Malachor Chapter 1

"…I won't leave you. Not this time." Said the resolute Commander Ahsoka Tano of the Rebel Alliance, with a face containing equal measures of love, disappointment, and defiant hope.

Something about that face triggered a memory in Vader. Later, he would never be able to swear exactly what he remembered or what exactly had caused him to pause. But pause he did. Looking into eyes which looked at him only with concern and affection, the helmeted Dark Lord lowered his lightsaber.

"Do you know what I have done?" sneered Vader. "Do you know how many of your rebel friends I have killed?"

The Togruta did not rise to the bait. "Master, war does terrible thing to people. Given time it warps even basic realities like love and hate or right and wrong."

"Pity!" spat Vader. "That's all you have to offer me? Hate me for the wrongs I have done. It will make you powerful."

"I don't need that kind of power and I never have." Commander Tano said as she sank to the floor of the pyramid into a position reminiscent of old Jedi meditative poses.

"I have slain helpless jedi younglings for nothing more than the promise of the life of another! I have overthrown democratic government for a manipulative master! I live a life of giving and taking fear and anger and hate. Even your basic sense of justice must be crying out for my death. Pick up your weapon! FIGHT ME!" Cried the Sith Lord in a voice reverberating half through the helmet and half through his own natural voicebox, punctuated only by the wheezing of breath.

"Only if I condemn myself could I do that." Said the seated Togruta. "I left you alone with the galaxy ablaze and selfishly turned away from duty and friends. Then I fought and stole like a common thief. The little lies that I tell myself to justify theft, deceit, dishonor, and ambush pile up. I did not come to the Rebellion to fight you but for atonement and a greater good."

A spark of anger and self-loathing flared, both in the Dark Lord's unhelmeted eye and his Force presence. On the edges of his consciousness hounded memories of guilt and love, kept at bay, seemingly, only by the harsh ozone and buzzing of the violently red lightsaber.

As if the Dark Lord hoped to banish his problems away, he viciously swung his lightsaber in a sideways strike at his seated opponent's head. The Togruta, still seated, interdicted the swipe inches from her head with a previously unlit lightsaber. "Temper, temper, Master" she said with a trace of old teasing which was way out of place compared to the nearly mortal blow.

The unexpected resistance, from a position of weakness, cause the weakened, injured, and wheezing Dark Lord to topple over. Physically tripping over him, he fell sideways to the floor and hit the undamaged cheek of his helmet against the marbled floor of the Sith Temple.

"I guess you've gotten a little rusty and out of balance without me to keep you in shape." The Rebel Commander said with an increasing amount of humor. For a fleeting moment, Vader counted that the toothy grin his former Padawan was displaying was the first smile he had seen, other than the Emperor's pale grimace, since before his wife had died.

Lying helplessly on the floor, for the moment, his bared naked eye glared up at the seated Togruta with a sharp frown as he said "When I kill you, I shall carve that grin out of your head and make you eat each one of those teeth as you beg for your own impending death."

"Well, I can understand jealously about eating as I'll bet you haven't eaten a proper meal in that suit in a long time." Said Commander Tano seemingly unfazed by the explicit death threat.

The Dark Lord tried to rise, but between injury and the smooth marbled floor he could not find a purchase point. With another crashing clang his helmeted cheek once again hit the floor.

"Wow Master, hard-headed much?" The young woman was now unabashedly flashing a smile of humor and understanding.

Moving past his physical inability, the Dark Lord tried to grasp the words that his former Padawan had offered him, "So what, you think your soul is as tarnished as mine? You still shine a bright white light in the Force. Almost as much as our more self-righteous…former colleagues." The Dark Lord's unhelmeted brow crinkled just a little bit as he winced at his own attempt to be verbally delicate. The wince redoubled when he saw his former Padawan's face pinch just a little bit at the awkward allusion to the slaughtered Jedi.

"I wouldn't know about the others. I gave them up as useless when I left the order. My only regret was giving up your friendship. The rest had left to me rot in the machinations of the Republic. To you, I owe a debt and more. To hell with the others." The rebel Commander took a more serious tone.

