The timbre of the shuttle's hyperdrive engines dropped in pitch from a quiet whine to a low thrum, powering down in increments too subtle to follow. On instinct, Vader shifted his stance to brace himself. He knew from experience the jarring lurch back into realspace and time was seconds away.

Sure enough, the starlines shortened into distant flickers of white, and the swirling blue between them darkened and faded to midnight black. But the shuttle itself slipped from hyperspace with barely a rumble.

Vader straightened again, frowning beneath his mask. He almost wished it had. Ships as small as this shuttle lacked the many backup systems a dreadnought used to make a smooth reentry, which meant pilot error was a much greater factor. Had his pilot slipped up, Vader might've had an excuse – albeit a flimsy one – to quit hovering at the back of the cockpit and oust her from the pilot's seat.

Still, the Emperor's instructions about the decorum of Imperial leadership were clear, and Vader didn't doubt his Master had eyes and ears even here on his personal shuttle. Flying always calmed Vader's nerves, but it clearly wasn't the Force's will that he go into this calmly.

The ship arced away from its exit coordinates, and the muddy brown surface of Geonosis swung into view. They were deep enough into the system that he could only make out a few of the planet's fifteen satellites, but he knew without looking that they had been joined by a sixteenth: a new sister made of metal instead of rock.

The farce protecting Project Stardust was flimsy, but clever. The Geonosians had a borderline xenophobic distrust of offworlders. Their tendency to shoot them first and ask questions later kept independent science teams from investigating the system too closely, where they might realize the number of moons orbiting the planet had inexplicably changed.

Geonosis was also the Empire's chief source of advanced weaponry, which was an excellent reason to keep security tight. For the same reason, Vader would've expected to hear of possible intelligence leaks on the planet's surface. While the Geonosians professed their loyalty to the Emperor now, everyone could be bought for the right price. Their skill with tech was legendary, and for the chance to control such an asset, Vader didn't doubt the hidden players of galactic politics would be more than generous.

But Agent Kallus and the Emperor had assembled the command structure of the project – the only ones with clearance to communicate with the outside galaxy – themselves. Vader didn't trust Kallus, but he did trust his Master. The possibility that one of their handpicked personnel had defected to the Rebellion, or even a third party, was extremely troubling.

The shuttle zipped between two of the planet's larger moons, trembling slightly as it was caught in and then freed from their gravity. Once again, the pilot kept the ship under tight control, but Vader had no chance to stew over it. As they rounded the second moon, at last, he laid eyes on Project Stardust.

The dull grey space station was wreathed with construction modules like a countless attendants serving their queen. Despite the exposed gaps in its spherical surface where the durasteel exoskeleton had not yet been patched, it dwarfed the modules – and the several dozen dreadnoughts keeping watch – many times over. Even the giant emitter dish in the middle of its northern hemisphere, the smallest defining characteristic Vader could see beyond a dark strip running the length of the equator, outclassed them by leaps and bounds.

The station was already a marvel the likes of which Vader had never seen. Once completed, Project Stardust would be a technological terror that made the Malevolence's ion cannons look like children's toys.

Vader suppressed a shiver of anticipation. No Sith in recorded history save the fabled Darth Nihilus had ever executed the sacred precept of creation through destruction this fully. It was fitting, breathtakingly fitting, that of late some of his Master's allies had begun calling it the Death Star.

Low conversation between the pilot and a voice over the comm drew Vader's notice. Attention diverted from the awe-inspiring display in the viewport back to the cockpit he stood in, he listened closer, and bit back a groan when he recognized it.

"Your codes are in perfect order, of course. I expected nothing less. Vader has his failings, but this arrangement was the Emperor's doing," Agent Kallus said. Vader gritted his teeth. "And our beloved ruler's insight is a balm for all ills."

"Proceeding to hangar 2038 on your mark," the pilot replied faintly. Her aura sparked with nerves like a live wire, and Vader huffed to himself, crossing his arms. At least some people in the Empire still treated Vader with the respect he was owed.

All necessary frivolities concluded, the comm panel fell silent. The shuttle flew on toward the station uncontested a short while longer before a tractor beam latched on, guiding it toward a hangar bay near the station's northern pole. Under the tractor beam's superior power, the cavernous gaps in the Death Star's hull quickly slipped out of view; within minutes, they'd made a smooth landing in the center of the hangar.

