The Loyalty of the Dark

Chapter 38

The first thing Anakin had noticed was that Zilla's ship was built for stealth and speed. The second was that it was built for one to two crew members but had space for a small squad. The third was a symbol that was painted on the floor of the common room that neither he nor Luke could identify. It almost looked like an odd remake of the Jedi Symbol, except the wings were bat-like and the lightsaber was pointed down instead of up.

He'd forgotten that ninety percent of the time any and all interactions with Vader's Shadow usually lead to more questions than he got answered.

"Where are we going?" Luke asked after they had already entered lightspeed and Zilla had reappeared—they had been kicked out of the cockpit due to her needing to deal with some secretive datawork.

"Korriban," she answered, her voice lacking any and all emotion. Anakin looked at her startled.

"Where's that?"

"In the middle of Sith Space," the once Jedi answered. The boy bolted up in his seat.

"Why the hell are we going there?!?!"

"Would you like me to drop you off on our way?" Zilla asked, tilting her head. "I'm sure it'd be easy for you to return home."

"Doesn't answer the question," Anakin pointed out, becoming slightly miffed at the fact he almost always had to be the person who asked for her to actually answer.

"You'll see when we get there," was all the reply he got as she walked off into one of the crew quarters. It was silent for a moment.

"I'm going to talk to her," Anakin muttered as he stood.

"Please do," Luke agreed.

The man only shook his head at his son's words before he stood and went in after her—knowing Zilla was probably quite aware of his presence on the other side. As predicted, she didn't even look up from what she was working on when the door opened and he entered.

"I take it you have questions," she stated once the door had shut, back to him.

"A few," Anakin agreed, though he didn't know where to begin. He'd wanted to talk to her, find out what had happened to her and what had changed.

But now that she was here in front of him, Anakin didn't even know where to start. Maybe with questions about what it had been like for her as Vader's apprentice? After all, he didn't remember anything about her apprenticeship. Or maybe what it was like without him the past few years? She seemed rather self sufficient, but considering she had always had Vader along with an entire army behind her, it must have been difficult starting over. Maybe why she'd never showed up? Anakin and Padmé would have taken her in, no questions asked if she had.

"How did you get free?" Anakin found himself asking.

"I woke up," Zilla responded simply, hands flying over wires—it seemed as though Vader had taught her his trick of working through unpleasant thoughts.

"What?"

The girl paused, placing her hands flat on the table in front of her—one arm having the faintest trace of blue leading to her fingers while the other was a fiery orange surrounded by pink skin from lightning damage. Anakin momentarily frowned, easily recalling her state the last few days he'd seen her before the War's end, the red skin crawling up her neck and causing pain with every movement. Zilla may be capable of Sith lightning, but Anakin immediately found himself hating the idea of her using it. It had killed her after all. "As far as I can remember beforehand, I died. When I say I woke up, I mean I became aware while I was still inside that blasted block of carbonite. I used the Force to deactivate the thing, and unfroze myself. Had to wait a day before I could see or move." She went back to her project. "Managed to sneak aboard a ship and get to the Inner Rim. Met a few Dathomerians and took a trip to Dathomire, learned from their clan mother for a month, became an honorary Nightsister. Bounced around the galaxy from there and founded an underground force. We aren't illegal, technically, but we do tick off the Hutts among others from time to time."