Here it is, the final chapter of this part.

Enjoy, and please let me know what you think.

Galactic Vigilante.

As he watched and followed yet another convoy of crates carrying the Kyber crystals out of Jedha's soil, Anakin was concentrating hard on completing his self-appointed task in order to stop himself from going crazy inside the stormtrooper armour he had managed to steal from a kindly Samaritan; sure, he'd needed to snap the trooper's neck, but he was still kind enough to be someone close to Anakin in height and body type.

The good news was long as you were incredibly cautious and knew what you were getting yourself into, it was pathetically simple to pass yourself off as a stormtrooper. The bad news was the tight, claustrophobic confines of the armour tended to get to you, and if the air conditioning system of the armour was off, then you began to cook.

When he had heard from Saw there was no chance of getting to the mines, Anakin had done his best to find some way of persuading the resistance leader only to be resisted firmly. In the end, Anakin had given in, especially since he knew without his Force Powers to help him pass by unnoticed by anyone except the most powerful Jedi Master or Sith Lord, there was no way he could get there without being noticed. So he'd decided he wasn't going to try after he'd given it some thought, but he needed to know more about what Palpatine wanted with the crystals.

But Anakin could see only one way of finding that out.

He would need to place a transponder beacon to the cargo and track down where it was all going. That was why he had gone in under disguise. With the number of stormtroopers and Imperial Officers present in the Holy City, it was child's play to find the right fit. Anakin had hoped to find an Imperial officer, but he'd decided against it since there was a chance, given their importance, they might send him off to where the kyber crystals were being taken, and he didn't want that since it would only be a matter of time before they realised the deception. In stormtrooper armour, he would be walking close to the convoy vehicles, and he could slap the tracker on one of the crates while they were distracted.

It wasn't the best thought out idea, but it was the best he had right now. But as he walked through the streets, he honestly hoped Saw's control over the resistance fighters here was constant. He had told the grizzled veteran about his plan, and while Saw hadn't liked it he had seen the bigger picture especially since he now knew from Anakin what the Sith used the crystals for.

Saw may have been violent and radical, but even he didn't like the thought of the Empire Palpatine and Vader had carved out of the blood of the Jedi and the Separatists becoming too powerful because they'd gotten one of the resources out of Jedha. Persuading him to keep the resistance fighters from launching an attack on the next convoy had not been difficult; all Anakin needed to do was tell him that after today, they could kill as many Imperials as they liked.

In any case, he doubted this would take long. From what he had learnt from Saw once he had changed his plans from surveying the mines to doing this instead, Anakin knew that the Imperials loaded the cargo crates onboard the Cargo shuttles after carrying out checks to make sure nothing had been sabotaged. It was a very quick and easy process; the crews would open the crates, run their scanners over the crystals, and then mark them as clear.

But it left him in a bind because he had to make this very quick; he had sent a quick message off to Shanna to come and pick him up. She would be here soon, and he wanted to make the rendezvous in one piece with the tracker onboard.

First, he had to get through the streets, looking around slowly for any sign of any trouble; just because Saw was an important resistance figure here did not necessarily mean he controlled everyone. As he walked through the streets, following the rest of the convoy, he paused slightly when he saw a tall, dark-skinned man who was older than he was. For a moment Anakin thought he could see Mace Windu in the crowd, and then he was gone.

Anakin inwardly shook his head. He hadn't seen or heard from any of his former colleagues in the Jedi Order for a long time since the Clone Wars, and he wanted to keep it that way simply because he found it hard to forgive them for what they had done. While he had forgiven them somewhat for what they had done to him by tearing his Force Powers from his very being, especially since he had discovered a new level of maturity about himself that he had never felt in his entire life before since he had always depended on his powers to give him insights into the types of people around him, while his Jedi training had given him the means to see things nobody else could see while being able to protect himself, but now he had nothing but his own experience and judgement to rely on, he realised he had become mature. For the first time in his life, Anakin had developed a new appreciation for life and now he couldn't do what he'd once been able to effortlessly, he had needed to learn how to read others while at the same time he had learnt humility.

It was ironic, really; for a long time, the Council had derided him for his hotheaded attitude, but now he had no powers, he had become far more mature especially since he knew without the Force to give him insights to rely on, he had only himself. The ironic thing was he had become so much mature because the Jedi had torn something so integral to his being.

