments down a flight of stairs.

“Gentlemen,” Luna turned to her white-armored troops. “I ask that you return to the ship for the duration of our stay here and inform the crew that they are to do the same.”

“Ma’am?” one man said.

“You are my men,” she said. “I do not wish you to be caught up in Lord Vader’s little game and die to no purpose in crossfire. Therefore, I ask you to vacate the premises, at least until I can root out whatever assassin droids he has chosen to implant here. I assure you I do not require any protection.”

Stormtroopers are trained, above all else, to obey, and these men were no different. However bizarre or uncomfortable the order seemed, they were still loyal, and moved to do as bid without complaint. It didn’t take long before the last of them had vanished around a corner. The blue alicorn turned around, walked right into her designated quarters, and closed the door behind her.

“You can come out now,” she said to the empty room. “We are alone for the moment.”

“And I am glad of it,” said a familiar voice from behind her.

“Hello again, Dooku.”

She lay bound tightly to heavy metal slab for time beyond time. About her danced hovering black spheres. How many? Three? Four? Five? She could no longer tell. Her body was beyond exhausted, by all rights should have collapsed into a merciful state of unconsciousness a long time ago. But the burning chemical cocktail that flowed through her bloodstream kept her awake, forced her to stay perfectly alert to every last mote of agony.

Everything was pain. Her delirious mind could no longer make sense of anything else, but the pain was crystal clear. Every last nerve ending throughout her body, from her head down to her toes, screamed out in simultaneous, unending agony. Neurochemicals continuously injected into her system kept every last throb as fresh as the last, her mind unable to so much as dull the pain.

One of the floating black spheres came closer, extending a small probe crackling with electricity towards her face. Another floated towards her neck, a long needle extended. She struggled weakly, but her restraints were too many and far too well-built. Chemicals and electricity wracked her flesh at the exact same moment, and she let out a horrible scream on the physical and metaphysical planes alike. Her spirit cried out through the Force, willing desperately for someone, anyone to hear, to help her…

On Dantooine, Twilight Sparkle’s eyes snapped open. She sat bolt upright, her body covered in a slick, cold sweat. She looked down at trembling hands, and she wondered…

71: Conversation

“You must use your anger,” Darth Vader said. “It is the only way.”

“Nrrrgh…” Ahsoka moaned from where she lay, body limp against its numerous restraints. Vader gave a slight nod, and a hovering droid gave her another prod with its powerfully charged probe. She writhed and screamed as carefully-calculated dose of electricity set off all her pain receptors simultaneously.

“Use your hatred Ahsoka,” he said, clenching a fist. “I can feel your outrage at this cruelty. Embrace it! Let the power of the dark side flow through you. Let it give you the strength that you need.”

The Togruta’s only answer was to squirm futility, as her droid torturers inflicted a fresh round of pain on her. One gave her another injection, heightening her senses and keeping her brain awake. It had been like this for many days at this point. Constant, unremitting agony every waking hour, punctuated only by the barest minimum of unconsciousness required to avoid serious damage. Vader would not have his true apprentice a crippled wreck, nor would he permit her the luxury of expiring. Direct neural stimulation was incredibly painful without risking lasting injuries. Beyond those to sanity, of course.

“Call on your rage,” he commanded. “Reach out and crush these machines, these architects of your misery. Only hate will break your chains, you must see it. You hold within yourself the power to end your torment, to destroy these droids and tear these restraints to pieces. You need only reach out and take it.”

“I… won’t… be… puppet…” she managed through clenched teeth, in between applications of the shock probes.

“And why stop with the droids?” Vader said. “I am here, reach out, call upon your hatred to strike me down! I murdered your master, I put your friends to the sword, and put your home to the torch! I put you in this wretched cell! You want revenge? Stretch out your hand and take it! Strike me down with all of your hatred!”

Ahsoka said nothing, only scrunching up her eyes against the pitiless machines orbiting her. Vader stared a moment, considering, then turned his back on her once more.

“You are yet too weak,” he scornfully proclaimed. “Perhaps you need more motivation. Increase the intensity of your probes.”

“Yes, Lord Vader,” one of the droids replied in an utterly emotionless tone.

“And see to it that she isn’t permitted a moment of rest for the next three days,” the cyborg continued. “Perhaps I have been too merciful so far.”

“It will be done.”

Vader marched towards the cell’s exit, the door sliding up for him. Behind him he heard the dance continue apace, electricity crackling as it flowed into his apprentice’s flesh. The pain roiling out from her only intensified as she thrashed, washing over him in waves. He marched up the short staircase and through the doorway, not once looking back.

“I hate you!” came a sudden scream from behind him.

“Good,” Vader breathed.

The door sealed shut.

“So,” said the specter of Count Dooku, “how fares your quest?”

“Well enough,” Luna answered him without bothering to look at him. “Vader proved surprisingly quick to take me under his wing. I had only to kill one Inquisitor, one Jedi, and complete a single mission for him before he outright offered me a position as his apprentice.”

“Skywalker was always so predictable,” she could hear the sneer in the old man’s voice.

“So now you use his name? When you did not before?”

“That he would eventually tell you was a given. It was sooner than expected perhaps, but it only speaks to the man’s desperation. In the meantime, your surprise had to be genuine, lest he start asking awkward questions about where you might have learned such a thing.”

“And you simply knew that he had told me? Without my telling you?”

“I’m dead, not deaf,” he answered. “I can hear your dreams.”

“Fascinating,” Luna said drily. “Though I find myself surprised that you are so dismissive of the man who beat me to the punch and gave you what you deserve.”

“The ability to swing a lightsaber in a style to counter an elderly man does not make you intelligent.” Luna could hear the smug easiness fade from his voice, replaced by bitterness. “He was always predictable and easily-manipulated.”

“So says the duped pawn to his successor,” she mocked.

“My fate,” Dooku growled, “is no doubt hanging heavy over Skywalker’s head. There is no question that his maiming has rendered him a great disappointment in the eyes of Sidious. My old master will no doubt be seeking a replacement as soon as one reveals itself. And the mechanical brute, thick as he is, cannot help but be aware of it. He lives on borrowed time.”

“That much we can agree on,” Luna closed her eyes, imagining the moment when her lightsabers would form a scissor at Vader’s throat.

“So it was a simple matter to predict what he would do. He can no longer hope to match Sidious on his own, so he would seek another to aid him. It was a simple matter of placing a creature of your potential and ability in front of him. And he took the bait, just as I knew he would. He carried the seed of his own destruction from Korriban.”

“You speak as if you were some grand schemer, when in truth you are nothing but a dead old fool who got lucky,” the princess said. “If I had not come along you would be left rotting in that Valley for the rest of time, wringing your hands in impotent fury.”

“Does your insolence never cease?”

Luna finally turned to look at her ghostly acquaintance, sneering beneath her mask. The man’s aristocratic features were curled into a sour expression, which only widened her malevolent grin.

“Oh yes, how could I ever be so rude to the man who tried to commit genocide against my nation?” she countered. “You seem to forget that we are bound by a mutual hatred and nothing more, were you alive I would kill you myself.”

“Were I alive you would eat those words.”

“Were you alive Vader would kill you again.”

“Well,” he said after a moment had passed. “As engaging as this conversation is, I didn’t come halfway across the galaxy to bandy insults with you. I came to ask how your quest fares, and offer what aid I could while you remain in this dark place.”

“As I said, well enough. Vader made me his new apprentice. And Maul agreed to join my crusade.”

“Do not be so sure. Remember what I taught you: treachery is the way of the Sith.”

“Yes, yes,” Luna waved a hoof. “But why would care he for me? Even if he somehow learned that I learnt something from you, you are dead and were never anything but Sidious’ pawn to begin with. If he wishes to settle a score with you he would be fool to do it now. Settle accounts between us after Vader and Sidious lie dead.”

“Do not underestimate that man’s drive for revenge,” Dooku warned. “And do not become complacent about your status with Skywalker. It is quite likely he will pit you against another candidate for his apprentice at some point, perhaps more than one. It is entirely possible he will dispatch a rival to assassinate you, simply to determine which is truly worthy.”

