Summary: It's been years since Vader last encountered the aroma of Obi-Wan's infernal spiced tea, yet he would know the scent of it anywhere. But what was his old Master's favorite brand of tea doing on a ship registered to Senator Bail Organa of Alderaan? And what was the Senator's ship doing amongst a band of rebels and traitors? Darth Vader, Lord of the Sith and burgeoning private investigator, intends to find out.

Notes: Novel-length work alert, probably with weekly updates. Written for NaNoWriMo 2018. So far, this story will feature Vader POV, Obi-Wan POV, some Ahsoka POV and brief Bail Organa, Commodore Maximilian Veers, and Thrawn POVs. The time period in which this story is set will be made clear very quickly. I've been reading Lords of the Sith, so you'll see references to that all over the place. Expect cameos from all sorts of characters!

The Far Dark Shore

Prologue

The jagged, slate-grey nose of the ISD-Perilous slid smoothly through space. From far away she moved in complete silence, her massive sublight engines lighting up the darkness, her wedge-shaped outline imposing, majestic and nigh indestructible – a city or a fortress among the stars. And all utterly without sound.

Up close was a different matter.

Sparks of light flared around the Perilous, like middens around a gundark; insignificant and powerless. Yet, when they died, from the Perilous' guns or the cannons of the TIE fighters which hunted them down, they exploded, energy and air combining into bursts of red and gold and heat – light and sound.

It was almost…poetic.

Or so his master would have thought.

Vader himself thought they – the battles, the rebels – were a hindrance. They were just one more petty roadblock to his and the Emperor's grand vision.

Another explosion rocked the Perilous. From farther down the bridge, Captain Luitt cursed and then shouted orders towards the men and women who filled the stations and whose tension Vader could almost taste, sour with fear, in the Force.

He could feel his ever-present rage howling at the edge of his awareness, the rage which drove him and fed his power, and he wanted to act now.

As always, the memory of his master's wishes and power kept him under control. Soon, old friend, the Emperor always told him. Soon you will be unleashed upon them. When the moment is most beneficial to us.

That moment had not arrived yet.

"We're taking heavy fire on the rear, port deflector shield!" a lieutenant yelled as the ship was rocked once more. Her voice contained heavy strain.

A rebel ship was shot down right outside the forward viewports, causing an explosion which sent pieces of debris shooting out in all directions, most if it towards the Perilous' bridge. Alarms blared, and sensor stations lit up in flashing red.

"Shields holding at sixty-five percent," Major Piett called out from his own station. His voice was stoic. Vader knew from experience that the man was unflappable in the face of danger. He had seen the very end of the Clone Wars after all.

Before Captain Luitt could respond to either party, Vader spoke. "Angle the rear deflectors. Move the ship thirty degrees to port and increase forward batteries."

There was a momentary pause as the bridge crew deliberately refrained from looking between Vader and Luitt. Vader could feel the Captain's swell of annoyance and anger at the Sith Lord's blatant usurpation of his authority, but he didn't care. He saw what needed to be done and he did it. The Empire, and his master, had no time for officers who deliberated when action was required.

Luitt gave a tight nod. "Do as Lord Vader commands."

The sirens were wailing, and Vader could hear the ship straining, durasteel beams creaking, as the Perilous swung rapidly to port. The forward batteries opened fire, doubling their rate of discharge. It couldn't be sustained for long without the cannons overheating, but it had the desired effect of scattering the motley gathering of rebel ships doing damage to the Perilous' port side. One more group of traitors to the Empire destroyed today.

Or rather, not yet. But they would be, for now was Vader's moment. "Captain, is my fighter prepped for launch?"

Luitt strode down the bridge towards him, his emotions once more held tightly under the control of professionalism. "Yes, Lord Vader," he said, nodding sharply. "Your personal squadron is ready and awaiting your orders in hangar bay twenty-two twenty-four."

"Good," Vader said, before whirling around and stalking from the bridge, his cloak billowing out behind him. He could feel the relief as he left, and he reveled in it. His master believed that fear was necessary in those who served underneath the Sith.

He was pleased to find Commander Gradd and the rest of the squadron indeed ready and waiting. He ran through the initial startup sequence on autopilot, so deeply buried in the Force – watching the ebb and flow of the battle – that for a moment time was meaningless, the past was the present, and he said, "All systems are green. How do things look back there, Artoo?"

The resulting silence, thick save for the breathing of his respirator, jolted him back to awareness. Of course there was no answer, because R2-D2 had belonged to the Jedi, to Anakin Skywalker, and Anakin Skywalker was dead.

He had been dead for five years now.

Vader felt that ever-present fury, the memory of the fires of Mustafar, swell within him again and this time he let it consume him, drive him. The Force flowed in him and through him everywhere, except for the mechanical limbs which remained dark and empty in the landscape of his awareness, a last gift from –

"Launch fighters," Vader said, fury burning in him, his respirator struggling to keep up with his pounding heart rate, and he hurled his craft towards space.

Out there in the cold silence of space was freedom – freedom from everything, but especially from the past. Out there was only Vader's rage and those who would die because of it.

The rest of Vader's squadron quickly moved into formation around him, spreading out in a tight, overlapping pattern that meant their lack of shields was compensated for by a concentrated rate of firepower. Vader took a quick look at the spread of the battlefield; his computer displays inside the TIE fighter quickly differentiating enemy ships from friendlies. The problem with the computer displays though, were that they failed to show the debris field which had rapidly spread out around the Perilous in all directions, remnants from the Star Destroyer itself but also the wreckage of smaller Imperial and Rebel craft alike.

