Leia stood quietly, her eyes unfocused, gazing blankly at the ranks of Death Korps of Krieg soldiers marching in perfect formation beyond the wall of people. Yet despite her dazed expression, she had never felt more acutely aware of her surroundings.
This sensation—it was exactly like what Luke had once told her about the ways of the Force.
Vague and indistinct, amid the pressing waves of anxiety and fear, Leia suddenly realized what it was. This was the Force!
Force Connection: A deep spiritual bond formed between strong, closely linked Force-sensitive individuals, allowing them to perceive one another across vast distances. Though the vision manifests as if the other person appears within one's own surroundings, the viewer cannot perceive the environment of the other.
Could she... also possess the potential to become a Jedi?
"Huff... huff..."
Leia gasped for breath, clutching her head as she stared at her trembling hands in disbelief.
"This... is the Force?"
Her brows furrowed. Something within her began to click, and realization dawned on her face.
The Force—an omnipresent, supernatural energy, invisible and intangible—was now surging uncontrollably through her. The once-still light around her rippled like fish scales upon water.
But...
Why was she sensing and seeing Darth Vader—the Dark Lord himself? That terrifying figure cloaked in black, face forever hidden behind a monstrous, obsidian respirator mask.
She would never mistake him. Once captured and imprisoned by Vader, Leia knew his presence all too well.
Leia could understand sensing Luke Skywalker; after all, he was the only Jedi she knew, her only close bond with the Force. But Darth Vader? The symbol of the Emperor Palpatine's tyranny—the enforcer of fear and darkness—why could she feel him?
In that instant, countless thoughts flooded her mind.
And in the few seconds that followed, the supernatural ripples she emitted caught the attention of several Imperial Auxiliary officers in the marching column. Four of them, wearing wide-brimmed caps, halted abruptly. Their eyes scanned the crowd, locking onto Leia. Cold, predatory gazes sent murmurs rippling through the onlookers, though those whispers fell silent the moment armed soldiers turned their eyes toward the noise.
"There! That's her!"
The lead officer grinned, baring his teeth. Following his scanner's signal, every gaze turned toward the small, silent woman standing among the crowd, wrapped in her tattered cloak.
"Cease resistance! Hands up! Jedi—!"
The sudden outburst snapped Leia from her Force connection. As she looked around, seeing several black barrels aimed directly at her head, panic surged through her chest.
Never before had she felt such terror—and such awakening. The Force had stirred within her.
When she first met Luke Skywalker, she had dreamed of becoming a Jedi. Yet she had never awakened. And now—of all times—it chose to manifest? Was fate mocking her?
She had no lightsaber, no training in the Force. What could she do?
Fight to the death?
Thud... Thud...
Members of the Lamenters Chapter began gathering from the nearby supply station, their bolters, meltas, and plasma rifles all trained upon her. Chainswords roared, and the towering armored giants looked ready to kill at the slightest provocation.
Leia knew the truth—she didn't stand a chance.
Only now did the innocent bystanders around her begin to realize what was happening. Watching the fierce soldiers—who had only moments ago seemed calm—bare their fangs once more, they screamed in terror as the troops encircled the area.
Her body swayed slightly as she came down from her Force trance. Struggling to maintain composure, Leia forced herself to look directly at the lead officer—a man with a crimson-trimmed cap, the most ornate epaulettes, and a chain of silver wheat insignia draped over his shoulder.
"Haa..."
Taking a deep breath, she pulled back her hood. Though a steel hand clamped down on her shoulder like a vise, Leia showed no fear. Her voice was steady, her eyes unwavering.
"I am Leia Organa, Princess of the Alderaan System in the Galactic Core. Former Imperial Senator and one of the leaders of the Rebel Alliance. Sir, I believe I have the right to request an audience with your highest-ranking commander."
"Hah?"
...
"Leia Organa..."
Aboard the Executor, flagship of the Imperial Navy's Death Squadron—an Executor-class Star Dreadnought—within the command bridge's towering central control room.