Vader disembarked alone, and without ceremony. He'd left his Elites back on Onderon to act as additional informants, intrigued by the Taevarion girl's proposal to be his eyes and ears among the nobility but disinclined to trust her completely. She had greater aims than she was telling. Vader respected ambition, but not at the cost of his own power.

Kallus was waiting to receive him, flanked by an impressive amount of storm troopers – both the standard and Elite class. "Lord Vader, welcome to our humble abode," he said cheerily, gesturing to the cavernous space around them. "Our host had some last-minute details to attend to before your arrival, so I was sent to escort you to the overbridge in the Northern Polar Command Sector instead."

Vader frowned before he remembered that while Project Stardust was under Kallus' jurisdiction, someone else had to be there to supervise it when Kallus' other duties with the ISB called him elsewhere. Last Vader had heard, the project leader was one Director Orson Krennic, but it was possible his information was out of date. He'd been too preoccupied with meditating – fruitlessly – on the mystery Jedi to double-check while his shuttle was still in hyperspace.

Well, he couldn't ask Kallus without looking like a fool, and the Emperor had taught the man shielding techniques so sophisticated it wasn't worth the effort to probe for it. Best to simply start walking. The sooner he reached the command center, the sooner he would know – without giving Kallus more fodder for ridicule.

Vader breezed past Kallus, forcing him to jog to catch up and walk briskly to stay far enough ahead to lead Vader down the wide causeway between the lines of troopers. As per usual, Kallus began talking a good deal while saying little. Sensing nothing of real substance in his words beyond idle boasts and conjectures about the station's eventual role in Imperial peacekeeping, Vader tuned him out and focused on his surroundings.

Onderon's intrigues did have their appeal, now that Vader had learned a little more about the politics that maintained the wealthy and affluent. But the hangar bays packed with fighters – his Master had commissioned new ones to add sentient pilots to his corps of vulture droids and gunships –, the soldiers standing at rigid attention, the crisp whines of klaxons and softer echoes of announcements over the loudspeakers... This was what truly made sense to Vader. The sprawling briefing rooms and conference halls they passed on occasion were all built in the Confederate style, but even they were strikingly familiar.

Everything was sharper and neater than he'd ever mandated it be on the Resolute, though. Vader shook that thought away; that was the life of someone else, someone who had to be buried. But some of his observations could still serve Vader now. Whoever the director was, they ran a tight ship – or, more accurately, a tight station – and Vader sensed the display wasn't entirely for his benefit.

Interesting.

As they reached the end of a corridor, Kallus pulled a code cylinder from a pocket in into the shoulder of his armored ISB uniform. He held this to a panel set inconspicuously into the wall, and then, on unseen hinges, the entire wall slid away to reveal a bustling command center.

"And this, Lord Vader, is the overbridge," Kallus said, stepping to the side to give Vader a full view.

The room was large – two or three times the size of the bridge on an Imperial dreadnought – but the station's architects had taken great care while designing it. Much of the space was taken up by consoles where sentients and droids clustered together, comparing readings and relaying orders in quiet voices. Though Vader's mask compensated for the low light automatically, the shadows only made the deep grey control panels lining the outer walls seem darker. Under his gaze, the space seemed to shrink down on itself until nothing was visible – and important – but the room's more brightly lit center.

It was a masterful trompe-d'oeil, almost as intimidating as the dizzying view of the station from outside. Fortunately Vader had more pressing things to think about than his own smallness. At the head of the small crowd gathered in the middle of the room stood Wilhuff Tarkin, lit from behind by an enormous holoscreen.

Tarkin took a step forward, his arms clasped behind his back. "Lord Vader, I am Director Tarkin." He didn't offer Vader a hand to shake.

"My Master the Emperor sends you his greetings, Director," Vader replied in a monotone, though he was full to bursting with questions.

Anakin Skywalker had been impressed by the man's unflinching willingness to go to whatever lengths were needed to win battles, even if his interference in the investigation just before the end of the war had been more hindrance than help. However, Tarkin had also been particularly close with Chancellor Palpatine, the Emperor's sworn enemy. Why put him, of all people, in charge of the second most sensitive operation in the Empire? Had it not occurred to Kallus and Vader's Master that such a man was exactly the type to take revenge for a vanquished ally?

