Welcome my readers to the sequel to The Rise of the Sith. I would have posted it sooner but the alerts were not working so I thought why post it if no one is going to know about it? Anyway I'm going to flat out state now that this story takes place 20 years after the previous one just so I don't get any questions even though I am going to say it at the beginning of the chapter. Also note that Mara Jade will be brought in as The Emperor's Hand and Raz Vena's purpose has not been served yet.

Chapter 1: Secrets Revealed, Secrets Hidden

20 years after previous story

The Empire flourished now and held a strong leash upon it's galaxy. Emperor Palpatine ruled with an iron fist, a ruthless dictator from his throne atop the pyramid like Imperial Palace on Coruscant. However one thing stood in front of the Empire's awesome power, a Rebel Alliance that was growing from a thorn in their side to a knife in their back. Sidious had suspected this ever since former Senator Padmé Amidala delivered the Petition of Two Thousand to him in his time as Chancellor, as of now Amidala's whereabouts were unknown, as were her husband's Anakin Skywalkers, and former Jedi Masters Yoda and Windu. Sidious suspected they were working closely with the Rebel Alliance. In fact he had proof.

No matter though, the Empire was almost complete with a major construction project, a super weapon, designed in the secret facility of the Maw Cluster near the planet Kessel. It was referred to as project Death Star, the construction of a super battle station that had the capability to destroy a planet. With that the pitiful Rebel Alliance would be crushed.

Meanwhile as this was going on The Emperor had completed the training of a young woman, she twenty. The Emperor had built a training facility below his throne room in the spire of the palace it resided in, in that training room the Emperor's Hand was born her name was Mara Jade. She was well training in numerous types of combat with weapons, as well as hand to hand combat, jumping, climbing, scaling walls, using the Force to a limited degree, and espionage which was her primary function. She was currently on a mission. Since his encounter with Raz Vena twenty years ago Sidious had been searching for her because he believed that Siri Tachi could possibly be alive. He remained optimistically doubtful.

Coincidentally he had discovered Mara at an orphanage on the planet Azure at the time he was pursuing Raz Vena or Siri Tachi. Sidious sent Mara a few days ago to track down Raz Vena, she was due back any time.

Mara Jade was his weapon, his best chance of locating Raz Vena and finding out if Siri was indeed alive, if that was the case he would kill her and Obi-Wan who was his apprentice would forever be tied to the dark side, as Sidious had previously thought he was when he ordered Siri's execution, a secret kept from Obi-Wan to coax his fall to the dark side. Like that execution Mara was kept a secret from Obi-Wan as well, Mara knew him only as Darth Vader, Obi-Wan knew nothing of her.

The Emperor sat in his throne room atop the tallest spire of the pyramid like Imperial Palace. He received what he had been waiting for, the comm on the armrest of his chair chimed. He accepted the call, from a holoprprojector embedded in the floor before him an image of one of his guards sprang into existence.

"My Emperor," he said bowing hastily.

"What is it captain?" Sidious asked though he already knew the answer.

"Agent Jade has arrived sir, she requests an audience with you."

"Her request is acquiesced, allow her entry." The Emperor order smoothly. The guard bowed once more.

"Yes my emperor."

The image faded, Sidious watched as Mara Jade entered his throne room. The room itself was circular with nothing of particular interest in it save the red robe guards that protected the large entrance way. At the far end of the room was a large chair from which Sidious controlled the Empire, behind the chair was a large window with which he could gaze out of Coruscant. And in the center of the throne room was a small pod which could elevate like the podium in the senate arena which he had constructed in the palace. Circling the top of the round room was a balcony where members of the Imperial senate could come and sit with a sheet of laser proof transparasteel in front of them and listen to the Emperor's announcements.

Mara Jade walked past the inactivate podium and up to the Emperor's throne. She was draped in dark clothes because of her espionage needs, a compact blaster was holstered to her shoulder and she carried a single lightsaber on her belt. She bowed and flipped her wild crimson hair back.

"Hello milord." Mara said.

"Welcome home Mara," Sidious replied anxiously. "What have you discovered?"

"I do have intel on Raz Vena. I have two leads, my first source suggested she was hiding out on Tatooine, I took the advice and snapped his neck, and I also received credible information that she may have joined a smuggling operation run by a man named Talon Karrde. I killed the man who told me this also."