“What if we simply killed one another?”

“Then neither of you would be worthy to stand at his side against his master. From what I understand you felt little hesitation in pouring out the blood of your men to achieve your goals. Skywalker is much the same.”

“Not my men," she shook her head. "The Empire’s men. The Empire is my enemy.”

“Whatever the case, it would not be unusual. I would rather surprised if he did not try to match you with another initiate at some point.”

“If that is so, that luckless initiate will die. But more importantly, have you any news for me? Anything of value I can put to use against our mutual enemies? Surely you must have little better to do with your time than go sniffing for opportunity.”

“Well,” Dooku smirked slightly, “I might have come across a morsel or two. But I don’t know if I wish to share them with such an unappreciative apprentice.”

“Sith take everything that they can and are grateful only when it suits them, Count.”

“Ah,” his smile broadened. “You were listening. Perhaps I might have a few things to inform you of after all…”

“Are you certain?” the hologram of Bastila Shan asked.

“Yes,” Twilight nodded from where she sat cross-legged in the grass of Dantooine. “One night could be a fluke, two a coincidence, three something I ate, but four nights of that nightmare in a row? That’s too much to dismiss. It’s too consistent, too realistic to be just a dream.”

“I see. Have you actually seen this prisoner?”

“No,” Twilight shook her head. “It’s always from her perspective, seen through her eyes. She has orange skin and striped headtails, that much I know, but I’ve never seen even a glimpse of her face. It’s dark, and there isn’t anything reflective.”

“A Togruta most likely, based solely that admittedly scant information,” the gatekeeper said. “Do you actually know any of those?”

“I don’t, no.”

“Then we must consider how you could be hearing this over and over. If you had known this individual for years and had formed a powerful Force bond that would be one thing, but by your statements you’ve never even met before. So how would you receive this vision not once, not twice, not even thrice, but on no less than four different nights? It doesn’t make a great deal of sense.” Bastila’s face was hard. “I suspect a trap.”

“You think it’s all a fake? An illusion?”

“On the contrary,” the Jedi Master shook her head. “I suspect the exact opposite. I think it is very real. Somewhere a Jedi is being tormented, her screams sent across the Force… perhaps even magnified by the will of another. And why? To lure any potential remaining Jedi out of hiding. Exploiting our Order’s compassion for one another and for all living beings has long been a favored tactic of the Sith.”

“Then you think she really is out there? And it’s really happening?” Twilight felt her stomach clenching. The idea that someone could be so ruthless…

“Yes, I do.” Bastila confirmed. “You are correct when you say that it cannot be a coincidence that your dreams have been so consistent and vivid. It could be the will of the Force itself, true, but in times where the dark side is ascendant I suspect a more malign agency. As to its reality, there is no illusion quite as effective as the real thing. And from experience it is simply something that a Sith would do.”

“Then I have to do something, right?” Twilight looked at her hands. “I mean, the whole point of this – all of this – was so I could learn how to defend people who needed it. And this woman, whoever she is, definitely needs it. I can’t just look away from that!”

“I… would have preferred more time to teach,” Bastila said slowly, hand on chin. “But on the other hand, the simple reality is I think you’ve already made up your mind, correct?”

“How could I not have?!”

“Right,” she nodded. “To be entirely honest I suspect my creator would have said something similar. That being said, we must be cautious about this. Don’t rush in, remain calm, gather data, and analyze the situation. I can assist you in this.”

“I… I can’t wait around for long, she’s suffering. Horribly,” Twilight warned.

“Jumping immediately into a probable trap will only add your screams to hers,” Bastila countered. “Remember what I taught you: patience. I know that it won’t be easy, but let’s put that mind of yours to work on this problem. Make it a successful mission a little while later rather than a failed one now.”

“I…” Twilight bit her lip a little. “I understand.”

Bastila smiled. “You’re far too clever not to.”

72: Salvation

Atop a windswept landing platform on the distant Outer Rim world of Shyish, Imperial Governor Seris stood nervously at stock-still attention, arms pinned tightly to his sides. Brown eyes watched the grey skies closely, fixed on a distant dot growly slowly, inexorably closer. The man swallowed, feeling sweat on his face despite the chill.

Yes, Shyish was a recent acquisition, annexed by Imperial forces only a few short months ago. Yes, it had been known to harbor heavy Separatist sympathies despite its avowed neutrality during the Clone Wars. And yes, it was true that a there had been a few minor gunfights and skirmishes between his troops and various bandits over the past few weeks. But the matter was well in hand, there was no need even to call for reinforcements. Why would the Emperor need to send anyone to inspect the planet so soon? And why, for the love of all that was holy, did it have to be him? If half of the things that Seris had heard about that black-clad monster were true…

The Governor shook his head as the dot grew in size, taking the distinct tri-wing shape of a Lambda-class shuttle. Doing his best to control his nerves, the man gave a good attempt at a stoic expression, but anyone who was paying attention could still see beads of sweat trickling down his forehead. Not that anyone was, all eyes on the landing platform were fixed firmly on the descending shuttle. It touched down with an agonizing slowness, time seemed to slow to a crawl as its landing ramp descended.

Governor Series felt a lump catch in his throat as the towering black cyborg emerged, felt his body hold attention as firmly as he could ever remember doing. Around him he could, rather than see, his assorted underlings and Stormtrooper guards doing likewise, none wishing to show the slightest bit of sloppiness to the Emperor’s dreaded executioner. If Darth Vader paid of any of it any mind, he said nothing, merely striding directly up to loom over Seris.

“Governor,” he said.

“L-Lord Vader,” Seris stammered. “We are pleased to w-welcome you to-”

“I don’t care for pleasantries,” Vader cut him off. “Only results. You will demonstrate the progress you have made in subjugating this backwater without delay.”

“Y-Yes, my lord,” the Governor quickly bowed his head. “If you will follow me, we can b-begin your inspection right away.”

As the hapless man began to lead the cyborg down the landing pad and towards the Imperial command center, the assorted gaggle of functionaries and bodyguards turned to follow. The group made an easily-visible target, though near the heart of the Empire’s power in the system none of the locals gave any thought to it. They also gave no thought to a hovering probe droid that passed overhead, one of several acting as sentries for the undermanned post. It, however, gave a great deal of thought to them.

Watching from a considerable distance, safely ensconced in one of Shyish’s equatorial spaceports, Twilight Sparkle looked through the droid’s eyes. Then looked again, just to be sure, matching what she saw with holonet images she’d obtained of the fearsome black cyborg. After a few seconds, she nodded.

“Vader’s here, meaning that he isn’t on his ship,” she thought, releasing a breath she hadn’t quite realized she was holding. “Showtime.”

The Star Destroyer Devastator was parked in a low orbit above Shyish, dwarfing the older Dreadnaught heavy cruiser that formed the system’s own local defense force. Vader’s massive capital ship outclassed anything else in the system, or subsector for that matter, by a wide margin. But it also required a crew numbering in the tens of thousands to maintain, and all the attendant logistical hurdles that came with keeping such a large number of crewmen. Vader’s erratic schedule and frequent assignments to the far corners of the galaxy frequently kept his flagship far from mainstay ports of call and normal Imperial supply chains for months at a time. It therefore wasn’t unusual at all for the Star Destroyer to take on loads of food, medicine, or machinery wherever it happened to stop for a little while.

No one really thought anything of it when several supply shuttles began ferrying goods up from the surface of Shyish. There were security protocols in place of course, but they were not especially stringent. And in any case Supply Officer Deres Jarnalla would have passed anything but a detailed background check had anyone done more than confirm her credentials with the garrison below. She was just one of many Imperials aboard her shuttlecraft after all. No one questioned it when she presented her assignment: delivery of droid parts and chemicals to the detention level. They even gave her directions, though she didn’t need them.