"While I welcome the assistance in seeking out the source of our intelligence leak," Tarkin said in a tone that made it clear he felt the exact opposite, "I admit I am surprised you're not still needed on Onderon."

"Onderon is in hand for the time being. It will survive in my absence."

Tarkin scoffed, his eyes narrowed down to watery blue slits. "Survive, indeed! With what I've heard of the brutality of your tactics, Lord Vader, I'm sure the local population was overcome with joy when they learned of your departure. If my calculations are correct, the moment you left, their odds of survival quadrupled."

Vader's lips pulled back into a snarl, but he checked his rising anger with pride. Yes, it was within his power to fell entire planets if that was his will. If Tarkin, in his own blustery way, was looking for reassurance that Vader would do no such thing here, he was about to be sorely disappointed.

"If the Emperor questioned the effectiveness of my tactics, Director Tarkin," Vader growled, "he would not have summoned me here. I will accomplish my task by any means necessary, no matter the body count."

He let the threat hang in the air while Tarkin tried and failed to come up with a repartee. His sycophants clustered closer together, moving behind a Human man in his late thirties with dark eyes and hair that hovered undecidedly between blond and brown. In doing so, they singled him out as their leader – a lesser commanding officer than Tarkin, no doubt, but one with enough rank to hold sway.

When Vader stretched out with his senses to grasp the man's presence in the Force, it came back ripe with nerves. His fear of Vader ran deeper than any of the others', fuelled by a specific reason instead of shapeless rumors. Vader wondered what that was.

"Lord Vader, you're disrespecting your host," Kallus said with brightness that hid just how wary this conversation was making him.

Drawn back to the present but not altogether distracted enough to apologize, Vader motioned to Tarkin's group. They wore the white garb of Imperial scientists, and the outer edges of their coveralls were blank canvases for the watercolor browns and blues of the planetary bodies on the screen behind them. None of the brighter hues touched Tarkin's slate grey uniform, which Vader might've found symbolic, had he a greater love of poetry.

"Your engineers?" he asked.

Tarkin nodded quickly. "The senior staff and their leader, Galen Erso. He is responsible for the last major breakthrough in the design of the station's weapon – the reason the project is so far ahead of schedule."

"It– it was a team effort," Erso mumbled, looking down. He was near to fainting from nervousness. Clearly, he didn't like being singled out.

"An excess of modesty is one of his rare failings," Tarkin said, his thin lips quirking up into something that could almost pass for a smile.

"But a forgivable offence, in the light of such genius," Kallus added.

Tarkin was an interesting sparring verbal partner, but Vader was not in the mood for bandying words with no bite to them. Vader directed a question at the engineers before Kallus could get much further. "How much of the station's mass does the weapon account for?"

"Just under twenty-seven percent," a woman answered from the back after a pause. "Ops and crew quarters for essential personnel will take up another twelve."

Vader frowned. The station was not yet complete, true, but his Master was very frugal for a Sith. Some additional deductions would surely have to be made for power generators and hyperdrives, but this seemed so... wasteful. "Then what is the purpose of the remaining sixty-one percent?"

"Archetype and Stardust are the two sides of a credit chip." Kallus smiled. "One rewrites the Empire's expectations of its ruler, and the other fulfills them."

Understanding began to dawn on Vader. 'Image is everything' was the only maxim Tyranus valued more than 'waste not, want not'. That seemed to be what Kallus was getting at, but his wordplay distorted much of his explanation. Vader didn't care to fill in the gaps on his own.

"Then the two aims are in conflict," he argued, hoping to bait Kallus into revealing more. "It's not possible to subvert expectations when a real possibility remains the populace will have their initial assumptions proven right."

"How coolly you betray your lack of vision, Lord Vader!" Tarkin said, another almost-smile gracing his gaunt face.

Vader had the distinct impression he'd been left out of a marvelous joke. He considered sniping that through the Force, he had literal visions – and gained a lot more insight through them than Tarkin ever would.

With difficulty, he held his tongue. That kind of pettiness was beneath him.

"The Empire must keep a strong grip on the galaxy. Infighting between planetary governments will keep them too busy to unite and rise up against us." Kallus wore a similar expression to Tarkin, which tried Vader's patience.

