Chapter Text
“Have I not stored up these things, sealed up within My vaults? Vengeance is Mine; I will repay. In due time their foot will slip; for their day of disaster is near, and their doom is coming quickly. For the LORD will vindicate His people and will have compassion on His servants when He sees that their strength is gone and no one remains, slave or free.…” Deuteronomy 32:34
He Fell on Mustafar.
He’d nearly Fallen before – on Naboo, on Jabim, on Florum, on Mandalore. He’d always been flirting with it. His attachments were strong and he’d been so conflicted. Then those times would come when it was all too much. He’d reach with rage, and the force would swell. In those moments he hadn’t cared about the tone--light, dark, or in between. The power would come and only later, later, when he let go, or seen the faces of others, would the guilt arise. And he’d mortify himself to remove the taint.
But he left Anakin to suffer. As he as suffering. As the force was suffering.
This was no longer about light and dark. This was about those who would kill the people he loved, had sacrificed for. And those who would stand beside him and not betray him.
Bail had taken Leia. Yoda had gone to exile. And…he’d gone to Tatootine. The last place in the galaxy that Anakin would chase him. Would think to look. He’d given Beru, Luke. He’d talked with Clegg and left him with a stock of emergency coin stolen from Padme’s shuttle and converted to chomar. He’d left before his brother could turn on him.
“I’m a wanted man”, he had said as he repacked his bag.
“You could stay with us, give up the Force”, his brother had said.
“I have a war to fight.”
“Is that all you know, death?”
He’d been known for his quips, his words of power. Here, the rising anger on his brother’s face made him swallowed them down.
He’d left at midnight, walked his speeder beyond the perimeter, and headed to Mos Eisley. He slipped aboard a slaving ship, one bound to Zigeria.
He spaced the crew and landed the ship on Pantora. He’d pretended to be pilot, co-pilot, and crew to the slaves he’d cleaned and fed. Pantora had been the best choice for his escape. A relatively cosmopolitan world with a strong anti-slaver presence. He’d used Force Illusion to present himself to space port authorities. He’d used that same illusion to slip out of the ship, unseen after he’d refused to pay the necessary bribes. He placed a tip about a slaving ship that had illegally landed at the space port with the local abolitionist league and left them to the mystery of how it had arrived and why. On Pantora, he’d acquired a new id, spacer’s clothing, dye for his hair and skin, and accessed one of the Jedi Shadow accounts. He drained it dry.
The space port crawled with clone troopers. The distinctive colors of the 134th set his teeth on edge. He tried to find Wolffe and the Wolfpack in the mess, but under the screaming (and they were screaming, in horror and victory, every one of them) he couldn’t feel the Wolfpack. He wasn’t surprised. Plo wouldn’t have gone down without a fight.
They held a victory parade, all the troopers and the local admiralty were shown to the people of Pantora, all of whom were requested (required) to watch. At the end, the Emperor gave a speech. The senator for Pantora, Riyo Chuchi, was expressionless as she read out the senatorial proclamation of the new empire.
He watched from a Cornellian bar, bitching with the rest of the spacers. He was shaven – looking younger than ever, and never more grateful for it. His lightsaber was hidden, and he was festooned with blaster and knives he’d stolen along the way.
That night, someone knifed Admiral Korenski and poisoned the rest of his staff. They didn’t even notice that the Admiral had been robbed blind and his command codes compromised until the Peacemaker exploded in orbit, taking the entire 134th space corps and support staff with it. He hadn’t stayed to see it. He’d already been in hyperspace when the venator had gone up in flames.