But why would he suddenly see what looked like Mace Windu here, on Jedha? If there were Jedi on the moon, which would make sense, why would they come out into the open like this where someone might recognise them? They might have the Force, but it would only do so much in this less kind galaxy.

Anakin shook his head mentally again, and he carried on walking with the rest of the convoy, each step taken cautiously in case something happened. Thankfully for his nerves, the convoy reached the Cargo shuttle without any troubles. As soon as the Convoy entered the security area, where there were dozens of stormtroopers overlooking the scene while some of them were armed with really large blasters, the scanning crew got to work while technicians lifted off the covers protecting the crystals with the Cargo shuttle looming overhead.

Anakin had never been a patient man, but he dove deep inside the reserves he had available in his soul. While he stood in the background as much as he could so the other troopers wouldn't notice him, watching the whole time as the scanning technicians carefully examined every square inch of the crates and even looked inside them.

As he studied how thorough the crews were, Anakin decided to wait for a little while before dropping in the tracker. In any case, with the scrutiny over the operation and the alertness of the guards, it would be suicidal to even try. These stormtroopers were expecting trouble, and they were keeping their visors open for it. The Imperial officers also seemed changed; Anakin had seen them careless and arrogant in the past, but in here they all seemed more attentive, although it was attentiveness to the point of nervousness.

They clearly knew if anything went wrong here, they would pay for it.

The sight of the kyber crystals brought back a lot of memories for Anakin; he remembered coming to Jedha a long time ago with Kenobi, visiting the Temples, and enjoying the sights of the Holy City before he had gone to the caves of the planet to collect one of the crystals before he heard one calling to him….

But the crystals held inside the crates were quite large compared to the kyber he'd acquired so long ago (idly, he wondered for a second what had happened to the crystal in his lightsaber; it was likely the Jedi had kept the lightsaber he'd built quickly to replace the one that had been stamped to death on Geonosis, and kept it as a spare; with the war on, it would make sense all the dead Jedi would have their lightsabers kept in reserve in case one of the living members of the Order needed a spare before they had the time to replace the one they'd lost, but he pushed it aside), and he felt his heartbreak.

He might not be a Force-sensitive anymore, but he felt sick about what these crystals were likely going to be used for by the Empire.

There was one that was longer than Anakin's entire body, and perhaps twice the length of a Hutt, while another was quite wide and very heavy. As he looked around the open crates which the scanner techs, he noticed all the kybers were large, there weren't any small crystals. Anakin wondered if it was because Palpatine had ordered only large ones be removed from Jedha while the small ones were left here, but he also wondered if it was because the Sith Lord was trying to ensure none of the small crystals left the planet where they could find their way into the lightsabers of any rising Jedi in the galaxy.

It would explain why the stormtroopers raised their weapons or had them primed in case they saw someone reaching into the crates to lift a small shard out. But truthfully, Anakin suspected it was mostly out of paranoia if that was the case; with how the propaganda of the Empire kept spouting about the Jedi, how they were traitors, but mostly they were an ancient hokey religion that had died out, there would be so few people out in the galaxy who even knew how the kyber crystals worked in a lightsaber.

"Right, we're done. All checks completed. There's nothing in the crates," Anakin overheard one of the scanning technicians report to one of the more senior Imperial officers.

"No bombs? Tracking devices?" the Imperial officer asked. His tone surprised Anakin; he had encountered many Imperial officers over the years, and many of them were pompous or incredibly stupid because they had only joined the Empire to show themselves off as men of action when in fact they were as spineless as a Hutt, but this one seemed fearful of making a mistake although he could tell these two characters had actually been doing this for some time and had rehearsed it.

They both seemed frightened that if they made a mistake then they would pay for it.

The scanning technician's reply confirmed it. "None. They're all clean," he said, looking around more fearfully at the stormtroopers before he turned back to the officer.

It looks like Vader has personally ensured if anything happens to these cargoes, then there will be deaths. Knowing the Sith, these guys probably saw some of their friends get killed, Anakin thought to himself while the Imperial officer nodded. He pulled off one of his black leather gloves and pressed his thumb against a pad.

