A dungeon horrible, on all sides round
As one great furnace flamed, yet from those flames
No light, but rather darkness visible
-Paradise Lost, Book I, lines 62-3

Previously on Fallen

Alema: “If it isn’t the Jade Princess.”
Tahiri: “Was there something you needed, besides sour cloudberries?”
Alema: “I was just wondering what you did to warrant such a burdensome assignment.”
Put a Wookiee in the Med Ward and humiliated a well-trained bounty hunter, you jealous wench. “You think you should be the one to infiltrate the Rebels?” Tahiri shot back. “Please keep in mind that you can’t sleep your way into their ranks.”
“Perhaps not,” Alema answered, anger clouding her features. “I’m just surprised Jade is willing to subject her prized pupil to such… temptation. If you even know what to do with a boy, that is.”
Tahiri shook her head at the other woman’s imprudence. “Bring him back alive so Starkiller doesn’t kill us, you idiot.”
Alema: "Just be sure not to slip up, Veila. It would be a pity if another bounty hunter had to clean up after Jade’s star pupil."

Alarms blared throughout the cockpit. Anakin fought with his controls, but it was no use.
"Thrusters are unresponsive," he shouted to Tahiri over the noise. "At this altitude..." He turned away from his instruments to face Tahiri. Her eyes were widened slightly in alarm, but she didn't look terrified. "I'm sorry," Anakin said, not knowing what else to say.
The turbulence was too strong for Anakin to continue the awkward position necessary to face her. The g-forces pressed him against his seat as the ground rushed up to meet them.
No! Anakin shouted silently.
Everything stopped. The insistent beeping of the altitude alert indicating rapid descent. The shaking. Even the g-forces pressing Anakin against his seat. He felt vaguely as though he were floating.
So this is what it feels like to be dead. Odd; Anakin hadn't even felt the impact. He must have been killed instantly.
"Anakin."
Tahiri? Well. The afterlife would certainly be pleasant if he got to spend it with her.
No. Something was wrong. Anakin wasn't actually floating in nothingness. He could feel his flight restraints holding him, even as gravity tried to tug him forward. Slowly but surely, Anakin realized he still felt pain the burns and scrapes he had sustained during the battle.
"Anakin," Tahiri repeated, more forcefully this time. She was trying to get his attention, but there was something else. Surprise, almost... awe.
Anakin opened his eyes to find himself, as he had already realized, still in the cockpit of his Y-wing. And he saw the ground below them. A few meters below them.
We're floating in midair, Anakin abruptly realized.
Anakin gasped in shock, and whatever spell had previously held them just above the ground was broken. The ground rushed up to meet them, crushing the nose of the Y-wing. Another violent impact shook the fighter as it flipped over, something hit Anakin in the head, and he knew no more.

Anakin: “You know, nothing really seems to go right when I’m around you. I get shot, crash…”
Tahiri: “Oh, shut up.”
After a few moments of motionlessness, Anakin turned around under her and half-sat up. Tahiri didn’t really move, so she still straddled his waist. Another snide comment died on Tahiri’s lips at the intense look in Anakin’s eyes. She felt herself drowning in his blue eyes. Oh no…
And then they were kissing urgently, their arms carelessly winding around each other. And their fate was sealed.

Anakin: “Tahiri? What’s your status?”
Tahiri: “I had to take cover to avoid being spotted. I’ll be at the rendezvous point in approximately five minutes.”
Anakin: “Be careful.”
That was when Anakin realized he was afraid.
Anakin sighed in frustration and confusion, but the emotions could not gain supremacy over a deeper, stronger realization. I love her.
No. That was insane. He barely knew her. They had just gotten carried way, that was all. It was way too fast…
No, Anakin realized. I love her.
Against all logic, against all reason, Anakin felt himself smiling, almost weak with joy.
Anakin’s first clue that something was wrong came in the form of a strong hand clamping over his mouth, and a lithe female form pressing against his back. Anakin had no chance to struggle before a spray hypo was pressed against his neck. His muffled sounds of protest ceased as the strength left his body and his vision darkened.

A Few Weeks Ago

Anakin gasped as he woke up. He was disoriented, and did not immediately comprehend his surroundings.

“Oh good, he’s awake,” a female voice announced. “Now we can have some fun.”

“Leave him alone, Alema,” answered a less sinister-sounding male voice.

Anakin looked through the bars – Bars? he wondered to himself – to see a Twi’lek female staring at him intently, and a human with long hair and innocent-looking features.

“Where am I?” Anakin asked, surprised by how hoarse his own voice sounded. “Why the hell am I in a cage?”