Twilight’s heart beat uncomfortably fast as she walked briskly through the well-lit, metallic corridors, despite her best efforts to the contrary. She’d been inside Imperial facilities before, but never a Star Destroyer, still less the personal flagship of Darth Vader. Even if he was planetside and scheduled to remain there for the next several hours, just being in his lair sent a chill down her spine.

But there was no question that this was the right place. She could feel the other woman’s pain through the Force, many times stronger than it had been in her dreams. As she pushed her hovering cargo pallet through the corridors, she took a deep breath to strengthen her resolve. She could do this, it wasn’t some kind of impossible task. Moreover, she had to do this – she couldn’t in anything resembling good conscience turn away from someone suffering as greatly as she could feel now. The air itself seemed to grow thick with pain as she drew closer the brig, the psychic emanations alone enough to make her head start to hurt. She could feel the residue of long hours of ceaseless torment, sense the ghost of electric discharges crawling up her arms. She wondered again how corrupt a being that could feel the Force would have to be to condone this, and then shuddered.

When the detention area’s thick security door finally opened before her, Twilight was confronted with four white-armored stormtrooper and a young man in a black uniform. The officer rose, and when she met his eyes the princess saw for just a moment a hollow, haunted look behind them. For a moment, she felt a twinge of pity for the man.

“Halt,” the officer said. “Present your authorization.”

“Of course,” Twilight said meekly, head low.

She handed the man a datapad she’d been holding for the last few minutes, moving her fingers only slightly. The man stared at the thing, frowned, then kept staring, totally engrossed by something he couldn’t quite pinpoint. He just knew that for some inexplicable reason this little datapad had become the most important thing in his life, such that the world around him was altogether drowned out. So little attention was he paying that he scarcely noticed when the woman who’d handed it off suddenly thrust both arms out in opposite directions. He didn’t hear the thuds as their helmeted heads hit the walls, or notice as they slumped limply to the ground.

“You’ve seen my credentials,” the woman’s voice barely registered in his mind. “Could you please give me the access codes to cell 1127?”

The officer didn’t know why, but he found himself idly mumbling a series of numbers. Part of him was confused, trying to make sense of what was going on, but the rest was far too engrossed in staring down at the datapad. He couldn’t tear his eyes from it, no matter how much his suppressed instincts were telling him to. Some corner of his eyes vaguely perceived her waving a hand.

“And would you please tell me where the physical controls for your alarm system are?”

“Far left panel…” he muttered. “Section five…”

“Thank you,” she said softly.

He didn’t resist as two fingers reach up to lightly tap him on the temple, didn’t feel anything as blackness overwhelmed his mind. He was already out before he hit the floor.

Twilight stepped gingerly over the unconscious Imperial, moving quickly towards the detention block’s primary control panel where he had been sitting. She worked quickly, ensuring that the alarm signal was set to “all clear”, and then reaching out with the Force. She didn’t have time for an elaborate slicing attempt against its doubtless well-guarded systems, but there was no need. She simply telekinetically broke critical wires and circuits inside the alarm’s control panel without ever physically touching it. Once she was done, one could try slamming every button and flipping every switch on it from now until doomsday and there would be no response.

That done, and wiping a few beads of sweat from her forehead, she rushed without further delay down the actual cell-block’s hallway, stopping immediately when she reached a particular door. She could feel the agony emanating from the other side, almost fancied she could hear the screaming through the soundproof door. She hurriedly punched in the series of numbers she’d been given, and too her immeasurable relief the door slid open unaccompanied by wailing alarms.

The sensation hit her like a punch in the gut. If she thought she’d been feeling the pain before, it had been but a drizzle before a hurricane. The pent-up sensations of weeks of endless torture roiled over her all at once: the agony wracking the Togruta woman’s frame, the naked terror and simmering rage comingling in her mind, the cold echoes of a much darker presence. It was all she could do for just a moment not to double over and throw up on the spot.

“Unauthorized accessor detected,” a mechanical monotone snapped her back to reality.

Twilight looked up. One of the five hovering black spheres had broken its orbit around the prisoner, moving towards her.

“Facial structure inconsistent with authorized personnel,” the torture droid went on. “Present identification codes or-”

Twilight reached out her hand and made a fist, and the spherical droid crumpled like an aluminum can.

As one droid crashed to the floor, smoking and sparking, the other four broke off their own orbits. Needles primed and electroshock prods crackled with energy, but these vile machines were built to brutalize the helpless, not to fight. Still less to fight a Force wielder. Twilight bared her teeth, then slammed them all into the wall opposite her with a single hand. With the other, she made a fist, and then released it. Once. Twice. Thrice. Four times. Each time a torture droid let out a binaric warble before being crushed into scrap with perhaps more force than was necessary.

The moment the last one hit the ground, Twilight eyes went the woman pinned to the table. She was an orange-skinned Togruta female, not much younger than the alicorn herself, hanging limply by numerous restraints affixed to her limbs, waist, chest, and neck. Her screaming had subsided when the droids pulled away, replaced now with the faintest of moans. She looked drained and emaciated, though she sported no obvious wounds. She wore white medical dressings about her chest, torso, and upper legs, and little else.

Twilight moved quickly to her, standing directly in front of the table. She concentrated a moment, putting two fingers from each hand together. The next instant she pulled the apart, and sheer force of her will tore open every last restraint binding the prisoner. The Togruta slipped limply off the table for the first time in weeks, and Twilight caught her. As she lifted her up with surprisingly strong arms, the other woman’s eyes flittered open slightly. They were bright blue, tinged with red blood vessels.

“Who…” she managed in the faintest of whispers, “are… you?”

“Shhh,” Twilight urged. “Save your strength. I’m going to get you out of here.”

“Who…” she mumbled, then scrunched up her eyes against some lingering pain. “Forget… it. Anywhere… beats here.”

Far below, of Shyish, Governer Seris was leading the monstrous black cyborg through one of the base’s vehicle bays, weaving between the legs of AT-TEs and AT-RTs. He was simultaneously holding up a portable holoprojector displaying a number of charts. The man talked as he walked, doing his best not to seem terrified or over sycophantic.

“As you can see, Lord Vader,” he said. “Armored losses since our occupation began have been minimal, and well within projected casualties of our annexation efforts. What… minimal resistance we have faced has been armed almost exclusively with light handheld weaponry, posing little risk to our-”

“Then perhaps you care to explain how images of insurgents posing atop the smoking wrecks of three of your heavy vehicles found their way onto holonet shadowfeeds running rampant throughout the Mid and Outer Rims?” The cyborg interrupted. “And have appeared on anti-Imperial propaganda in more than a hundred systems?”

“Ah yes,” Series swallowed. “That. Well, in truth that was the result-”

The hapless Governor was cut off yet again, as behind him the Dark Lord abruptly came to a halt. Hesitantly, Seris turned to look at Vader, only to find the black cyborg staring upwards towards the ceiling and paying absolutely no attention to him. Then, without warning, Vader turned about and began walking briskly back the way he had come. He spoke not a word, simply disappearing from sight behind one of the mighty walkers.

Seris breathed a sigh of relief.

73: The Dark Lord

Twilight hurried through the bowels of the Devastator, heart racing now more than ever. With the Jedi tucked as safely and softly as she could manage into a cargo container, she had completely committed to this. The plan wasn’t nearly as sound as she would have liked, but if she had waited for a perfect moment it almost certainly would have come too late. As it was the alicorn was taking several gambles: that no one would come checking on the detention block for a good little while, that there weren’t any security systems she didn’t know about, and that the ship’s officers would be terrified of admitting failure to Vader and would avoid contacting him as long as possible. None of that sat well with her rational mind, but what choice did she have?

The princess could feel the sweat trickling down her neck, soaking her uniform’s collar, but kept her face as stoic and businesslike as possible. Every psychology textbook she’d ever read emphasized the importance of the perception of normality, many pointed out that if one looked like one was supposed to be there, most would simply assume that you were. Twilight breathed carefully as she went, willing her pounding heart to slow down. Going into a panic wouldn’t help anyone, least of all herself or the other woman.