"But then what," wheezed the Dark Lord as he gasped for breath, "would cause you to abandon obscurity and take up arms again."

"I condemn the cowards of the old order and the corruption of the Republic that made the farce possible, not the innocents across the galaxy. The ones we fought to protect. The ones who may have been better off under the Seps after all." Ahsoka said as she scooted closer to the Dark Lord.

"Don't worry of that," said Vader "years of investigation and accessing files and evidence have finally proven that the Chancellor was controlling both sides—Dooku and the Republic."

"You're still chasing a twenty year old investigation?" Ahsoka asked.

"What would you do to keep sane as a busy mass-murderer?" Vader asked.

Recognizing a slight lilt in the voice, and a small flare in the Force, Ahsoka recognized her old master's wry humor. "So where do we go from here?" she asked.

The Dark Lord laid out candidly, "In less than five minutes my suit diagnostics will be done and it will be restored to minimal functionality. I am under orders from the Emperor to kill you. I had also hoped to study this mysteries of this temple before that hasty little cretin of yours started its collapse. Eventually I must dig my way out to my fighter on the surface, or my command ship in orbit will send out a rescue party. I assume that you have four and a half minutes to kill me, or I will kill you."

"Weren't you listening? I don't wish to do either."

"Then" **cough** "tell me how this story goes." Said the Dark Lord.

"I heal you here using the Force. Then I take you with me to Mon Calamari and we crack out out of that suit like a gree worm, fix you up with state-of-the-art prosthetics and then give you the freedom of choice. I honestly think the Emperor deliberately gave you substandard medical treatment and has let you limp on in these barbaric prosthetics to keep you a prisoner. Go light, go dark, go grey, or just go screw—your decision. Unhampered by notoriety, fame, obligations to Empire or Order. The same clean slate I got." Ashoka said.

"I could play you false or kill you." Mused the Dark Lord as he stomach churned at the unconfirmed idea that he had, yet again, badly been deceived by the Emperor.

"You could. But you won't. You may be a ruthless psychopathic killer, but even the feared Vader has never gotten a reputation as deceitful or a liar, excluding ruse de' guerre." Ahsoka said in a low undertone.

"I cannot take a clean slate. I have a prophecy, an Emperor, a legion of Imperial forces, and repressed Jedi and rebels all out for me." Vader said, almost as a man simply tired.

"Running away from obligations can be refreshing. It certainly clarifies what's important and what isn't. Besides, I came back to galactic warfare, it's a sword you can pick up anytime. Even if a clean slate lasts only a few months or a year, what do you risk and how much better would it be than your current life?" The persistent Padawan pressed.

"Ahsoka" he sadly intoned her name for the first time "you cannot deliver that. If nothing else, your ride has already left and mine is a closely watched Imperial force."

"Well, I could heal you and you could live out your days here with me, as my sex slave." Ahsoka lamely joked while waggling her eyebrows in an exaggeratedly sexy manner. "We'll figure it out Master. Resolve to win, then find how. Isn't that…"

"Lesson number 58 of being a successful Jedi. Yes. I know. That was pompous. And awful. And puffed up. I became a better teacher after that. I hope." The Dark Lord groaned.

The Rebel Commander giggled like the carefree teenager she had once been.

Vader growled at Ahsoka, "Go Snips. I have welcomed the dark side in. I have killed and tortured. I have a dark side force-bond with the Emperor. I am beyond redemption. I was to balance the Force and instead drove it into a flourishing dark abyss. Even now, it seeps back into my presence and my very soul. If you stay any longer I cannot guarantee that I won't hurt you."

"You really don't listen well, do you?" Ahsoka chastised. "I'm not leaving you again Master. More importantly, Master Plo said redemption could come to anyone. He also said that redemption was not the same as forgiveness."

Vader wheezed, more prominently, "I hadn't thought of ol' Bubblehead in years. He *cough* was almost as bad as Yoda with the platitudes. I do not see the point Snips. You will leave or you will die. I will be drawn back to the path already laid out for me, by chains of the dark side which I have never been able to break."

