Chapter Text
5 BBY
Vader had raged after Ventress had escaped him on Ilum with Vos, ripping apart her ship with the Force and scattering its pieces throughout the snow.
He’d nearly killed one of his men when they had spoken up and asked if they should search the ship for any sign of how Ventress had known to be there right then. He’d stopped because his men had always been loyal, had been for nearly twenty years, and not once had they ever given him cause to doubt that loyalty.
Not like he had with Padmé.
He’d regretted his anger not moments after it had faded, knowing he could have convinced her of his side and she would have joined him.
His children would have survived.
Instead he lost all of them in one fell swoop, his former Master included because the wily man had disappeared in the time it took him to get fitted for his suit and stayed hidden for nearly fifteen years.
The anger he’d felt fourteen years ago when Kenobi had shown his face and popped in and out of places like he wasn’t the most wanted man in the galaxy, made this moment feel like nothing. This was not quite an inconvenience, because Vos had been in the way for fifteen years and had escaped death too many times now for it to be anything but a priority to see him dead by his hand, but it was a priority the Emperor did not feel willing to grant him leeway to devote his whole attention to.
Instead, he was to patrol the Outer Rims in search of rebel scum and remind them of the Empire’s might and mercy.
It was almost satisfying to revel in the fear of anyone who saw the Vengeance, but that had been lost a long time ago.
A part of him that had once been Anakin Skywalker missed a challenge, missed the fervor of a battle well-fought and hard-won, missed the satisfaction of creating something new, missed the excitement of something unexpected.
He patrolled but did not board any ship, because after fifteen years of the same thing, he had learned to recognize the fear that was from a rebel and the fear of someone who just lived in the Empire.
Not until he’d caught a whisper of a presence in the Force he had not caught wind of since Mustafar. It was just an echo, but it had been worth honing in on the Alderaanian vessel approaching Tatooine because how he could not investigate.
For a second, he could admit that was something his old Master would do – hide on a planet he wanted nothing from, would have destroyed completely if his Mother hadn’t laid to rest there.
He ordered for the ship to be hailed, because he would be boarding it shortly.
It was almost satisfying to watch grown men and women flinch then rush to do just that.
It was almost still a rush to pick the one fumbling and delaying him from investigating, and to raise him in the air then crush his throat.
Almost, because it was what was expected of him by the Emperor to kill incompetents.
There was no enjoyment.
There never had been, not even when he’d still been Anakin Skywalker, there had only been an all-consuming anger that drowned out why he shouldn’t kill people who had hurt him, hurt people he’d loved. The Emperor had always encouraged him to kill anyone who had gotten in his way, and it had always been easy to do so because why shouldn’t he. They weren’t strong enough to stop him.
Anakin Skywalker might have spared them, but Anakin Skywalker had been weak. His mercy had resulted in his men dying in three years of war he could have stopped with his strength, his mother being a slave for most of his life before her death if he’d taken the life of anyone who could have stopped him from freeing her, and for his wife to seek the comfort of his Master.
Behind his helmet, thin lips twisted up as he thought of the chance to face his Master once more, ‘saber to ‘saber. It was a challenge and he looked forward to it.