She made as good a time as could be expected through the Star Destroyer, her hovering pallet proving very effective in convincing people to move aside. With every soul she passed a small, irrational part of her fear that one of them might spot something, might raise the alarm or draw weapons on her. But none did, few even seemed to pay much attention to her at all. The crew was, if not friendly, at least politely disinterested in her, which under the current circumstances was even better. She was nearing the hanger bay where the supply shuttle was waiting for its crew to return, and no alarms were wailing. No one was rushing about at a call to arms.

Then she heard it.

The deep, rhythmic, mechanical breathing was unmistakable. Twilight’s heart skipped a beat the moment she heard, and she had to fight the urge to panic and bolt. He wasn’t supposed to be back here for hours! Had he sensed it? Did he sense her? But how could he have… Her eyes wandered to the box, then her horror redoubled. Of course, if she could feel the woman’s pain, and Bastila was correct when she guessed Vader was amplifying the signal as a lure, that would mean…

Questions dropped from her mind the instant he appeared at the far end of the hallway, black amidst a sea of sterile white light. Twilight swallowed, striving to suppress her presence in the Force, praying he didn’t notice. It took her just a moment to realize that she had stopped walking, and that there was suddenly no one else in sight. Just the towering black cyborg, striding towards her at an unhurried, steady pace.

Twilight hadn’t even had time to decide if she should gamble on walking right past him or just run as hard as she could in the opposite direction before Vader stretched out a hand. A supply crate’s top shuddered, and when he jerked it to the side the lid flew off, smashing into a wall. The half-conscious Togruta woman was exposed, lying on what few soft pieces of cloth Twilight had been able to find.

“Were you truly so foolish as to believe such an ill-conceived escape plan could work?” Vader came to a halt, still some distance away. “Ahsoka, your hopeless defiance will only bring you more pain.”

“I…” the woman groaned, struggling to sit up. “I won’t – ghrck!”

Vader’s outstretched hand had clenched into a fist, and at that same moment the Togruta’s own hands went to her throat. She had less than a second to grasp at it before she was torn from it, slammed headfirst into a wall, and then released. She crumpled to the floor in a heap, moaning softly.

“I’ll deal with you later,” he said, before turning his helmet to stare straight at Twilight. “You, I’ll deal with now.”

The cyborg drew a heavy-looking lightsaber from his belt. It blazed into life, crimson blade humming softly amidst the silence of the corridor. Vader started forwards. Twilight stared briefly, nervously, then glanced over at the woman she had come for. She made her decision, reaching out with her hand. Another crate burst open, and her own lightsaber came flying out. She caught it in one hand, twin blue blades hissing as they sprang into being.

“The weapon of a Jedi,” Vader paused again, closer this time. “Yet you do not match the profile of any in the Temple archives. Who taught you, girl?”

Twilight remained silent, holding a guard position. There was a moment of quiet, and then she felt a chill at the edge of her mind. Hurriedly, she clamped down on everything, throwing up every mental barrier she could think of.

“There is something… unusual about you. Tell me who your master is and where I can find them, and perhaps I shall make your death quick.”

“You’re getting nothing out of me.”

“If you truly believe that, then you are more foolish than I thought.”

The pressure on her mind increased, to the point it almost seemed a physical thing. It was like her brain was being enveloped and squeezed by some enormous, ice-cold snake. Twilight’s head began to hurt.

“Where do you come from?” Vader said. “Who sent you? You will tell me.”

“No!” Twilight cried, thrusting out both her hands.

The cargo pallet in front her, crates and all, was flung abruptly forward as a storm of projectiles. Vader stretched out his hand, the heavy objects simply crashed to the ground around him, smashing themselves to pieces with the force of the princess’ attack, but coming nowhere close to touching him. But the pressure on Twilight’s mind had eased, and she had already committed herself.

The alicorn launched herself at the cyborg in a burst of Force-imbued speed, using the distraction of the crates to close the distance. Her lightsaber blades flickered blindingly fast as she swung one at his face, following up with an immediate jab at his legs with the other when his blade caught her first attack. Vader simply took a step back, lightsaber swinging for her head. Twilight ducked beneath it. She had to take him out, now, before he was able to pry anything about who she truly was from her mind. Hopefully keeping his concentration on her sword would keep it off her brain.

And, for a woman as new to the lightsaber as she, it could not be said that Twilight was lacking. Her twin blades seemed more akin to azure streaks than coherent swords to the naked eye, each moving in a straightforward but unceasing pattern of strikes. The goal of each and every thrust she made was to keep Vader on the backfoot, one blade occupying his while the other aimed to slash some unprotected point. She advanced as quickly as she dared, body easily flowing into one of set of sequences she’d memorized after another. Her physique was quite literally built for this, everything from musculature to bone density carefully altered to allow her to move and strike as fast and hard as was physically possible for a humanoid of her stature.

For all that, Darth Vader didn’t even seem to be phased, much less worried. It was impossible to read his unmoving mask and most of her efforts were going into her lightsaber attacks, but she couldn’t detect any distress in the Force. The towering cyborg was overwhelmingly strong and, if not fast, seemed to know exactly where he needed to be at each and every moment. For every strike she made it seemed that his blade was there to meet it, either pressing down to threaten a contest of strength or else counter-swiping at an opening she’d left. Many times Twilight was forced to break off an attack sequence altogether when the crimson lightsaber zeroed in on some flaw and forced her to dodge for her life.

Twilight changed styles, switching off one blade in the middle of an attack and stabbing down at one of his legs, trying to use the extra reach afforded by her longer hilt. No success there either, Vader batted her sword aside with such force as to almost rip it from her hands. She reactivated the second blade just in time to parry a swing at her face. He didn’t let up, pressing and forcing the locked blades back towards her neck. She dodged to the side, forfeiting the contest and feeling the heat of the lightsaber come far too close to her hand. The princess went low, kicking out at her foe’s shin. Unfortunately for her, it connected.

The alicorn staggered as pain shot up her left leg – it was like kicking a stone wall! If she had truly been human, and her bones as vulnerable as theirs, it was all but certain that her foot would have broken right there. As it was, Darth Vader wasted no time in counterattacking, a vicious one-handed power blow sending the princess scrambling back.

The cyborg did not let up, immediately swinging at her torso and forcing a further retreat. Now Twilight was on the backfoot, struggling to bring her lightsaber to bear properly against the barrage of heavy power blows raining down on her. They weren’t coming as fast as she had done, but every swing felt like it had an avalanche behind it. Every time blue and red blades connected Twilight felt her arms shudder as they struggled not to buckle. She gave ground rapidly, trying to but herself out of reach, but Vader allowed her no such respite. No matter how fast she tried to back up he always seemed to be but a step away, giving her no room to try the more elaborate spinning moves the saberstaff favored. He was unrelenting, untiring, seemingly unstoppable.

It was as Twilight was backing up yet further, one blade forced downwards by his, that Vader’s left hand suddenly shot out. He seized her saberstaff’s elongated hilt directly at its center point, his enormous strength immediately bringing it to a sudden and terrible halt. Twilight’s eyes had barely had time to widen before his crimson blade shot right past her guard.

Twilight screamed as Vader’s lightsaber cleaved her left arm off at the elbow.

Even as the overwhelming wave of pain washed over her brain, she felt the cyborg simply tear the lightsaber from her remaining hand. Vader tossed the now-deactivated hilt aside with a flick of his wrist, then made a gesture with his left hand. Twilight slammed back onto the wall and, as Vader made a fist, felt iron bands clamping about her throat.

“All too easy,” Vader commented.

Twilight’s body screamed with shock, agony reaching up from her severed limb and threatening to drown her mind in it. Her other hand was at her throat, mindlessly grasping at the obstruction that was not there. Her feet kicked desperately at nothing, while the rest of her simply spasmed.

“As I said,” Vader stepped over her severed arm, bringing his lightsaber to within an inch of her face. “You will tell me who you are and who trained you.”