"Then trust me" implored the rebel Commander, "let me figure out the way. Just close your eyes and say yes."

"This is why the Order fell Snips. They did not understand. The darkness taints. Once introduced it seeps in and knaws at your very bones. It twists your judgment. It is sated only by suffering and only temporarily. It always draws you back."

"Then tell me." Ahsoka said defiantly.

"We, no you, do not have that time. Take my starter key to the Tie Advanced—it has a specialty hyperdrive. Go Snips."

"Tell me" the stubborn Togruta demanded.

"The darkness is now a part of me. Like my nose or hair. It must be sated. If being a Jedi was walking a tightrope, then falling and getting back on the rope is ten times as hard because now you carry a weight. I have never understood how either our historical predecessors or contemporaries have ever managed to come back to the light. There is a reason well-read jedi like Kenobi believe it impossible and treat the darkness like an incurable disease requiring termination of the patient." The Dark Lord, despite his injury, sneered as he ground out his former master's name hatefully.

"Master Kenobi didn't know everything. He was wrong about condemning me. Only you had faith. Give me a little faith now." Implored Ahsoka.

"I would if I could Snips. I suspect it is worse for me. I have battled the darkness as it clawed to me subtlely for years during the War, Snips. The **Cough** Order never thought to realize that their Chosen One, to balance the Force, must taste darkness. They should have prepared me for the darkness. The Jedi Shadows used to be given resiliency training due to their proximity and the grey type acts and choices they make." The Dark Lord spoke, hoping to impart one more lesson to his only remaining friend in the universe. "The darkness is a madness. You do not see clearly. Even the reasons that turn you dark turn to ash, be they reasons of high principle or low ambition."

"Master you did not listen to Yoda. It will 'dominate your destiny forever' but that is not an implacable absolute. Determination can sit you back on the tightrope. Plenty of historical Jedi, much less the Chosen One, have been redeemed. Ulic Qel-Droma. Revan and Bastila. The Exile. Atris. Others still have simply walked a grey path marked by acts of darkness." The stubborn Togruta imparted. She could feel a sharp flare of hope in her Master's force presence.

"How did my Snippy little Padawan learn such things? You were always intelligent but never so studious about books and histories."

"Realizing my Master was alive but dark, moved me to research any possible way of saving him. I am still looking for an ancient holocron by Master Shim to complete my knowledge." Ahsoka said.

"A long-term researched plan rushed to operation half-finished? You haven't changed much…"

"Better than no plan at all. I am an improvement over the previous generation" Ahsoka interjected with an obvious humorous poke at her former master.

"My Stormtroopers will be here shortly to find me. My suit diagnostics say I will be capable of standing in 2.3 minutes, but I will not be able to claw my way out the rubble to my Tie Advanced."

"Then you will have to take me prisoner and come for me once you're healed." Ahsoka spoke as a simple truth.

"You take a great risk Snips. You never liked playing submissive undercover roles, like Zygerra. I may be dark. You put yourself in my power, but even I do not trust my own darkness. I may not be able to block interrogators or torture while I heal. The only thing I can guarantee is your life, and only assuming the darkness does not take me."

"Let us prepare then. You said you have a bond with the Emperor. Let us reopen and reaffirm your bond with me. The balance of bonds may be the only balanced thing the Chosen One has ever seen, excepting that stripper who would balance her dancing act on the hood of his illegal podracer." Teased Ashoka.

"How did you see know about that?" A small glimpse of Anakin's old privacy and vanity poked through the armor.

"I was there." Said Snips. "You'll have to rescue me from your own detention center if you want to hear the story. For now, focus on the bond. I'm going to take off your glove and start healing you. Feel the sensation and trace it back…"

Four Hours later, a harried team of Storm Troopers digging through the rubble of the collapsed temple found an intact room with the Dark Lord, clearly worse for his fight but still standing, and a disarmed Jedi prisoner. At Lord Vader's command the prisoner was shackled and taken to solitary confinement in the rear detention block of the ISD Conqueror.