How to Take an Empire

Chapter Eight: Proposition

It was an utter coincidence of the Force that he'd found her.

The data of locations for possible developing organized rebellions had been left for him weeks ago. And after coming back from yet another mission, Vader finally decided to take the time to quickly look through them. Most of them were benign in nature and would fizzle out long before they could turn into anything organized or would be nothing more than an insignificant annoyance if they did get organized. Some locations weren't a threat, but that the Empire would have to keep an eye on to make sure they didn't develop into something that resembled a threat. A few came with photos of people of interest who might be leading possible resistances.

He'd been briefly skimming a report of a planet at the edge of the Mid and Outer Rim named Sheba when he came across a photo of the human male making his way through a market. The man was looking over his shoulder as though he knew he was being followed. For a reason Vader hadn't been sure of, the holo caught his attention. A nagging feeling in the Force telling him to look closer... That was when he noticed a civilian in the background. Not just any civilian. A togruta female. She was nowhere near the supposed rebel that was the focus of the image and her attention consumed by a human woman with her, but he'd recognize her anywhere. Even out of focus in the background of a holo of someone else.

To think. If he'd been swiping any faster through the reports and the holos attached, he would have never noticed. No one else would have either. She might have even lived out whatever pathetic existence she'd decided to settle into after the last time he'd seen her: when she left him for dead on Mustafar.

He redirected the sorrow that began to build at the thought of his dead wife into hatred and betrayal at his former apprentice. He'd given her an out, didn't kill her when it was what his new master would have demanded of him, and then she'd turned around and betrayed him. No. Betrayed the weak man that he'd risen from. She was just another Jedi in hiding. A smart one, not drawing making the racket that some of her other fellow Jedi had made, but just a Jedi nonetheless who happened to be one of the last remaining pieces of evidence that Anakin Skywalker had ever existed.

If it were any other Jedi, Vader might just send one of the Inquisitors to deal with her. But Anakin Skywalker's former apprentice was a crafty one, proven by her antics at the end of the Clone Wars.

You're gonna give the Separatists and the Jedi Council hell, Snips, came the memory from a life abandoned. But the point was that the young togruta woman had certainly taken that to heart. Only second outside of maybe Kenobi to her former master in terms of fame--more like infamy--amongst their Separatists opponents and their Jedi brethren. And she'd milked the guilt of the High Council of the latter for their betrayal of her for all it was worth those first few months of her knighting until the Council had asked his former self to see if he could get a handle on her.

"You disobeyed a direct order from the Council? Multiple according to Obi-wan. Are you serious?"

She didn't take the reprimand seriously. The fact that he might have been a little amused at the whole situation likely didn't help.

"I took it more as advice. They said I shouldn't, not that I couldn't."

"Yeah. But I think you're conveniently forgetting the part where at the end of your conversation the Council said, 'That's an order, Knight Tano.'"

"Must not have heard it," had been her cheeky response. When he hadn't been impressed, she added more solemnly, "They weren't in the trenches with me. They didn't have all the extra information I did in addition to the intel they had."