Even as he spoke Twilight could feel the tendrils of his mind forcing their way into hers once more. Her mental barriers began to crumble, agony and oxygen deprivation making concentration all but impossible.

“Even now you try to resist. What are you hiding, girl?”

The red blade moved even closer, now all but touching her left eyeball. She squeezed her eyes shut out of blind instinct, but the radiating heat told her fading mind everything.

“Perhaps more pain is necessary,” she dimly heard the cyborg say. “No matter, it is in ample supply.”

Then, without warning, there came a sudden surge in the Force. Heavy boots staggered, and the pressure on Twilight’s throat vanished. She collapsed to the floor in a heap, then desperately lashed out with the Force. Her eyes snapped open again and were rewarded with the sight of Vader, caught his attention elsewhere, flying back down the corridor.

Twilight gasped for air, hand frantically massaging her windpipe even while what was left of her other arm pinned itself to her stomach. She recovered more quickly than a human had any right to, her immortal flesh simply more resilient than a natural being. Her eyes darted around, seeking the source of her salvation. They quickly settled on the Togruta woman – Ahsoka – now on her knees with arms outstretched.

“Thanks,” Twilight managed to mouth.

“No… problem…” Ahsoka breathed heavily.

“What is it you that hope to gain from this futile defiance?” a booming bass voice cut into the brief reverie.

Twilight eyes shot back in the opposite direction. Vader stood there, tall and menacing, no longer even bothering with his lightsaber.

“You cannot stop me,” he said, taking one step forward. “I am more powerful than either of you.”

“We’ll…” Ahsoka bared her teeth, “see about that!”

The Togruta thrust out both hands again, the Force surging around her. From the ground, Twilight stretched out her own hand and added what energy she could. Darth Vader raised one black-gloved hand to meet them. For a moment the hallway was still, all three looking almost ridiculous as they stared at one another with arms outstretched. Then the moment was over and Twilight, Ahsoka, and whatever happened to be in the immediate vicinity were blasted with an overwhelming shockwave of invisible energy.

Alicorn and Togruta went flying, soaring through the air all the way to the T-intersection where the corridor ended. Smacking painfully into the wall, they collapsed to the ground and were immediately bombarded with debris. Twilight experienced the charming sensation of being hit in the face with her own severed arm.

Twilight blinked rapidly, trying to clear away the tears of pain that continued to well up inside her eyes. When she looked up from where she lay, she saw Vader striding unhurriedly down the hallway towards them.

“How…” Ahsoka was clutching her head, “do we…”

“We… don’t…” Twilight managed through gritted teeth. “Run.”

The Togruta took one look at the cyborg walking calmly towards them, then grabbed the hilt of Twilight’s saberstaff with one hand. The other she offered to the princess.

“Come on,” she hissed as Vader drew nearer. “Hurry!”

Twilight took several deep breaths, and then took it. Ahsoka hauled her, a bit unsteadily, to her feet. Then, arm in arm, the two women fled for their lives.

74: Run

As he strode purposefully down the hallway, Darth Vader felt no sense of urgency. The idea that either Ahsoka or this strange girl could evade his senses onboard his own ship was ridiculous. The idea that either of them might pose a threat might have been laughable, if he had ever laughed. There was no escape for either of them, nowhere to run, no place he could not sense their presence.

Vader turned the corner where they had bolted. They were already out of mundane sight, but no matter. He knew right where they were. He might have called on the dark side to bolster his cybernetic legs, to temporarily overcome the bulky suit and catch up with them immediately, but why would he? He knew this ship inside and out.

Moreover, Ahsoka’s persistent willfulness in the face of torture was becoming an irritant. Allowing her to run herself ragged trying hopelessly to escape, only to see with her own eyes that there was no way, might well be just the solution. Creeping despair could often do what pain alone failed to accomplish. It might be better to wait to catch up until she had exhausted herself and the futility of her hope had been made plain. Then kill her would-be rescuer in front of her – after tearing what he wished to know from that girl’s mind, of course.

Still, just because Vader felt entirely in control did not mean he was foolish enough to take unnecessary chances. The Sith Lord reached calmly for his commlink as he walked.

“Captain Orion,” he demanded.

“Yes, Lord Vader?” the man’s voice replied a moment later. “Shall we dispatch Stormtroopers to your location now?”

“No.” The man had far too little faith in the power of the Force. “I want you to move the 501^st to secure all docking bays and escape pods without delay. No ship is to enter or leave, no escape pod is to be jettisoned until I give word. All docking bay doors are to be sealed. Open fire on any ship or pod attempting to leave the Devastator. Use ion cannons and tractor beams only. Am I understood?”

“Yes, my lord,” Orion said hastily.

“Inform all troopers to set their weapons for stun. A Togruta female and human woman in an Imperial uniform missing her left arm are loose in the ship. I want them alive.”

“It will be done,” the officer promised.

“I leave you to it. Do not fail me.”

Ahsoka and her one-armed rescuer ran through the bowels of the Star Destroyer like they never had before. They darted down strangely empty halls and corridors, ducked through meeting rooms, and wove through cargo holds. All the while the Togruta could keenly sense the presence of her master’s killer through the Force, never in sight but never far away. He was making no effort to hide himself, nor did he seem to be trying to catch up. He was just… there, relentless and implacable.

As she ran and the Force flowed freely through her for the first time in weeks, Ahsoka found herself feeling much better far more quickly than she’d expected. Vader droids had put her through weeks of unceasing pain, given her the barest minimum of rest and nutrition – but they’d also sutured up the tissue where she’d be stabbed through the gut. They hadn’t done any permanent damage, and with the pain finally receding she could focus again.

The same couldn’t be said for her companion. The woman was taking it remarkably well all things considered, but a dismembered limb is a dismembered limb however resilient you are. She was clutching the charred stump of her arm with her hand, holding it close to her chest. Her awareness seemed only half there at best. Once she even stumbled and fell, unable to catch herself with only one arm. The stub of her left arm hit the ground under her body. Immediately her eyes and scrunched up, pain radiating from her.

Ahsoka quickly turned around, rushing to the other woman’s side. She knelt, worked her arm under her right shoulder, and tugged. They rose together unsteadily, the other woman’s legs trembling and the Togruta bearing most of her weight. They set off again at a reduced pace, Ahsoka at some points virtually carrying the other woman.

“Urgh…” the human said through clenched teeth. “Sorry.”

Ahsoka looked at her as though she were insane.

“Don’t be. You got me out of the cell, and anywhere’s better than there. If anything, I’m sorry,” Ahsoka panted a little. “You got your arm cut off trying to defend me. You could easily have run off and left me to Vader. You didn’t, and for a complete stranger!”

“It may not be for… nrgh… anything,” she groaned. “He’s close. I can feel it.”

“He’s been close… the whole time,” she took a deep breath. “I don’t think he’s trying… to catch up.”

“Just to keep us moving.”

“Right,” Ahsoka nodded. “I’ve noticed… I haven’t sensed much life where we’ve been. There are tens of thousands of people… on board a Star Destroyer.”

“The… docking bays,” the other woman managed.

“That’s why he isn’t trying to catch up. He knows… there’s nowhere to go.”

“We can… fight?”

Ahsoka looked at her. There was a small possibility that she could fight her way through the doubtlessly enhanced security, hijack a ship, and blast off before Vader could catch up, even accounting for the unfamiliar saberstaff she held. But to do that while protecting this woman? All but impossible. And abandoning her was simply out of the question, this woman had risked life and limb to save someone she didn’t even know.

“No…” Ahsoka breathed. “We’d never make it… to ship. It’d be right back to cell… and I won’t let that happen. Ever. We ought to… go for the reactor.”

“What?”

“If they’re trying to keep us corralled in the ship… they may have left it undermanned. We could overload it, bring the ship and the monster down with us.”

“Are you… urk… insane? We have to out of… here!” the other woman was still clutching her stump arm tightly, eyes scrunched tightly.

“We won’t make it through bay security,” Ahsoka shook her head. “Not with you injured and Vader on our tails. If he catches us, there’s no way we can beat him right now. I’ll go back to that cell and…” she shuddered at the thought. “I won’t let it happen. I’ll die first.”