"Very well, all signed off. Get these crates on board the shuttle," the officer ordered before he turned away.

Anakin took a deep breath and held up his blaster like all the others, but he stepped close to one of the crates while keeping as close to a few of the other stormtroopers as he could to provide him with some unknowing cover while he held the tracker in his hand. But he didn't have the time to get the tracker in place, so he followed the crew onboard the cargo shuttle. Once inside, he placed the tracker which was the size of the tip of his finger on the outside of one of the crates. He placed another tracker on the wall of the shuttle itself to get an idea of where the shuttles went.

Once he was finished he followed the rest of the stormtroopers off the ship, and he didn't turn around when he heard the sound of the take-off. Now he was done, all he wanted to do was return to Corellia.

XXX

"How many trackers did you put on that ship?" Saw asked while Anakin put on his jacket while he sat down in a chair, resting his feet carelessly on the discarded helmet Anakin had been wearing. The rest of the armour was scattered on the ground, Anakin suspected that Saw would get some of his people to use the armour to strike against the presence on Jedha, although he didn't really care one way or another.

"Two. One on a crate, the other on the wall of the cargo bay. I don't know for sure if the Cargo shuttle takes the crystals straight to wherever Palpatine has them taken, so I decided to take the precaution."

"Good thinking, Skywalker," Saw nodded in approval, watching him for a moment before he opened his mouth. "What are you going to do now?"

Anakin paused when he heard the question, and he wondered what had made Saw ask it. But he decided to answer the question anyway out of politeness more than anything else.

"Right now, I just want to leave Jedha," he replied before he slowly got his things. "Why?"

Saw paused as he seemed to be mentally choosing what he was going to say next with great care. "We've recently had a visit from a man claiming to be a Jedi; I didn't meet him myself, but word got back to me that there was a Jedi, and he wanted to speak to you. I haven't sent a message back to him since I wanted your opinion on it."

"Are you sure he was a Jedi, and not one of the fakes or Inquisitors?" Anakin asked cautiously, wondering if this news was a coincidence after thinking he had seen Mace Windu. Perhaps he hadn't been imagining things, after all.

Ever since Palpatine had taken control of the galaxy, and the fledgeling resistance movements had begun to rise up in order to take back the galaxy from the Sith, there had been rumours of 'Jedi' who had arrived at the resistance bases….only to be Imperial spies, and more than one of those groups had been slaughtered. This had been in the days where Palpatine's reign was in its nascent stage, but the 'betrayals' had coloured the opinion of the Jedi, and now so many of them would likely kill anyone who showed any sign of Force sensitivity or skill with a lightsaber.

But even if whoever had met Saw's people was a genuine Jedi, Anakin didn't want to meet with them. Not a chance in hell.

"From what my people say, he levitated a few things into the air," Saw said. "I trust my people, Skywalker. This was a genuine Jedi, and he wanted to see you. According to my people, he was fairly urgent. He also knew you were here."

"Did he say his name?"

"No, he didn't."

"Did he say why he wanted to speak to me?"

"No."

Anakin sighed. "I don't want to see them. Is there any way I can slip out and get to the outskirts of the city without them coming after me?"

"Oh, how come?" Saw asked curiously.

Anakin sighed again, resigning himself to the inevitable. "I….I am a former Jedi. But I broke the Code; the long and the short of it is, the Jedi Order were afraid of me and what I was capable of, so they took my Force Powers away from me."

"By the Gods," Saw's already hoarse voice became even more hoarse. "They can do that?"

"They can," Anakin's voice was grim. "It's not a common procedure, but the Jedi can do it. I seriously don't know why the Jedi, if the person who spoke to your people was a Jedi and not one of the fakes or infiltrators that have cropped up in the last few years, would want to see me. I can't do anything for them anymore."

"Can your Force Powers be restored?"

"No," Anakin shook his head. "Cutting someone off from the Force is permanent, and when its happened there's nothing you can do to reverse it. Oh, I might feel a twinge here and there, I might be able to tell if someone is lying or telling the truth, but they're fleeting moments.. The Jedi had started using this practice regularly during the Clone Wars, from what I heard as a means of ensuring nobody became like Dooku. I was the first of least seventy or eighty - I don't know how many - people who lost their own connections; in my case, they did it more strongly so it would be permanent."

