Author's Note: PLEASE READ! Okay, so, I did a thing. I realized that this story needed some kind of preamble, so I replaced my original first chapter with this instead, which makes the original Chapter 1 into Chapter 2. I know, I know. Not nice. A true update is a-coming, though! Please don't hate me.

Skin Deep

Chapter 1

"Stay in attack formation."

Vader and two of his best TIE pilots flew toward the maelstrom of blaster fire criss-crossing the surface of the Death Star. He didn't like what he was seeing. For the Alliance to launch an offensive attack on the monstrous battle station meant only one thing: they'd analyzed the stolen plans and found a weakness. He'd been afraid of this; he cursed that infernal Krennic. May he rot forever.

As he directed his TIE fighter ever closer to the Death Star's trenches, Vader ground his teeth in annoyance. Things were not going according to plan. Failing to recover the Death Star technical plans, losing a valuable Rebel prisoner, and dueling his old master were far, far removed from any semblance of the productivity he had expected when he first entered the fray of battle at Scarif those long hours ago.

Vader usually categorized his days under two main headings: Productive or Unproductive. He'd long given up trying to determine Good days and Bad days; when all of your limbs are mechanical and a machine breathes for you every day, all the time, year after year, can it really be said that you ever have a good day?

Today, though, today was in a class all its own. He could call today, unequivocally, a Bad Day. There was such a blinding disturbance in the Force that he found it difficult to concentrate on anything. He didn't even consider Kenobi's death to be any sort of triumph; he'd been dreaming of that moment for twenty years and when he had finally used his blade to strike the old man, he felt emptiness instead of vindication. And a little bit of rage, too; not only was Kenobi throwing out one-liners, but he actually had the audacity to look Vader in the eye, knowing he was about to die, and smirk. Vader had seen that look on Kenobi's face a hundred times before. It was the same sardonic smirk Kenobi the General used to throw when he knew he was facing an enemy he was about to completely decimate.

You can't win, Darth. If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.

And then Kenobi's body had disappeared—! What in the hells of Corellia was going on?

The disturbance in the Force had not abated with Kenobi's death. It remained strong, and Vader's unease grew even as he saw X-Wing after X-Wing disappear into fiery oblivion along the Death Star's surface. There were only a handful left now, three of them in the trenches. One was trailing smoke and pulled away from the station. Two remaining.

"Let him go," Vader instructed his pilots. "Stay on the leader."

He'd been watching that lead X-Wing for some minutes now. The pilot exhibited unusual skill and maneuvering, seeming to anticipate every obstacle in his way. The small fighter hurtled at terminal velocity toward a point that Vader couldn't determine. But he didn't need to find out where the X-Wing was headed. He only needed to prevent it from getting there.

"I'm on the leader." He leaned on the throttle of his TIE and it surged forward, inching ever closer to the X-Wing. Vader adjusted his controls and checked his targeting systems.

And then all of a sudden, his hands fell very still.

He sensed a presence, a ripple in the Force, a mind reaching out. For a split-second, he wondered if Ahsoka Tano…but no. This was a presence he had never felt before; yet the incandescent light it carried was strangely familiar.

Fear and dread, his oldest friends, gnawed in the pit of his stomach.

"The Force is strong with this one," he muttered to himself. He drew closer to the bobbing X-Wing and squeezed his blaster triggers. A blaster bolt struck the X-Wing's astromech. Disabling the droid would all but disable the pilot. The droid was hardly more than a scorched dome now. Vader allowed himself a small smile; the hit slowed the X-Wing minutely, just enough for Vader to close the gap between them.

"I have you now."

He wrapped his hands around the trigger, reveling in the knowledge that the light in the Force would soon be extinguished—

Something exploded near him, and it wasn't an X-Wing.

"What!" He yelped his astonishment. Almost frantically, he looked through his domed cockpit to try and see the ship which had shot his pilot.

He couldn't see anything.