“Can still… get away…” she managed, grinding her teeth.

“How, you have a plan b?”

“Sort of…” Ahsoka sensed conflict in her mind. “I really didn’t want to…”

“It’s that or we both die,” Ahsoka tightened her grip on the saber. “I won’t let myself be taken alive. Not again.”

There was a brief pause as both women more staggered than ran down one of the Star Destroyer’s countless hallways. Ahsoka half thought she could hear Darth Vader’s mechanical breathing in the quiet, but the more rational bits of her dismissed that as simple imagination. After a little bit, she spoke again.

“Alright… get near… the hull,” she managed. “Close as we can… to the exterior.”

“The hull?” Ahsoka might have laughed in a less serious moment. “You want us to cut our way out? I can’t breathe in space. Or fly through it. Can you?”

“Just… trust me,” the other woman answered.

Ahsoka hesitated for a moment, her instincts still telling her to go for the ship’s main reactor. If she could destroy that she and the other woman would certainly die, but the ship would go down, likely taking Vader with it. He’d killed her master, tried to torture her into becoming a monster like him, and then maimed this poor woman who’d tried to help. If she had had any doubts Anakin Skywalker was dead, he had put them to rest. That monster had to die for the good of the galaxy, and to avenge the Anakin she’d known.

But… this woman had risked everything to help her, a total stranger. Her own life was a price Ahsoka was willing to pay to end Vader, but hers? Could she in good conscience drag a stranger into martyrdom if there was even a chance of saving her life? By all rights the answer should be yes, the human was clearly delirious from pain. How would going near the hull help them? Still…

Ahsoka sighed wearily, some habits too ingrained to ignore.

With the Togruta guiding and bearing most of the weight for the pair, they turned aside at the next corridor. They continued to run and limp along as best they could, the loomed dark presence never far behind. Each new turn took them closer to the ship’s armored hull and away from its deeply-buried reactor core, each step away increasing the conflict in Ahsoka’s mind. This was insane! They were going to pin themselves in if they weren’t careful! She could sense the presence of more life as they drew close to the exterior, doubtless Imperials manning and guarding the warship’s many weapons emplacements.

“Stretch out… your mind,” the woman said as they rounded one corner, now all but next to the outer hull. “Can you feel anyone… in space… any minds?”

Crazy as it seemed, Ahsoka did as her companion asked. Beyond the massive ship’s superstructure she could sense a number of dim minds, mostly moving swiftly. Fighter pilots on patrol, most likely. A few were close, some further away. Other minds seemed to be holding position relative to the Star Destroyer – shuttles or freighters of some sort, she guessed. But how did that help them?

“I sense…” the woman winced again. “Two minds… not far from the ship… not moving…”

“Probably a supply ship of some kind, cut off when Vader locked this place down,” Ahsoka agreed, her keen hearing already picking up the sounds of heavy boots drawing closer, while they were barely moving at all. “What does that charge? We can’t fly through space towards it.”

“Just trust me… and don’t resist…” Ahsoka could feel the other woman gathering the Force around her. “Only one shot at this…”

“Don’t resist what?” The Force was doing strange things, flowing in patterns she’d never seen before. “What are you doing?”

“This,” she said quietly.

It was like nothing Ahsoka had ever experienced. One moment she was standing in the middle of a Star Destroyer’s corridor, completely supporting her very strange rescuer with one shoulder. The next there was a surge of Force energy, coinciding with a flash of purple. The Togruta blinked, and found herself standing in what looked to be some kind of dark cargo hold. The other woman groaned, slumping off Ahsoka’s shoulder to hit the deck with a dull thud.

Ahsoka reeled back, brain scrambling to process what had just apparently happened. She only got a few seconds before a door to her side opened, revealing a lighted cockpit and a man in an Imperial uniform standing in it. He saw her, yelped, and went for the blaster at his hip. Well-practiced martial drills sprang immediately to mind.

Ahsoka threw herself at the man, one azure blade of her rescuer’s saberstaff flaring into life. Before the Imperial’s blaster was halfway out of its holster she ran him through with it, then kicked his corpse off the lightsaber a moment later. Behind him, the other pilot screamed, jumping from her chair with her empty hands thrust before her.

“No! Please don’t-”

The Togruta ended her sentence with a slash across the heart.

Even while the woman’s carcass was still smoking, Ahsoka was looking around. This cockpit was almost identical to those of several classes of shuttle she’d had the occasion to fly during the Clone Wars – she knew roughly what everything was. More importantly, she knew she had a few minutes at best before Vader realized something of what had happened, if that. Stepping right over the crew’s bodies, she sat down in the pilot’s chair and began firing up the engines.

“Shuttle Bounty, you are not authorized to move from your current position,” came a voice over the shuttle’s comm. “Lord Vader has ordered all ships to hold course until the lockdown is complete.”

By way of answer, Ahsoka jerked the ship’s throttle hard, taking the Lambda-class bird into a sudden and jerky dive past the Star Destroyer’s superstructure. She angled the ship along its underside and past the rear engines, moving rapidly out of the arc of its tractor beams. As a pair of TIE fighters moved to an intercept course, she squeezed down on a trigger. The shuttle’s forward laser cannons opened up, blowing one fighter out of the sky. The other one angled sharply away, but the Togruta didn’t let up until it and its pilot were a burning ball of plasma in the cold void. Very cathartic.

The Devastator opened fire, white ion bolts filling the space around the hijacked shuttle. But its weapons were primarily designed to combat capital ships, and were mostly forward-facing to begin with. The great behemoth was beginning to turn, but Ahsoka could already tell it would be too slow. The TIE fighters swarming like hornets from their nest might have been another matter, but they seemed reluctant to fire. Instead, they were soaring out and ahead of the slower shuttlecraft, then pulling elaborate maneuvers directly in her path.

It just a moment for Ahsoka to put it together. The Star Destroyer was using weapons meant to disable rather than kill, but the fighters weren’t equipped with anything beyond their laser cannons. The Empire’s cheapskate ways robbed them of tactical versatility. They more afraid of what Vader would do to them if they violated orders than being blasted out of the sky!

Taking a gamble, Ahoska transferred all power from forward shields to rear and pushed the throttle to maximum. A lucky ion shot from the Star Destroyer crackled against the shield, but it held for the moment. She squeezed down on the trigger with both hands, and a steady stream of laser fire erupted from the shuttle’s cannons. TIE fighters, trying desperately to corral her rather than attack, were shot out of the sky one after the other in a series of very satisfying explosions.

“Spike…” she vaguely heard the other woman moan, presumably into some commlink. “Get out of here… meet me back… where we came from… understand?”

There was a reply of some sort, but Ahsoka didn’t hear it. The shuttle rocked as one fighter, apparently having decided potential death later was better than sure death now, broke pattern and opened fire. Green lasers clipped the shuttle’s topmost wing, blasting chunks of armor from its right side. The Force guiding her actions, she jerked the shuttle hard left, just in time to avoid another ion shot from the Devastator. The white bolt hit her shieldless antagonist instead, more than enough to instantly overload every system on the fragile craft. Ahsoka blasted the helpless pilot out of the sky just the same.

The sensors on the dashboard lit up as the navicomputer signaled its readiness. She pulled the shuttle directly away from the planet as fast as it could manage. Behind her, the Devastator had finally managed to come about, unleashing an all-out broadside with its ion cannons. Sensors indicated that it was finally launching more TIEs, more than two dozen soaring from its many hangers. She had no doubt Vader himself was among them. But it was already too late.

Finally, the shuttle passed beyond Shyish’s gravity well, and with that beyond the monster’s reach. Ahsoka grabbed a lever and pulled, and space around her turned blue as the shuttle shot into hyperspace.

75: Trust Me

“There,” Ahsoka said, several minutes later. “All done.”