"I never knew they'd started doing that during the Clone Wars," Saw commented. "I know Dooku shocked the galaxy given his status as a Jedi Master, but I didn't know they'd take it that far."

"Dooku surprised the Jedi," Anakin pointed out, remembering his own brief battle with the former Jedi Master turned Sith Lord on Geonosis. "The Jedi Council immediately adjourned in the aftermath and passed on the decree if any Jedi - Master, Knight, Apprentice - showed signs of breaking the Code, they were instantly going to lose their Force Connections. I was used as an example."

He had only discovered this decision during his recuperation in the Temple after the Council had severed his connection. The Jedi Council had been shaken by the discovery that not only had Count Dooku become the leader of the Separatists hellbent on warring with the Republic, but he had turned to the Dark Side as well. And not only had he turned to the Dark Side, but he had become a Sith Lord. The repercussions had shaken the Order, and so the Council had decided to come up with countermeasures to make sure it never happened again. They were already forewarned about Palpatine's presence in the Senate, even if Dooku hadn't told them that the Sith Lord in charge of the Senate was doing it literally, and now all of their attention had been split between trying to discover the identity of the Sith Master since there was no doubt that somebody else was pulling the strings - literally - and fighting the wars.

The last thing the Jedi Council wanted was another Jedi falling down the same slippery slope. In his case, the Jedi's decision had been preordained. But Anakin had little doubt in his mind the Council had been delighted; not only did he give them a foolproof excuse to get rid of him, but he had given them proof that he couldn't be trusted with his powers - yes, he had claimed Palpatine had given him awful advice, but that was just an excuse in their eyes.

"Stang…That sounds…rough," Saw whispered, unable to find the right words but truthfully Anakin didn't care what he was thinking.

"Yes, so as a result I don't really want to speak to any Jedi at this point; there may be legitimate Jedi out there in the galaxy since it's likely Vader missed many of them in the Purges, but their ideas of how to end the Empire and mine are different," Anakin pointed out. "Is there someone with a speeder who can take me out of the city?"

XXX

Anakin closed his eyes and let the wind hit his face gently as the speeder took him far out beyond the walls of the city. Finding someone to take him out of the city hadn't been difficult - all Saw needed to do was find someone who could drive a speeder, and then tell him to take Anakin out as far as he wished.

Before he had jumped into the passenger seat, Anakin had sent a call to Shanna. His girlfriend and fellow test pilot had just arrived at the planet, and all he had to do was activate his com link's homing beacon.

Anakin looked ahead and nodded while he mentally gauged the distance between this point and the city itself before he nodded again in satisfaction. "This is perfect," he called to the driver, who nodded before he tripped the brake control of the speeder.

"Thanks," he called to the driver after he'd gotten out.

The driver waved back but otherwise said nothing as he turned back and sped towards the Holy City, leaving Anakin behind. Once he was sure he was alone, Anakin pulled out his communicator and he pressed the homing beacon. Once that was done, Anakin only had to wait.

While he stood waiting in the plain, hoping that he was nowhere near where the Jedi had made their base, and certainly hoping the Imperials didn't find him anytime soon, Anakin had time to think.

So far his theories about what the Empire was doing on Jedha had been confirmed, especially after he had seen the size of the Kyber crystals. The only thing he needed to do now was to track down where the crystals were taken, and once he had followed the trail he would have a better idea of what Palpatine had in mind for the galaxy.

Thinking about Palpatine…Anakin still found it so hard to believe the man whom he had thought was a dear friend of his was not his friend at all, but a manipulative tyrannical monster. But Anakin was left physically and mentally ill. He knew now, thanks to what he knew about Palpatine being Darth Sidious, Dark Lord of the Sith, the Sith had been grooming him into taking the place filled by Dooku and that Zabrak he had seen years ago during that mess with the blockade of Naboo.

A place now filled by somebody else. Anakin wondered what had happened to make Marcus Ryder of all people turn to the Dark Side, but as much as Anakin wanted to breathe a sigh of relief, he didn't want to given what had nearly happened to him. Anakin had never really found the time to speak to Ryder in the past. He knew Ryder had been Master Windu's Padawan, and they'd exchanged a few words, but that was it. But Anakin could certainly see why Palpatine had latched onto him; with his Force potential shining like a star, and his lightsaber prowess, Ryder was a lethal and powerful opponent. His knowledge of Windu's specialist lightsaber combat technique was also a bonus, given what Anakin knew about it.

