Saga An Unknown Deed

Title: An Unknown Deed
Author: Moon Labutto
Genre: Short Story
Characters: Darth Vader, Mace Windu, Admiral Ozell, Captain Piett, Other Original Characters
Time Frame: 2 Years after Order 66
Rating: PG-13-esque
Summary: Mace Windu, having survived his encounter with Palpatine, hunts down and confronts Darth Vader while Rebels launch an attack on the Executor.
Author's notes: I came up with a concept and ran with it. Let me know that you think.

Space was calm.

It was almost eerie in its stillness, and in its motion...wrapping its way around the planets and moons... the seemingly non existent vacuum that bound the universe together. Many miles above Centax-1, however, space was not so calm. The Executor was locked in desperate combat against three rogue star destroyers and four more rebel ships. The inner space and atmosphere of Centax-1 was rocked with violent waves and blasts of the attacks. A-wings and tie-fighters whipped around the ships like comets through space, screaming green and red blasts at each other, occasionally driving one or the other down into the dark lonely abyss.

The larger star-ships bared down on Vader's vessel with all their might, the massive black star destroyer screeching back in protest. 'But would it prove enough? Would this power be enough to destroy the burning evil aboard that ship?' Thought Admiral Carna, the male Twi' Lek in charge of the rebel assault on their current target. From the helm of the rebel Blockade Runner the situation seemed so very dire to both sides. One of the captured Star Destroyers burst into hellfire, its very concussion crippling the other Star Destroyer next to it. The Persephone, as it was called, began a violent lurch towards the moon's surface.

"Lieutenant." The Admiral said calmly.

"Yes Sir?" Came the man's shaking reply.

"Fear not. Every man dies. This prize is worth destroying the entirety of the Rebellion." the Admiral replied not taking his eyes from the battle. "Now that we have their shields down, Order all Rebellion ships to spread out and focus their fire on the bridge, the hangar bay, and the comms tower. Redirect our A-Wings to strafe the surface and take out as many guns as possible. And have the remaining Star Destroyer flank the Executor and take out its engines."

"Aye, Sir." The Lieutenant replied. He began to frantically shout the orders into a microphone. As the ships moved to their new positions, a radar tech stood up to address the Admiral.

"Sir, One escape pod has left the Executor. It carries no life forms, and it seems to have been ripped or shaken loose as its engines never ignited and it is in a free spin"

"Take it out." The Admiral replied coldly.

"Aye." Came the reply from one of the gunners. Two quick green blasts from Carna's blue Blockade Runner and turned the pod into stardust.

"No mercy." The Admiral whispered to himself, "We're here to win."

"Sir," the Radar Tech said again, "There is a civilian craft headed for the Executor at a very reckless speed. I believe it is going to crash!"

"Let it. Its none of our concern." He said as a heavily armed freighter went up in flames and began falling to the moon's surface. The small civilian craft, as expected, plunged violently into the port where the Executor's escape pod was loosed from and lodged itself into the massive Star Cruiser. Minutes later on the bridge of the Executor Admiral Ozzel made a terrified exclamation.

"The Deflector shields are down! Our Hyper drive is offline! We are loosing thrust in engines one and two! Life support is failing! We must abandon ship!" He screamed frantically. But his screams were met with a saturated force push, driving him into a gunner's console and holding him there.

"Only I will give the order to abandon ship." came an angry reply in that familiar metallic drone, "You do not have the power or authority to override me." Vader said again angrily, pulling Ozzel out of the console with a strong Force Choke. "The next time you over step your boundaries with me, Ozzel, it will be your last!" He then conjured a massive force push and use it to toss Admiral Ozzel across the bridge and into the closed entrance hatch. The squishy Admiral melted to the floor, coughing up blood, and in far to much pain to scream, let alone talk. "Some body get him out of my sight and to the infirmity before I change my mind and rip his ribs from his chest. One by one." Two storm troopers rushed to help the broken Ozzel to his feet. Vader looked down at his light saber on his belt. "Impossible..." he whispered.

A Hazel light-saber blade shot through the entrance hatch door, piercing one of the two storm trooper's in the face like a blaster bolt through beebleberry ice cream. His death was quick and silent, and you could almost visualize the other Storm Trooper's face turn white as he dropped the Admiral soupishly to the floor. He stood there, petrified with fear as the blade slowly cut a circle out of the door. The blade singed the material of Ozzel's uniform sleeve as it passed by ever so close to his skin, but Vader seemed not to notice. He didn't even flinch. He just calmly looked out of the windshield of the giant cruiser, watching Carna's brilliant blue Blockade Runner burst into flames and the last rebel Blocklade Runner retreat.