"From what I have heard, Lord Vader, Project Archetype is the framework that will uphold this status quo in the Outer Rim," Tarkin interjected. "But Project Stardust's scale is as much about showing as it is about telling. Farther Core-ward, where the Republic's influence still lingers and resistance to the new mentality will be strongest, fear will keep the local systems in line – fear of this battle station."

"Yet the Rebellion has already found its way in," Vader sniped. "I wonder if we couldn't have done without that sixty-one percent to make the station a little easier to hide from prying eyes."

Tarkin started. His tight mental control slipped, displaying true unease for the first time since Vader had arrived. The lapse was brief, however. Seconds later, disconcertingly, Vader could no longer read him.

"There is no proof of this that I know of," Tarkin said finally, crossing his arms austerely over his chest. "Far be it from me to speak ill of the ISB, but I believe Agent Kallus has blown the issue out of proportion. All my operatives can say for certain is that a series of unexplained transmissions recently left the station."

"That you know of," Vader echoed.

Tarkin's expression soured.

"Think yourself king of this particular hill if you wish to, Director," Vader continued. He grinned triumphantly when the Force thrummed in anticipation, spurning him on. "I care not. But the reality of the situation is that something has gone amiss under your and Agent Kallus' leadership. I'm here to fix it, Rebel infiltrator or no Rebel infiltrator."

Tarkin glanced back at Erso, and the two shared a look. Kallus smiled lightly, an admirable attempt to conceal the seething anger beneath. Vader pulled at the Force, hunting for the rest of the truth he'd glimpsed while speaking. It wasn't long before he began to understand – really understand, this time.

The only one who was truly indispensable to Darth Tyranus, Emperor of the known galaxy, was Vader. There was not a Force user alive who had Vader's power, and that gave him a measure of security. If he failed, he would be punished, but no matter how far he fell, he would always have another opportunity to prove his worth and climb back up again. The Emperor hated waste, but if people like Tarkin and Kallus failed – people who were difficult to replace but not indispensable – they only had so many chances to compensate before his forgiveness ran out.

Much as Vader had expected, he was to be a reminder of how fragile the power the two men had fought tooth and nail for really was. They would accept his presence only so long as his brutality served as a scapegoat for their missteps.

And that knowledge gave Vader the power to back them into a corner.

The dark side sang in his blood, urging him to bend these two fools to his will now that he'd spotted a possible weakness. He tempered the thrill before any sign of it could show in his body language. He still had to determine the best way to use this advantage – the means to the sweetest and most complete victory.

Kallus and Tarkin saw him as the Emperor's dog, an unthinking beast that, for all his great power, was easily manipulated into serving their interests. They weren't entirely wrong, but Vader was far smarter than either of them realized.

He'd play along for now. But when the time came to use what he'd learned...

Vader smiled a feral smile, brushing his long cape out of the way to gesture sharply at Kallus and the door. "I've had enough of these word games. Show me to the communications center, Agent Kallus. I have work to do."

Slowly but surely Vader is learning the ins and outs of real manipulation, the kind that goes beyond empty threats in the heat of the moment. While he'll never see an assignment working alongside Kallus as anything other than a demotion, are there opportunities for Vader aboard the Death Star Vader doesn't yet realize? Or will the pitfalls of tangoing with Tarkin and Kallus be too great to avoid? Will Onderon truly carry on in his absence the same way it did under his iron fist, as Vader seems so sure of? Only time will tell...

Sooooo... TARKIN IS BACK

So far I've pulled Star Wars Rebels, the Ahsoka novel, and the Mandalorian into this story (inadvertently, because I CAME UP WITH MIDICHLORIAN SCIENCE FOR SOTE IN 2016), and now we'll be seeing some elements from Rogue One. It was mentioned to me that I'm really making as many connections with this story to as many different parts of canon as I can. Considering I always meant this to be a loose retelling of the Original Trilogy with Ahsoka taking center stage instead of Luke... Short answer is yes!

Writing Tarkin was unexpectedly fun, I must say. His dynamic with Vader was explored in depth in the Tarkin novel (great book btw), but there's nowhere near as much animosity here as there would have been had Tarkin actually tried to convict Ahsoka for murder. That could either be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on what Tarkin's game is. Because while Vader IS learning, Tarkin's been playing this game a lot longer than Vader has.

Next chapter we'll learn see just how Ahsoka intends to follow Bail Organa's instructions to get her friends in the villages the resources they need to protect themselves and thrive. I'll talk to you guys then!