The Togruta finished tying off the white medical wrappings and sat back in her chair, feeling spent. Beside her, the as-yet nameless human woman was gingerly trying to rest her stump of a left arm against her chest. In some ways, she was lucky. Lightsabers cauterize the wounds they make, otherwise she would certainly have bled out. On the other hand, melted bits of her uniform jacket had fused with the charred flesh and had had to be carefully pried out before becoming vectors for infection. That couldn’t have been pleasant, and they weren’t lucky enough to have stolen a ship with painkillers.

“…Thanks,” the woman managed, leaning back in the copilot’s seat and closing her eyes.

“I’m the one who should thank you. You risked everything to help someone you’d never met before in your life. Not many people would do that.” Ahsoka paused, but when the other woman said nothing, coughed a little awkwardly. “Anyway… I’m Ahsoka. Ahsoka Tano. Pleased to meet you.”

“I… go by Dawn…” she muttered softly, still not opening. “Talk later… please.”

“Of course,” she watched the human woman nod off almost immediately, not that she couldn’t understand why.

The Togruta wished that she could join her, the energizing blend of adrenaline and Force energies was already starting to wear off, and her body was beginning to remember that she’d been starved and denied sleep for weeks. But she couldn’t sleep, not yet. They had to stop off and do several more hyperspace jumps in random directions before she could let herself rest. Otherwise Anakin – no, Vader – would be able to trace them easily. She sighed.

“There’s,” Ahsoka began, several hours later, walking back into the cockpit.

“No food in here,” Twilight finished for her. “I checked the shipping manifest.”

“Mechanical parts and lubricants mostly,” Ahsoka said with just a touch of bitterness as she sat back down. “Couldn’t the Empire at least spring for some emergency ration bars?”

“Guess they didn’t think anyone was going to need them,” the alicorn pointed out. “This was just a ground-to-orbit cargo hauler on Shyish, after all. I doubt they expected it to go very far.”

“Isn’t that just our luck?” the Togruta mumbled irritably, before looking up and blinking. “Sorry, I shouldn’t be complaining.”

“You were tortured for days,” Twilight said in a low tone.

“Weeks, actually,” Ahsoka muttered, before shaking her head. “But it was just pain. Vader wanted me to turn, not die. You lost your arm.”

“It’s not that bad,” Twilight lied. In truth, the endless throb hadn’t dulled at all until she’d done a little magic while Ahsoka was searching the cargo hold.

“You can be straight with me. I’ve seen amputations before, back in the Clone Wars. I can tell it’s pretty bad.” She looked sympathetic. “Most of the arm just outright hacked off, then messed with only a few minutes later. And no painkillers.” She paused. “Did your master ever teach you to go into a healing trance? Now would be a really good time.”

“No need,” Twilight shook her head. “I’ll be alright.”

“You need medical attention. Anesthetics, antibacterials, and neural therapy. If we don’t work to save those nerves in your arm you may not be able to get a prosthetic that works right.” Ahsoka looked down. “I just wish I knew someone we could trust for that. The Empire’s been drafting a lot of best surgeons in the galaxy for its military buildup. Not really sure who’s left that’d be up for it.”

“I’ll be alright,” Twilight answered, a little more forcefully.

“You don’t need to pretend to me,” Ahsoka said gently. “I know you must be in a lot of pain, and you don’t want me to worry, but it’s alright. I won’t think less of you for admitting it hurts. How could I?” she smiled dryly. “You gave it up to help me. I owe you big time, and the first thing I need to do is make sure you have two working arms again.”

“I’m serious,” Twilight sat up straighter, wincing at the shot of pain. “I really don’t need urgent medical attention. We should focus on meeting back up with Spike before anything else. He needs me.”

“Your friend? I’m sure he’d understand a brief detour to at least make sure your arm is stable and can be fitted with a prosthetic.” Ahsoka frowned. “Do you genuinely not understand how serious that injury is? You could wind up crippled for rest of your days, and after what happened with Vader, that’s a death sentence guaranteed.” She held up Twilight’s saberstaff. “You can’t use one of these with one hand.”

“I’m not worried about that right now. My friend’s safety is more important to me.”

“And how can you protect him if you’re crippled for life?”

“I won’t be, trust me.”

“How can you be sure of that without even the most basic medical attention?”

“I…” Twilight paused for a moment, uncertain. “I… It will grow back.”

“Grow… back?” Ahsoka blinked. “You… what?”

“My arm will… grow back after a while,” Twilight admitted quietly. “Any prosthetic that was fitted on would be outgrown and useless in weeks, if not days. I’d much rather go make sure Spike is alright than waste time on that.”

“Did Vader give you a concussion when he slammed you against that wall? Humans don’t regrow lost-” Ahsoka’s eyes widened, then narrowed. “First the teleportation, now this? You… aren’t a human, are you?”

“No,” Twilight shook her head.

“What… exactly are you, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“That, I do mind,” Twilight answered. “I prefer no one really know.”

“Well, um… alright. If you’re sure.” Ahsoka looked her over. “Doesn’t change the fact that I owe you my life.”

“Likewise,” Twilight said. “Vader would have killed me if not for you.”

“You wouldn’t have been in danger at all if it weren’t for me. And he was going to do much worse to me.” Ahsoka sat back on her chair. “So, you’re certain you want to go straight to your friend?”

“Positive.”

“Alright,” the Togruta sighed. “Where to?”

“Dantooine,” said Twilight. “He’ll go to Dantooine.”

On board the Devastator, Sergeant Ilis Oansen, the luckless man who had been charged with overseeing the detention corridor during the breakout, was on his knees. One hand was clawing at his own throat, the other was outstretched desperately, almost pitifully, as if silently pleading for help or mercy. He was to receive neither.

“I do not tolerate failures,” Darth Vader said to the Star Destroyer’s assembled officers as his chosen victim choked slowly behind him. “I do not tolerate insults.” He raised black gloved hand, and Oansen was pulled off the ground with legs kicking, still frantically trying to breathe. “And I do not tolerate losses.” He clenched his fist, and the man’s neck audibly snapped.

The corpse collapsed to the floor like a puppet with its strings cut, but almost no one dared take their eyes off the Sith Lord. None did so when they imagined him looking at them. Fear, raw and primal, oozed from these men’s every pore, despite the almost-universal attempts at appearing disciplined. He could feel it in their minds, taste it in the darkest corners of their hearts. He gave them a moment to fester in it, before continuing.

“Captain Orion,” he said. “Step forward.”

Even without the aid of the Force, the man was obviously on verge of fainting on the spot, but all the same did as bid. Many officers had coveted his station before, none did now.

“Perhaps you can explain why it was that a cargo shuttle was allowed so close to the ship yet so far outside its primary firing arcs.”

“M-My lord,” he swallowed. “The shuttle was an i-inbound cargo transport from the planet. All codes were in order. We d-didn’t have any r-reason to believe it would be a problem.”

“After having been infiltrated by a similar cargo shuttle.”

It went without saying that the remainder of the crew the strange woman had arrived with had already been seized, alongside everyone on the planet’s surface having anything to do with personnel assignments to it. To allow an enemy agent onto Vader’s own ship was incompetence far past redemption. The only question was how much could be learned of the woman from them before they died.

“We thought to keep the a-arcs clear of friendly vessels,” Orion managed. “In case of a launch from a bay or an escape pod being jettisoned.”

“Give me one reason to let you live.”

“I-It won’t h-happen again, my lord! I s-swear!”

“No,” Vader closed his fist. “It won’t.”

When the Captain’s corpse hit the ground, the cyborg turned his baleful gaze onto the remaining officers. There were more here who should die, he knew, from gunnery officers that had so dismally failed to disable the shuttle to squadron commanders who had made their fighters such easy targets for the escapees. And perhaps they would, in time. But for now, the point had been made.

“Return to your stations,” he ordered. “See to it that the Devastator is ready to be under way as soon as I give the command.”

They scattered like drochs fleeing sunlight, his men, so eager to put distance between themselves and their master that they practically ran out the doorway. If any had dared harbor the slightest doubts about their lord’s potency after the breakout, they were now thoroughly laid to rest. It was as it should be, the cyborg thought as he turned away from them. At least one thing was.