"Look out!" His other pilot screamed over the comm. Then he was gone, vaporized against the Death Star's surface. The shockwave sent Vader's ship hurtling into space, spinning completely out of control.

He didn't see the Death Star Explode, but he felt it in the Force, and he felt the light grow stronger.

By the time he regained control of his craft, all he could see was chunks of debris floating and four Alliance ships disappearing in the general direction of Yavin IV. One of those ships carried a pilot who had an undeniable connection to the Force. All of this just hours after his final duel with Kenobi! That damn old man had known all along.

Alone now in the vacuum of space, Vader screamed his fury.

Hours later, Vader was on board his Super Star Destroyer and in as foul a mood as anyone had ever witnessed. He wanted to know everything about the Rebel strike on the Death Star and he wanted to know now.

He didn't want junior lieutenants tripping over themselves trying to explain that anyone who knew anything about the strike had been aboard the Death Star and was dead. He wanted results.

Rolling his eyes so far back he could almost see the base of his skull, Vader ground out, "Sift through any and all reports filed on the Death Star in the last twelve hours before its destruction."

The data officers nearby blanched; that would be hundreds of reports.

Vader half-turned on his heel but froze when he remembered something so obviously important: Princess Leia Organa had been rescued from the Death Star by an Alliance ship. "A YT-model freighter was pulled in by tractor beam after it attempted to enter the Alderaan system. Find it."

"S-s-sir!" A data officer called tremulously, half lifting himself from his seat to look at the dark lord.

"What?" Vader made no move toward the man's terminal. He crossed his arms over his chest in a show of impatience.

The officer scrambled toward Vader. "I was just l-looking at a report about that very same ship. Well—it was a BOLO from earlier today and—"

"Time is of the essence," Vader hinted darkly.

"Yes sir," the officer stammered breathlessly, "The ship is a Corellian YT-1300 model registered to a Han Solo, known smuggler. First mate is a Wookiee named Chewbacca. The ship was carrying four passengers—two humans and two droids—when it…sir?"

The man stopped abruptly, but Vader didn't pay any attention to him. He was already walking away. He could finish the lieutenant's sentence for him. He already knew. The freighter had blasted its way out of Mos Eisley spaceport, fleeing from Imperial forces looking for the two droids. The two droids which had the Death Star plans. The two droids which had jettisoned themselves in an escape pod and landed on Tatooine after Vader himself boarded the Tantive IV.

And the two human passengers aboard the freighter? Vader didn't need to be told that one of them was an elderly man in a long robe. He didn't need to be told that the other was a fresh-faced youth.

He already knew.

He cursed them, and he cursed himself for having been so wrapped up in Obi-Wan Kenobi's presence on the Death Star that he hadn't bothered to ask himself, Why?

He stalked blindly down the Executor's passageways. Something was nagging at him, irritating him like sand against skin.

Sand.

Tatooine.

Obi-Wan had been Tatooine. Vader clenched a fist and a nearby mouse droid imploded.

Obi-Wan had been hiding on Tatooine this whole time, two decades, because he knew it was the one place in the galaxy where Vader would not—could not—step foot.

Of course.

And what of the young boy with him? Vader had no doubt he was more than a casual acquaintance of Kenobi's. And he had no doubt that the boy was the Rebel pilot who'd fired the fatal shot to the Death Star.

His instincts were screaming.

He reached out to the Force to try and calm the turmoil in his mind, to try and use his anger and frustration and turn them into clarity.

Going to Tatooine himself was completely out of the question. Vader had destroyed his former self, but he was not impervious to memories. And there were too many memories on Tatooine.

Yet the matter of the boy still remained. An investigation needed to be opened. Vader wanted answers, and so would the Emperor.

He needed someone who would investigate quickly, thoroughly, and discreetly. He needed someone smart, someone high-ranking, and he needed someone who knew how to deal with people.

A name came to mind. An unlikely person, one Vader didn't even like, but who fit the bill perfectly.

Thrawn.