The Twi’lek – Alema, the boy had called her – smiled wickedly. “You’re aboard my ship. You’re in the cage because you’re my prisoner,” she practically purred that second statement.

“Prisoner? What the hell? You don’t look Imperial!”

“That’s because we’re not,” the boy answered. Anakin turned his attention to him, and the boy gave him a nervous-looking smile. “We’re bounty hunters.”

Anakin frowned in confusion. “Bounty hunters? Then I’m a waste of your time. I’m just a fighter pilot. The Imperials will probably just shoot me and give you enough credits to cover your fuel. Why not return me to the Alliance? I’m sure they’d be willing to offer you more for my safe return.”

Alema actually laughed out loud. “Stupid boy. You don’t even know? Lord Starkiller himself put an obscenely high bounty on your head!”

That surprised Anakin. “He… what? Why?”

“How the hell should I know?” Alema shrugged. “I know I’d pay that much if I had it, but I don’t think Starkiller likes little boys.” She licked her lips. “Tell me… Tahiri didn’t already deflower you, did she?”

The color drained from Anakin’s face. WHAT? “Tahiri? What the hell do you know about her?”

Alema rolled her eyes. “You didn’t find out? She’s a bounty hunter. Like us.” There was hatred in her voice every time she mentioned Tahiri.

Anakin slumped to the ground as the world started spinning around him. Tahiri… a bounty hunter? It couldn’t be true. It couldn’t be.

Alema merely rolled her eyes in annoyance. “So she enjoyed the spoils even though she didn’t finish the job. I figured her for more of a professional. Oh well. That doesn’t mean we can’t—”

“That’s enough, Alema,” Zekk cut her off.

“My ship, my rules, pretty boy.”

Zekk crossed his arms. “How do you think Jade will react if I tell her how irresponsible you’re being?”

If looks could kill, Alema’s would have ended Zekk’s life on the spot. But instead, she turned away and angrily declared, “I’ll be in the flight cabin. I guess you should keep an eye on the prisoner.” She smiled dangerously at Anakin. “I’ll be back to check on you soon.”

“Just ignore her,” Zekk encouraged as he sat down outside of Anakin’s cell, putting them at eye level.

Anakin shook his head, not able to speak. Tahiri… what he had done with her, what he had felt for her… it suddenly felt contaminated, dirty.

And yet…

“Hey,” Zekk said, his voice sounding surprisingly warm. “Trust me, I know Tahiri. She doesn’t make mistakes. She would’ve finished the job long before now if she had any intention of doing so. I think she really fell for you and decided not to go through with it.”

“And why exactly should I trust you?”

Zekk shrugged. “Because I have literally no reason to lie to you about this.”

“Right,” Anakin answered skeptically. “Aren’t you a little friendly for a bounty hunter?”

Zekk grinned wickedly. “Perhaps, but I think Tahiri preceded me in that department.”

Anakin sighed. Even if this boy was telling the truth… it was all so confusing.

“That conflict, that means she means a lot to you” Zekk stated. He shook his head in apparent admiration. “She’s lucky. Oh well. You do have a brother, right?”

Anakin frowned. What?

Zekk smiled at his bewildered expression. “Don’t worry. I’m not like Alema. And I won’t let her do anything dishonorable before we get back to the Guild.”

“Great,” Anakin said with a sigh. “So all I have to worry about is Lord Starkiller torturing me to death. No problem there.”

xxx

Fallen

Darth Starkiller; Sith Lord (male human from Tatooine)
Mara Jade; Bounty Hunter’s Guild Headmistress (female human from Coruscant)
Commander Anakin Solo; Rogue Leader (male human from Hapes)
Alema Rar; Bounty Hunter (female Twi’lek from Ryloth)
Zekk; Bounty Hunter (male human from Coruscant)

xxx

Darkness Visible

Present Day

Headmistress Mara Jade was one of the few people in the galaxy who could watch Darth Starkiller’s shuttle land with a sense of happy anticipation. As the dark lord approached her, she swelled with pride rather than shrinking fearfully like most would in his presence.

Even Jade did not dare hug him in public, but neither did she kneel before him. She simply turned and walked next to him without him having to break stride.

“It is agreeable to see you again,” Starkiller greeted, the closest to a friendly greeting he could allow himself in public.

“Likewise. I trust your journey was uneventful?”

Starkiller’s silence spoke volumes. Jade couldn’t imagine the conflicted emotions Starkiller was feeling in the wake of his sister’s unexpected assassination. But without even speaking to him about it, she knew he had no part in it. For that, he would have to have finally resigned himself fully to the dark ways of his father and the Sith of generations past.

Though everyone else might indeed see him that way, Jade knew the truth. Starkiller was just as conflicted as he had been the last time she saw him.