Anakin shoved those thought aside when he saw something appearing on the horizon and coming down lower to land. He took out his macro binoculars and he peered through them, and a grin spread across his face when he saw Shanna's own YT-1300 freighter coming down lower.

While he waited for his girlfriend to land, Anakin used the time to think. He had not expected the Jedi here to want to get in touch with him, if they were Jedi but that made little sense given that he had gone out of his way to keep under the radar of both Palpatine and Vader, and at least until the idiots in PR back in CEC had leaked word of who was going to be in the Test ship carrying the FTL engine, he had actually thought he had succeeded.

But overall he was content to just remain alone without the Jedi bothering him.

When Shanna's ship landed, Anakin jumped on board before the boarding ramp had even touched the ground. Shanna took off instantly and he rushed to the cockpit where he found her in the pilot's seat. Anakin had helped customise Shanna's ship so then she could take more control over the freighter, much like he had with his own so he wasn't surprised to find her by herself. In any case, like him, she was a veteran pilot although her experience was greater since she hadn't been bogged down by missions like he had in his youth.

"Hey, Anakin," Shanna grinned at him, leaning forward to kiss him. "How was it?"

Anakin smiled and kissed her back before he took the co-pilot seat while Shanna gave him control, knowing how much he liked that. "I used two trackers; one for one of the kyber crystal crates, and the other for the Cargo shuttle. I didn't know for certain if the crates were distributed to somewhere else in the Empire, so I decided to place trackers on both."

"What type of weapon do you think they're building?" Shanna asked while she prepared the navigational computer to compute a return journey to Corellia. "I mean, I've heard the legends of Sith weapons-."

"I don't know, but I know one thing, its bound to be one which will make organisations like the Rebel Alliance lose favour, even with those who want the galaxy to be returned to the way it had been before Palpatine came to power. Think about it, Palpatine is funnelling more and more power away from the Senate. In time there will nothing left, but for the meantime, it is still capable of causing him problems and slowing him down," Anakin said, not bothering to hide his contempt for the Senate from Shanna since she knew how he felt since she shared it herself given how two of her brothers had died in the Clone Wars and all the Senate did was celebrate their sacrifice, "but when the Senate does go, he will need something to back up his power. He will have the Imperial military, yeah, but he needs something else as well."

"Monster," Shanna whispered when the navigational computer was finished, but her mind was picturing a galaxy where the Senate was gone and Palpatine only needed to say to get something done was to issue the command with the threats of reprisals from whatever the old bastard was having built.

Anakin nodded in agreement. "I couldn't get close to the mines. They're under heavy guard at all times, and no-one was willing to risk it. I couldn't because I needed to make it quick, so I decided to take a disguise and slap on the trackers. Speaking of which," he added, slipping out his comlink. "Let's see where it's going now…"

Shanna engaged the hyperdrive just as Anakin and tuned the link into the ships' computer. It took a few moments before the real-time location of the Cargo Shuttle and the crate came through.

"Eadu," Anakin said, nodding. "That makes sense."

"Eadu? I've never heard of it."

"I'm not surprised, Shanna. There's nothing really interesting there, and it's located slap bang in a relatively uninteresting corner of the galaxy. I know about it 'cause I overheard a few space pirates and smugglers on Tatooine. It's rugged terrain and lack of any real attention made it attractive as a base of operations for a few of them. It's a storm-drenched lump of rock in the Outer Rim, but its remoteness makes it attractive for the Empire."

"What do you think they do with the crystals there?" Shanna asked.

"I don't know," Anakin shook his head, but he turned his attention back to her. "We can't do anything about that right now. We've got a test flight to prepare for. Once that's over with, then we can concentrate on Eadu."

Shanna nodded. As a member of the resistance on Corellia herself, Shanna was willing to do whatever it took to shake the foundations of the Empire. "Is everything ready with the test ship?" she asked.

"It will be. I didn't want to do anything that would attract too much attention, at least until it was too late."