The great metal circle cut out of the blast door fell, with its smoldering edges still red, on top of the limp and barely breathing Admiral Ozzel. A dark colored arm partially wrapped in a brilliant purple robe burst through the hole at the petrified storm trooper.

"So this is what revenge feels like to the victim." The storm trooper said calmly in that classic clone voice as he felt a burning permeate his body. His bones burst out from under his skin and crimson sprays erupted endlessly as a dark skinned human walked trough the hole, a purple light saber gripped in his right hand. His bulky mechanical right hand. Ozzel whined as the man's weight pushed down upon the large metal disk atop him.

The room erupted in blaster fire, the light saber viciously catching and returning every single one without so much as a near miss. Almost as if it were planned, every man save Vader and one other gunner fell to the floor dead. Vader still stood unmoved in the center of the bridge looking through the windshield. The one living gunner was immediately lifted off of the ground and thrown at the intruder with great force, but the intruder simply waved his hand and the gunner's head exploded into a soupy mush of blood, skull, and grey matter. Vader had finally acknowledged his presence.


"I recognize the blade." Vader said calmly, turning to face his attacker. "I can feel the energy its giving off. It belonged to a great Jedi Master." His mechanical drone continued, "But you could not be him. I watched him die." Vader's red light saber erupted into action. The intruder removed his purple cloak with his dark left hand. A dark skinned man now stood shirtless before Vader, wearing a pair of brown shorts and a brown leather belt. The belt had a strange contraption clipped to it that Vader did not recognize, but that was not the only thing he noticed.

Implanted into the man's chest was a life support system almost identical to his own. The man had a mechanical right hand and shoulder, his left knee and most of his left upper thigh were robotic, a portion of the right side of his head, including his right eye, were robotic as well, and so was a portion of his right torso near his kidney. But Vader also recognized the face and bald head.

"Master Windu...I don't believe it. I watched you die."

"No, Anakin, you watched me survive. Put down your blade and revoke the Dark Side, or I will be forced to strike you down. This is your only opportunity." Mace replied tactfully.

"My name is not Anakin! My name is Vader! ANAKIN IS DEAD!!!!" Vader stressed the speakers on his suit with his response.

"That is what I had hoped you'd say. Now I can have my revenge upon you." Mace re-ignited his saber.

"Revenge is not the Jedi way, Mace. You above all should know that." Vader buzzed.

"The Jedi are dead. YOU SAW TO THAT!!!!" Mace erupted into a charge straight into Vader, planting a heavy handed punch to Vader's mask. The Cyborg Sith nearly lost his balance,but his cybernetics caught him allowing him to retaliate with an upswing of his light saber. Mace barely caught it with his own lavender blade, opting to crush Vader's mask with another heavy handed blow from his over-sized cybernetic hand, this time succeeding in splitting one of Vader's eye pieces into two.

Vader, his light-saber still locked with Maces, attempted a force push to gain some distance between the brawl that Mace was so desperately trying to have. His life support system whined from the lack of pressurization and he stumbled back a couple of steps. But he was still able to regain his composure as Mace was able to land on his feet. Mace mounted another direct attack, his anger growing and feeding his faded force abilities.

This time he opted to attack with his blade swiping wildly and harshly, using the added strength from his mechanical shoulders to try and dislodge his opponent's light-saber. Vader met his attacks with the same shear ferocity, but he could feel himself weakening due to his faltering life support.

"I have to end this fast." Vader thought to himself as he tried to go onto the attack only to be rebutted by another wild brawler swing from Mace. Gathering all of his might he hit Mace with another force push, this time successfully dislodging the berserking former Jedi from him. Mace hit a wall and slumped to the ground, and Vader clumsily got to his feet. Vader then leapt into action bearing down on Mace with his burning blade, Master Windu barely catching it in time with his own.

"Your devastation have strengthened your resolve, Master Windu." Vader said using every bit of strength in his cybernetics to press Mace as if he was in a vice. "You would be a powerful ally to the Emperor."