The doors to Jade’s office had barely closed before they were practically welded together. But Starkiller wasn’t as… expressive as he normally was. All of his movements seemed slower, as though he were weighed down by something terrible.

“Mara…” he whispered her seldom-used surname.

“It’s okay,” she whispered.

Both of them felt tense as they slowly let their guards down for each other. This wasn’t the intense, but ultimately meaningless, physical relationship it had been at first. Over the years, they had grown to really care for each other in ways they were not at liberty to show to the outside world.

“We don’t have much time,” Starkiller told her, almost apologetically. “My father having Leia killed without consulting me means he’s distancing himself from me, which can only mean one thing… he’ll be coming for me soon.”

There was very real fear in Starkiller’s eyes as he said this, and Jade shivered. “Maybe you’ll defeat him,” she suggested, with more optimism than she actually felt, “and this will all be for naught.”

“Yeah,” Starkiller agreed, though his voice betrayed the same lack of faith. “Maybe.”

Jade sighed. “Well. I guess we’d better get started.”

xxx

Anakin had been left alone for the most part since arriving on Myrkr. He had plenty of time to think, but he didn’t want to deal with most of what he had to think about.

There was his potential fate at the hands of his captors. In all likelihood, Starkiller didn’t want to see him to congratulate him on his distinguished career as a fighter pilot. But why… how was he even on the radar screen for someone that high up on the food chain?

But he would likely find that out soon enough, and in the meantime nothing his imagination could provide was particularly good.

His immediate fate aside, there was only one thing that could realistically occupy his thoughts… Tahiri. But that was something he wanted to think about even less. His unbelievably complicated emotions on that subject were much more daunting than any possible fate he could imagine for himself.

So he mostly stared blankly at the wall and tried not to think about anything.

Anakin had been engaged in this agonizing venture with mixed results for quite a while when the door to his cell finally opened. He didn’t recognize the woman who entered the cell first, but when she stepped aside he easily recognized one the Alliance’s most feared enemies, Darth Starkiller.

Willing his exhausted body to rise, Anakin stood before the Sith Lord in a likely futile display of defiance.

“We haven’t met,” Starkiller began calmly, “but I’m certain you’re aware of who I am.”

“Oh yeah, I know all about you,” Anakin answered coldly. “You’re only the second most evil man in the galaxy.”

Starkiller smiled icily in reply. “Perhaps.”

“Let’s just skip the veiled threats and move right to the explicit threats,” Anakin suggested. “What do you want from me?”

Instead of answering, Starkiller pulled back his cape to reveal two silver cylinders on his belt. He took one of them, and tossed it towards Anakin. Anakin reflexively sidestepped, but instead of falling to the ground the cylinder hovered in the air front of Anakin.

“Take it,” Starkiller ordered calmly.

Anakin reluctantly reached for what he now recognized as a lightsaber. There’s no way he’s actually going to let me fight him.

“Turn it on.”

Not knowing how he knew what button he was looking for, Anakin activated the blade. It turned out to be an icy shade of green, and it gave the room an odd glow.

“Now strike.”

Anakin hesitated, holding the saber loosely with both hands and positioning himself carefully. He knew Starkiller would probably draw the other saber with lightning quickness, and would probably be able to strike him down within a matter of seconds. Anakin wasn’t sure what Starkiller meant to prove by this, but he had to try to catch the dark lord by surprise.

“What are you waiting for?” Starkiller prodded.

Anakin stepped forward and swung the saber quickly towards his target. Before it was even halfway there, Starkiller held his hand up, and Anakin flew backwards as though he had slammed into an invisible wall.

The saber automatically deactivated as Anakin lost his grip on it, which is fortunate because it prevented him from being impaled by his own weapon as he fell hard.

“If you want to kill me, there are plenty of less annoying ways to do it,” Anakin spat.

Starkiller smiled. “By now you’ve probably already realized it doesn’t make much sense for me to have gone to all this effort if all I wanted was to kill you.”

“The thought had crossed my mind,” Anakin admitted. “So what do you want?”

“To make you stronger,” Starkiller answered, to Anakin’s shock. “To make you capable of killing my father. Or me, if you have to. To put a stop to all of this.”

xxx

“You’re going to have to decide, you know,” Jade noted after a few days. “He’s far enough in his training that it’s going to start to matter.”

Starkiller sighed. “It isn’t just Anakin or me I’m thinking about, Jade. This is pretty heavy stuff. This is the fate of the galaxy we’re talking about.”

“Yeah, real dramatic stuff,” Jade answered flippantly.