Navigating the debris field while avoiding enemy fire would be difficult for his pilots. But not for him. The Force was his.

"Attack pattern Delta," he ordered, feeling the flickers of acknowledgement from his men as several A-wings moved within range. The A-wing was maneuverable but lightly-shielded and no match for a TIE's heavy guns. It was a modified version of one of the Separatists last designs, something the Valahari had originally developed the prototype to back when they served under Dooku's command.

Vader shouldn't have been surprised that these rebel traitors were in league with Separatist holdovers, and he wasn't, but it still made him burn with rage.

He targeted first one, then a second, then the third A-wing, destroying them all, then quickly broke formation, leaving his pilots with the clean-up duty of the bulky freighter the A-wings had been protecting. It looked to be slow and without weapons, perhaps modeled on an old dreadnaught design, and Vader had no doubt that they were up to the task of subduing it.

If they were not, well then, he would have several more spaces to fill in the squadron come tomorrow.

Vader himself punched the TIE as hard as it would go, sending the maneuverable craft towards the bow of the Perilous and deep out into space. Saleucami, a planet in the Outer Rim which had seen conflict during the Clone Wars, hung glimmering in the distance, green and silver under its red dwarf sun. No doubt, the rebels thought to flee towards it.

Vader quickly gained on them, their battered, derelict ships no match for a top of the line Sienar-class TIE fighter.

"Lord Vader" Captain Luitt's voice came over the comm. "You're too far out of range. We can't cover you any longer."

"There is no need," Vader told him, unconcerned. "Prepare the Perilous for departure as soon as I return." And he switched the comm off.

Two Y-wings, hanging back behind and obviously covering a Corellian corvette desperately hauling towards the planet, slowed as Vader gained ground on them. Swinging around to face him, Vader could feel the fear in the Y-wing pilots as they readied their ships to make a run. They moved slowly, still too far away for Vader to get a clear visual, but it seemed as though they almost hit the corvette as they lined themselves up beside it. Either their ships were in worse repair than even Vader assumed, or these pilots were barely deserving of the name, children and fools sucked in by the lies of a band of rebels.

Vader didn't even bother to slow his craft.

The Y-wings tried to maneuver, to avoid his cannon fire, but they were unwieldly and too slow. Yet, illogically, still they came. There weapons were too weak, too old, to even damage Vader's ship. Vader felt a flicker in the Force, but he was still several meters away from them when they exploded under his constant fire into a cloud of dust and debris…

…from which a pair of A-wings, hiding their heat signatures in the Y-wings' exhaust, burst from the debris and strafed Vader's TIE.

For a moment, a brief instant in time, Vader was frozen in surprise. How had he failed to sense them? Surely the Force would not have deserted him after all this time?

And then he moved faster than thought, hitting the emergency ejection sequence just as the blaster fire from the rebel A-wings hit the TIE's ion engines…

…and it exploded.

Vader found himself in space. Everything was dark and cold, and he was alone. The armored plastisteel and durasteel of his biomechanical suit meant that he could withstand the deadly cold and pressure of space longer than most other sentients. Floating the vacuum, amid the debris of his ship, Vader was reminded inexorably of the past once more.

Ahsoka. She had once been his Padawan. Her voice came from very far away. A memory, faint as gossamer silk.

It was Master Plo Koon who found me, and brought me to the Temple where I belonged. Now he's lost, so I thought, maybe I could find him.

He remembered Master Plo, standing on the outside of the escape pod, lightsaber lit, able to withstand the elements until Anakin and Ahsoka found him. The memory stabbed him like a blade, painful and deep. He ruthlessly shoved it aside, buried it and focused on the task at hand. He was still alive because of the armor gifted to him by his master. It was his armor which separated him from all others in the galaxy, made him unique and proclaimed his destiny. It was his armor which had finally freed him from the constraints and demands of the flesh which had once plagued him.

Obi-Wan. Padmé.

Ghosts from the past. That was all. As dead and gone as Anakin Skywalker. Now there was only the Force. Only power and those too weak to wield it.

Up ahead, the Corellian corvette had slowed, waiting for the A-wings to circle back around and take up flanking positions on either side of it once more. Vader could feel their pilots coming closer behind him, their thoughts elsewhere. They did not even scan the wreckage of his TIE fighter for a survivor. Foolish of them. And sloppy.

They passed over his head.

Vader reached out with the Force, bent it to his will. He stretched out a mechanical hand, his limbs no more bothered by the lack of gravity than they were by its presence. He flicked his hand once, and the A-wing on his right jerked hard to the left. Vader had time to feel the shock and fear in the pilot on the right as she lost control of her craft, before it crashed into the second A-wing and both were engulfed in an inferno.

Then he stretched out his hand once more, pulling himself through space towards the Corellian corvette. He ignited his lightsaber as he approached, knowing that he had only seconds left before his suit depressurized and he froze to death, or his body exploded from the expansion of air in his lungs.

But it didn't matter. All that mattered was the rapidly approaching rebel ship and the enemies who would fall before his blade.

0o0

End Notes: Anyone notice the A-wing slash – created by General Garm Bel Iblis in the old canon – in this chapter? I wonder who invented it in this timeline?