At the end of the raised command platform, seated in a finely crafted control chair before the massive circular viewscreen, the Dark Lord of the Sith, Darth Vader, glared through the crimson lenses of his terrifying mask. His deep, rasping breath filled the air as his cold, menacing voice repeated the name.
Just moments ago, during his hyperspace jump from the Endor System to the Arkanis Sector, Vader had sensed an unfamiliar yet hauntingly familiar presence in the Force.
Faint—utterly unrefined—but unmistakable. He had felt it. And, impossibly, a Force Connection had been established.
How could that be? There was no bond of closeness between them—they were enemies, embodiments of the Light and the Dark. How could such a connection exist?
Leia Organa. Vader knew that name well. Daughter of Bail Organa, Governor of Alderaan, and one of the leaders of the Rebel Alliance. Before her identity had been exposed, she had used her position as the youngest senator in Imperial history to secretly aid and shelter the Rebellion.
A spy.
A traitor to be purged from the galaxy.
"Wait... a Force Connection?" Vader paused, his thoughts churning.
If it wasn't due to emotional closeness, nor the resonance between Light and Dark, there was only one remaining explanation—bloodline.
The galaxy knew him as Darth Vader. But that was not his only name.
Once, long ago, he had been Anakin Skywalker—a Jedi Knight.
As one trained by the Jedi Temple itself, his mastery of the Force far surpassed that of half-trained sensitives like Luke or Leia.
During the waning days of the Republic, the Jedi upheld a strict code: no marriage, no children. The rule existed to prevent the formation of powerful dynastic bloodlines among the Jedi.
But Anakin Skywalker had broken that code.
He had fallen in love—secretly—with Padmé Amidala, Queen and later Senator of Naboo. And when she died... she had been with child.
Vader had believed both his wife and their unborn child had perished in childbirth. Only after Luke Skywalker's awakening in the Force had he learned the truth—his son had lived.
Obi-Wan Kenobi had hidden his children from him.
"Bail Organa's daughter... Daughter?" Vader's mechanical breathing grew heavier. "Her age... her emergence... nearly the same as Luke's. Obi-Wan aided Bail Organa during the Clone Wars..."
Realization struck like lightning.
The charred remnants of his lungs, dependent on mechanical life support, seemed to burn anew within his armor. Beneath the grille of his mask came that slow, rhythmic rasping.
"Leia... is my blood?"
"Twins? Twins!" The question turned into a declaration. Vader could scarcely believe it.
Padmé had borne him twins—Luke and Leia.
Now everything made sense.
Leia, though untrained by Obi-Wan as Luke had been, possessed the same immense potential in the Force. Perhaps some great emotional shock had awakened it within her.
And within the deepest recesses of Darth Vader's mind—depths even his master, the Dark Lord of the Sith, could not perceive—a single consuming spark took hold.
A purpose.
A vision.
An obsession.
He would turn them—both Luke and Leia—to the Dark Side.
Call it corruption, call it madness—but in his mind, every act of cruelty, every sin, was justified. He would bring order to a galaxy consumed by war. He would reshape the decaying Republic into the just and disciplined Empire that he and Padmé had once dreamed of.
Together—with his children—he would destroy Emperor Palpatine and rebuild the galaxy anew.
"My Lord..."
At that moment, a tall, thin officer bearing a captain's insignia approached Vader cautiously.
The tall, thin captain stood before the Dark Lord, struggling to breathe beneath the suffocating tension in the air. Gathering his courage, he spoke carefully. "We've arrived in the Outer Rim, Arkanis Sector. Shall we proceed with a direct assault on Tatooine, or respond to the distress signal recently sent by the Imperial Navy in the area?"
He glanced up at Vader's inscrutable metal visage and added quickly, "My Lord, with all due respect, prudence suggests we first assess the enemy's situation in detail."
"No," Vader said flatly. Without hesitation, he marked a coordinate on the Arkanis Sector star map. "We go... here." His tone left no room for debate.