“All I’ve ever seen is failed Jedi training. My training. The descriptions of my father’s training from Obi-Wan and my father. When they mess up, they seem to mess up pretty bad. It might be better just to start him off as a Sith to begin with.”

“Yeah, because that really seems like something he’d agree to,” Jade countered. “And do you honestly think a Sith can save the galaxy?”

Starkiller gave her a hurt look. “I thought that’s what I was doing.”

Jade’s reply was a silent stare, but the implication was obvious. Are you sure you’re a Sith?

xxx

As Anakin sparred with Starkiller, he reflected on how bewildered he was by the dark lord’s behavior. Surely he couldn’t be telling the truth, but if not, what was the point of all this?

Whatever. Anakin wasn’t about to pass up free combat training, and maybe one of these times he would get a real opportunity to kill Starkiller. They were fighting with live weapons, after all. Even though he hadn’t had an opening so far, that didn’t mean the tables couldn’t be turned.

“So what did Vader do to piss you off so much, anyway?” Anakin asked, hoping to catch the Sith off guard.

Starkiller’s expression darkened. “He killed my sister.”

That intrigued Anakin. He had never imagined Starkiller to care about anyone that much. “Sister? The media never said anything about her.”

“That’s because they didn’t know,” Starkiller answered slowly, deliberately, “that Leia and I were twins.”

Anakin staggered backwards, almost losing his footing. “You’re Luke Skywalker? But… that’s…” then the other implication of that statement hit him. Starkiller’s sister, his mother…

“No!” Anakin protested. “She can’t be! You’re lying!”

Starkiller swept his blade under Anakin’s guard, bur rather than maiming the boy he simply used the position to wrench the saber out of Anakin’s hands, effortlessly disarming him.

“We’ll speak again tomorrow.”

xxx

“If you train him as a Sith, we’re right back where we started,” Jade pointed out.

“I know that,” Starkiller answered, frustrated. “But how the hell am I supposed to train a Jedi?”

xxx

Anakin was tense when Starkiller arrived in his cell. Against his will, he had already started to believe the Sith Lord’s story. The dull horror of his mother’s death made him numb, but he knew the numbness would not last for long. Eventually he would need time and space to grieve.

If Starkiller was telling the truth. And if Anakin survived long enough to have to worry about that.

“Shall we begin?” Starkiller suggested calmly.

Anakin shook his head. “There’s one thing I have to know first. How could you do it? How could you turn into what you are today? Luke Skywalker fought the Empire so hard we’re still talking about him thirty years later. What changed?”

Starkiller sighed. “I guess you deserve to know. Close your eyes. I’m going to share a memory with you.”

xxx

Twenty-Seven Years Ago

“Father, you’re free!” Luke protested. “You don’t have to do his bidding any more. We can beat him, you know we can!”

“I’ve never been free,” Vader told him.

“I’m a Jedi,” Luke protested.

“You don’t know what you’re saying, son. The Jedi are evil, corrupt. Obi-Wan and Yoda were the best of them, but even they…” Luke could not see his father’s face, but he heard the betrayal in his voice.

And then with tremendous effort, Lord Vader – Anakin Skywalker – opened himself completely to the Force, to his son. The deepest parts of his soul were bared.

And suddenly Luke understood. Understood everything. He felt everything his father had been through. It was beautiful; it was terrible.

He’d been a slave. Then he’d been a Jedi. With Padme, he’d forged his own chains, but they were no less real. He had become further and further bound until… redemption was no longer possible for him. But it was all for the greater good, it always had been.

Just like after the Emperor died, Vader would have to rule in his place. It was the only way. Luke saw that now.

The man he had once hated and feared was the man he now loved more than anyone in the galaxy. He understood him completely, so he could do nothing but love him.

“Please,” Vader used the word he hadn’t used in so long. “I need you, son.”

And suddenly, Luke knew he hated Palpatine. Love and hate could not coexist. It wasn’t a question of right and wrong. He hated Palpatine. Whether he was right to hate him or not was not the question.

Palpatine’s eyes darted from father to son as the lightsabers hovered over him. He had been in this position before, but this time he was not in control. Not in control at all.

Love and hate cannot coexist.

Luke restored the balance. He struck down the defenseless Sith, ending the era of Lord Sidious.

Feeling compelled by unseen forces, Luke knelt, and his father completed the Sith rite. Luke would no longer walk the sky; he became the killer of stars the galaxy would hereafter know him as. The darkly beautiful circle was complete.

xxx

Present Day

Anakin understood, but he did not surrender himself as his uncle had.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and meant it. But with the newly discovered power of the Force he called his uncle’s old lightsaber to his hand and ignited it.

To Be Continued…