"Never!" Mace screamed back liberating himself from Vader's vice like bombardment, escaping to the left of Vader. Vader swung uncontrollably after Mace, and the former Jedi easily dodged the Fallen's attack. again returning to his feet, but Vader was already on the attack, making controlled and calculated swings, stabs, and perrys. But Mace kept up well, and as Vader made a wide cross body swing Mace leapt up over Vader and produced and ignited a blue light saber from his boot. Both Sabers found their way into piercing Vader's back. Vader screamed in agony, but Mace's onslaught was not near over.

He quickly swung around and separated Vader's Cybernetic limbs from his leg stumps. Vader screamed again, his support system desperately trying to keep him alive now. He fell with a thud onto his back, calling out in pain again.

"After you did this to me, you think I would join you and your Emperor. I HATE YOU BOTH! I LOATHE YOU!!!" Mace screamed at the smoking incapacitated cyborg at his feet.

"Good. Good!" Vader exclaimed. "You are on the right path then."

"No...No, no. I'm on my own path." Windu said as he pulled the strange metal cylinder off of his belt. He knelt down next to Vader. "I'm on the path that the force wants me to follow." With that he shoved the cylinder into Vader's life support panel and pressed a red button on-top. Vader was immediately engulfed in powerful electricity. He screamed in worse agony than he did on Mustafar when he found out that Padme had died.

"Bye old friend. There was no other way...You saw to that." Mace said as he collected Vader's light saber and left Vader to his screaming and completely failed life support. As he reached the entrance hatch of the bridge an enlisted man ran up to Mace and planted a blaster bolt in the former Jedi's life support panel. Mace grasped the vitals panel and force pushed the man away. He stuck his fingers in the wound trying to stop the bleeding, but it was no use and he ran for the escape pods.

The enlisted man ran to Vader's side and used his E11 to bash the cylinder off of Vader.

"Don't die Lord Vader. DON'T Die!" The man sobbed at the legless cyborg."Use the force to sustain you!"

"I...I can't" Vader said weakly. "Call...the...Emperor." And Vader slipped out of consciousness.

Mace found himself in an escape pod. The wound was fatal, even if he could restore his life support panel, he knew he wouldn't make it. But he had done it. He killed Vader and took the Rebellion one large step closer to restoring the Republic. He had done the impossible. He looked out of the window of the escape pod. As he gazed into the quietness and stillness of open space he found his inner piece. His anger faded and he was one with the force again. For the first time since he fought Sidious. He leaned over and cut power to the engines, the life support, and the tracking beacon. Then he laid back and drifted into peaceful sleep.

Weeks had passed, but Vader's eyes finally opened inside his mask. Palpatine and the enlisted man stood over him.

"How many times must we do this?" Palpatine wheezed.

"Once again, Master, your patience does not go unappreciated." Vader said, not moving from the gurney he was laying on. Palpatine sneered at him in disgust.

"I have a mission for you as soon as you are able. You can make your failure up to me then. This is Seargent Firmus Piett. He's the one that followed your orders and saved your worthless hide. I've commissioned him an Officer and promoted him to Captain. He will be with you at all times to keep an eye on you. Is that clear...Lord Vader?" Palpatine annoyingly wheezed again. Vader hesitated as if in deep thought.

"Yes, my master." Finally came the reply.

-The End-​

 

An interesting take! I like anything where Mace doesn't die off so pathetically as he did in the movies. I also like how Piett was assigned to "watch" Vader--haha, poor kid!!

 

Thanks Irish Jedi Jade! I appreciate the feedback! Glad to know some one enjoyed it.

 

I was reading this on one of the worst days this year, waiting for four hours next to a sick and barely aware person at the hospital and I wanted to thank you for giving me some much needed laughs - because this story cheered me up that day, in the ways that I don't even know how to explain. I carried a smile on my face for the rest of the day.

That is one rage-filled battle if I had ever seen one! And Mace seems to have completely lost it. Not sure if I can see that happening, without him turning to the dark side, but if that's your vision, then I guess there's an explanation behind it. I guess he took his own path.

And I second IJJ - poor, poor Piett!

 

Thanks so much for that, this post literally made my day. I could never see Mace Windu going full Dark Side. But I could see him go there, so to speak, on a temporary basis for Anakin specifically after what he did to the Jedi Order. I am sorry to hear about your loved one, though. I don't know the situation, but if it appropriate to say, I pray that they pulled through ok.