"I want these leads followed up on immediately."

"I'll go tomorrow if you want me to. I decided to go to Tatooine, there's a lot of smugglers and criminals on the planet, one's bound to know Karrde's location if Raz isn't on the planet, and if a woman like me is asking the questions the that mate- less mob of scoundrels then they'll probably talk and I'll rip their eyes out before they can so much as look at me, then I'll probably shoot them."

"Very good Mara, you will leave tomorrow." Sidious decreed, he then pulled out five chips from his robes, each marked for the amount of ten thousand imperial credits, the tossed them to Mara. "Your reward."

She smiled, contemplating what she would do with this money, she always wanted one of those assassin grade long shot blaster pistols….

"Thank you milord." She replied automatically. "I'll head out tomorrow."

"Very good, report to me once you have found something, Mara, there can be no mistakes."

XxX

It was like a bad dream, no, no it was like a nightmare discovering that the enemy you thought you had killed twice was still alive. Anakin Skywalker sprinted through the halls of the Rebel Alliance base on the moon Yavin IV; the rebels had built this base in one of the old pyramid like Massassi temples. Anakin's boots clacked on the stone floor as he ran into his own personal quarters. The moment his door opened into a living area, Anakin's ears were greeted with the sound of humming, clashing lightsabers. The first thing that went through his mind was one of his children was under attack. He sprinted to the left and into a small sparring room he had in his suite. There his son and daughter stood practicing their skills with lightsabers. Padmé sat on a bench at one end of the room watching.

Anakin's daughter Leia wielded an amethyst blade while his son Luke commanded a forest green weapon. The sabers clashed together and the duelists failed to notice their father enter, Anakin breathed a sigh of relief and tried to calm himself. Then Leia saw her father, Luke in front of her.

"Luke dad's home!" Leia said. Padmé turned her head and smiled at Anakin, but his angel's smile quickly faded as she noticed something was wrong, Leia failed to see it.

"Yeah right," Luke retorted. "Like I'm going to fall for that one again!"

"Hello son." Anakin said from behind Luke who turned his head, Leia ceased the opportunity to trip him flat on his back. He leapt up and scowled at her, both extinguished their blades.

"Luke, Leia, why don't you go practice in the jungle or something. Luke go see Wedge, I don't know! I have something very important to talk to your mother about."

Luke's and Leia's smiles faded and they complied with their fathers orders, leaving the quarter in a rush and talking in hushed voices. Anakin normally didn't act so… well… so like that."

The moment they were out of sight and earshot Padmé ran to Anakin.

"What's wrong?" She asked.

Anakin shook his head and fell down, lying on the mat floor. He brushed the hair off his face, some strands of it were beginning to gray. Padmé tucked her hair behind on ear and laid next to him, she didn't age well, though she was older than he she didn't have one single strand of gray anywhere in her hair. She turned on her side to face Anakin, he didn't move.

"Tell me what's wrong." She said.

"Obi-Wan is still alive." Anakin stated quickly. This was the second time Anakin thought Obi-Wan had died, only to have him jump back into his life again, the first time was Mustafar, the second time was when a Mon Calamari cruiser he had been on met face to face with Obi-Wan's star destroyer Devastator. The Mon Calamari cruiser held out and Obi-Wan's ship was destroyed, Anakin thought he had been dead, until the mission he had just returned from ended.

He had been sent along with a small fleet of Corellian Corvettes to sabotage a very vulnerable supply line of parts to the secret project the Emperor had been working on for the past five years. He was thwarted when a huge super star destroyer exited hyperspace, he sensed Obi-Wan was on it and he knew for sure when the ship sent out TIE fighters, Obi-Wan himself flew one… Anakin could not believe he was still alive.

"How do you know?" Padmé asked quietly. Now Anakin turned on his side to face his wife.

"I could sense him." Anakin replied gravely. "I thought he was dead when we destroyed his star destroyer but he survived, and he stopped us from completing our mission, Padmé. Vader is still alive."

Hope you liked the first chapter. By the way I don't own any characters from Star Wars, they belong to George Lucas and whoever else might have the rights to them, I am just using them to write a story and the only profit I intend to get from it is reviews, speaking of which you readers might want to click the little button that says review right about… now.