The captain blinked, taken aback. Was that impatience—urgency—in the Dark Lord's rasping voice? Such a thing he had never heard before. Yet, weighed down by Vader's iron authority, he dared not question it.
"Yes, my Lord!" The captain bowed sharply and left to adjust the ship's course.
Vader turned his gaze toward the holographic starmap projection, the coordinates gleaming bright. He could hardly wait to see Leia again.
This time, not as enemies—but as family, bound by the Force.
With that anticipation—or perhaps delusion—the Dark Lord rose and stared out into the depths of space.
As the pilot's reports echoed through the command bridge, the hyperdrive roared to life once more. The ship trembled, reality blurred, and the stars outside the viewport stretched into thin streaks of light, enveloping the Executor and the entire Death Squadron as they hurtled toward their destination.
Vader gazed into the abyss of hyperspace—the endless, fathomless sea of luminescent lines. Beyond them yawned the infinite black, vast and hollow, like his own soul.
He had nothing left.
His purpose in this galactic war grew ever more uncertain. His patience and loyalty toward his second master—the one who had taught him the Sith ways, Emperor Palpatine—were waning.
Then—
Was that... a color? The pale blue and white lights outside seemed tainted with faint streaks of violet-red.
"Love... family... the will to preserve life. These are always the keys that shatter—or awaken—the softest chambers of a rational being's heart."
The voice came from nowhere—and everywhere.
It tore through the barriers of time and space, pierced through the Dark Lord's layers of mental defense, and whispered directly into his mind, even amid hyperspace.
Vader's fury surged—but in the next moment, his soul quaked with dread. His consciousness trembled as though ripped from his body.
"Who... are you?!"
He tried to speak, but his spirit drifted—disembodied, weightless.
An indescribable brilliance, laced with shadow, enveloped him. The voice echoed through the deepest recesses of his being—melodious like hyacinths glistening with dew, cold as a blade of winter wind, proud and absolute like a god before a worm.
"Pure evil is rare indeed... Even after all these years, only Erebus and Cor'Phareon managed to earn my remembrance."
Erebus? Kor Phaeron? Who were they?
Confusion flooded his mind. The voice grew louder, and the power emanating from beyond the Immaterium tore at what remained of his weary, flickering soul. Through the rift of darkness, his blurred vision caught the faint outline of a figure—descending through the void, breaching the boundary between hyperspace and the physical universe.
A figure cloaked in radiance and shadow alike.
"You... who are you?" Vader rasped.
The figure smiled faintly. Gazing down upon the dark-armored man before her, Selene spoke.
"I—have come, responding to your summoning."
"Or perhaps, to that of your progeny. As it happens, within a single standard Imperial day, my attention shall fall upon the First Galactic Empire—and upon you Force-sensitives."
Even Darth Vader, the terror of the galaxy, stood silent—his mind frozen, disbelief etched across his hidden face.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean," Selene said softly, "that I shall bring the dawn of peace and order to this fractured, war-torn galaxy. For your descendants—for the future—I shall transform this decaying Republic into a just Empire."
It was the very dream buried in Vader's heart. To Selene, it was as though destiny had been written for her.
Pointing directly at him, she peered past the metal mask and into the storm of his soul, her words sharp and absolute.
"Rejoice, for I have chosen you. Compared to Sheev Palpatine—Darth Sidious—you are far more... promising. Tell me, Vader—how much will you profit me?"
And then—hmm.
In an instant, all faded. The illusion—or perhaps revelation—vanished without a trace.
Vader's consciousness snapped back into his body. He opened his eyes, breath rasping within the mask.
Relief mixed with a deeper, unfamiliar terror.
Looking toward the Arkanis Sector, the Tatooine System, he could already sense the gathering darkness—an ominous surge of violet-red particles spreading through the Force. The tide was shifting; the Force itself... was changing.
"Profit..." Vader whispered the word to himself.
"Fleet Commander! Order the Death Squadron to accelerate hyperspace transit. Shut down all weapon systems—broadcast a communication signal."
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