But then there was that girl, that girl who had dared to steal his future apprentice from him. And not just that, but also to raise a blade against him and to display an ability with the Force that he, a Dark Lord of the Sith, did not know. The insults she’d raised against him were manifold, her crimes far beyond the pale. The severed arm now carefully frozen by his medical droids was but the first taste of the wrath she would come to know. Anger filled him as he stormed through the corridors towards his chambers, feeding his power over the dark side.

She would pay dearly for her affront, of that much she could be certain.

76: A New Friend

Several uncomfortable, hungry days later the shuttle Bounty broke hyperspace above Dantooine, much to the relief of its occupants. Ahsoka piloted it towards the surface Dawn had indicated, feeling considerably better after spending most of the trip in a healing trance. Her stomach was seriously starting to get painful, though. As to her mysterious rescuer, the Togruta wasn’t entirely sure but it did look as though the stump of her arm had gotten slightly longer between her naps. Maybe there was something to it after all.

As the tri-winged shuttle soared over majesty, sunny plains, Ahsoka kept a wary eye on the scanners. This planet was sparsely populated and had no known Imperial presence, but whatever her master had become he was not one to be underestimated. It was entirely possible that he had discovered Dawn’s friend and tracked him here, or even taken his ship directly to rendezvous after tearing the location from Spike’s mind. That sounded like something Anakin might do. Ahsoka smiled briefly as she reminisced, then grimaced as reality sank back in.

Despite her misgivings, the skies around them remained clear of everything but birds. The clouds were light, white, and fluffy, and the sun was shining peacefully overhead. Even the Force here felt tranquil and soothing, seemingly almost exempt from the darkness smothering the galaxy. It wasn’t too long before the shuttle’s scanners picked up a freighter, and Hwk-290 by the looks of it, landed amongst the grassy plains. Its engines were primed and it didn’t seem armed, but Ahsoka kept the Lambda’s forward laser cannons pointed at it anyway as she slowly circled in for landing. After what had happened last time, she didn’t feel like taking chances.

When nothing untoward happened, Ahsoka guided the shuttle down nice and easy, again keeping its nose pointed directly at the other ship. She pulled a lever and lowered the landing ramp, but didn’t deactivate the engines. Instead, she looked over at Dawn.

“Can you sense him?” Ahsoka asked. “Is your friend on board?”

“Yes,” Dawn nodded after a moment. “Just him, no one else but the droid pilot. It’s fine.”

“People can conceal their Force signature,” Ahsoka cautioned, but the other woman was already getting up.

Ahsoka sighed and powered down the engines, grabbed the saberstaff just in case, and then followed the other woman down out the cockpit and down the landing ramp. The first thing that hit her, when she finally stepped out of sterile, recycled spaceship air and into nature was how beautiful it was. The cool breeze, with the it rich, earthy smells. The warm sun overhead, the soft grasses under her still shoeless feet. The second thing that struck her was that she was hungry. Very, very, very hungry.

While under Vader’s “care”, Ahsoka had been injected with just enough liquid nutrients to keep her body’s health from deteriorating, but not enough to maintain her athletic figure. She’d lost weight, a good deal of it muscle. Add to that the days spent in a shuttle with not a scrap of food from top to bottom, and the Togruta was fairly certain that she hadn’t actually eaten anything in more than a month. The sight and smell of grasslands, reminiscent of those on her homeworld of Shili, was causing her species old hunting instincts to kick in, reminding her of just how long it had been. What she wouldn’t give for a little meat right now. At the thought of it, her stomach rumbled painfully.

Ahead of her, Dawn was racing towards… well, someone very short judging by the ripples in the grass. Ahsoka chided herself for getting distracted when the freighter’s landing ramp had come down, then jogged lightly to catch up. The not-so-human woman gave almost girlish squeal of delight a second later, half reaching down, half catching a little purple figure in her remaining arm.

“Spike!” she said, hugging him close to her chest. “I’m so glad you’re alright! I’m so sorry I left you there alone!”

“I almost thought I lost you, Twilight,” the small, chubby, purple reptile answered back. “And… what happened to your arm?? Are you alright?”

“I’m fine, don’t worry,” she said as she squeezed him. “The arm will come back after a while. I’m just happy to see you made it here safe and sound.”

“But how did you lose an arm?” Spike protested. “Who hurt you? Don’t you need medicine?”

“I always knew the risks, Spike,” she assured him. “It’s nothing that won’t heal, given time. You of all people know how insanely resilient… my kind’s biology is.”

“Doesn’t it hurt you?” Ahsoka could hear the concern writ large in his voice, see it in his eyes. “That’s a really serious injury. Shouldn’t you have gone to a doctor or something before you came here?”

“Don’t be silly, I couldn’t take chances that you might get hurt.”

“Me?! What about you? I didn’t even do anything but sit in the ship and wait for you.”

“But the Empire could have traced the ship to me, I had to make sure you were alright before anything else. You mean the world to me."

Ahsoka didn’t catch her reply. The passive echolocation of the long montrals atop her head alerted her to the movement of something small behind her, at the same time as her stomach gave another rumbling cry. It was obvious this fellow wasn’t a threat, so where was the harm? She stretched out her mind, calling on her species natural affinity for the living Force, and felt the presence of a tiny heartbeat not far away.

Ahsoka whirled around snatched up the little rodent in one swift movement. In a flash she buried her sharp canines in its neck, killing the creature almost instantly. Warm blood, tasting faintly of iron, trickled down her throat like manna from heaven. As she squatted there, hunched over her prey, the Togruta concluded that nothing had ever tasted better in her life.

“-and this is a new friend,” she vaguely heard Dawn – or was it Twilight? – saying. “She’s the one Vader had caught, and she saved my life on board his ship. Spike, I’d like you to meet Ahsoka…”

Hearing her name, the ex-Jedi looked up at the pair of them, still hunched over in the grass, dressed only in worn medical wrappings, mouth full of wild rodent, blood trickling down her orange chin.

“…Tano?”

The two were staring.

“What?” she mumbled.

Thunder crashed and lightning flashed on the graveyard moon of Kohlma. A torrential downpour swept over the lands, through the valleys, and over the mountains. It pounded on the roofs of the commandeered citadel’s many buildings and towers, sounding for all the world like the crack of gunfire. Inside the dark structure voices whispered from blackened corners and just beyond eyesight, the echoes of victims and villains alike now joined as one. They spoke a hundred languages, some long extinct, revealing a message only the insane would truly understand.

Luna ignored all of it, immersed deep in mediation before a glowing blue window. Once, the leader of the cult that had dwelt here had ordered the deaths of her enemies from this exact spot, and the dark side was particularly potent. Stretching out into its currents with her mind, the princess beheld a bewildering variety of potential futures twisting in every direction out into infinity. The sheer number of possibilities for even a lowly soul was enough to occupy one’s attention for a human lifetime, if not more. But she wasn’t here simply to observe.

Calling on her pent-up bitterness, frustration, anger, and hatred, the alicorn exerted her will. There were countless possibilities here, but only one reality, and she was determined that it would be the one she chose. Through the dark side it was possible not just to see the future to actively mold it, to force destiny down a desired path rather than blindly acquiescing to it. It might take years, decades, or even centuries for the full effects to be felt, but an immortal has patience like no other. She wanted fate to bring her to the delicious future that she had seen, and she was determined to make it whether it liked it or not.

But whatever progress she might have made that day, the alicorn never found out. The echoing sound of mechanical feet tramping along the stone floor broke her concentration, yanking her from the immaterial realm of possibility to cold hard reality. She opened her eyes to find EV-T3R walking towards her, mechanical mind entirely immune and oblivious to the lingering Force energies.

“What do you want?” she said, irritably. “I am occupied.”

“Pardon the interruption, mistress,” said the droid. “But Lord Vader has sent a message. He says that he would have words with you.”

Author's Notes:

Thus ends Act IV of Empire and Rebellion.