Dark Lady of the Sith - Notes: A reworking of my original first chapter sees Darth Vader punishing the father of Nadia instead of the mayor of the city. I felt this leant the story a more personal edge, and made it all seem much more horrific. The chapter should be much longer than this - this is just what I have got so far.

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There was something about Tatooine, it had to be said. Perhaps it was something to do with its twin suns, or perhaps some god or force greater than life itself favoured it above all others as a place of destiny and great significance. Or perhaps it was sheer coincidence. That is, at least, what Darth Vader thought as he once again set foot on its indigenous sands and stared out to the city ahead.

‘City’ wasn’t actually the right word - perhaps mere ‘habitation’ would do. It wasn’t large enough, grand enough, or esteemed enough to be called a city. This said a lot about this area of civilisation when one considered that even the seediest of municipalities somehow managed to achieve the ‘city’ label.

Vader’s mechanised breathing trilled and trilled again. The Stormtroopers behind him were getting restless. He could hear them scuffing the sand with their feet.

“Come,” he finally said, pacing across the sand and down toward the settlement ahead. The group of ten troopers followed swiftly, their rifles cradled in the crook of their arms and their eyes scanning the arid landscape.

It wasn’t hard to imagine why the folk of Mos Eegsti thought that the sight the Dark Lord followed by a line of storm troopers was a bad thing. It looked ominous, like the procession for a funeral, the Dark Lord the party representing death, and the troopers the floral décor. It was a peasant boy, a son of a poor moisture farmer, who lived on the outskirts and who, as he searched amongst the trash cans for decent morsels of food, saw the procession first. His heart leaping into his throat, and his mind conjuring all the terrible tales that had been told about the Emperor’s right hand, he scurried back into the city gates and ran yelling at the top of his voice, “He’s here! He’s here! The Jedi killer! The Emperor’s servant! He’s here!”

Most people gave him the disinterested look that they blessed to all those children who dared cry wolf. It was only when, eyes picking up the speck of darkness approaching over the blurred horizon, that they realised just how real the wolf was.

“The Dark Lord! He has come!”

“He’s here!”

“Run for your lives!”

No one in Mos Eegsti had ever seen the Dark Lord before, but his legacy was the stuff of legend. He was rarely known by face, but one always knew when they saw him. He was a bringer of woes, the Emperor’s doer of so-called ‘dirty work’, the one who held the axe and let it drop on Palpatine’s command. Even out here, it seemed, on the faraway world of Tatooine, you were not safe from him.

Tatooine was rarely blessed with Lord Vader’s presence - a boon they were thankful for - so it begged the question, once the shock had settled in, as to why he was here at all.

The Dark Lord did not stop as he walked through the gates; he looked at no one, and saw nothing but the objective at hand. He seemed to know exactly where he was headed, though everyone decided that this was, in itself, a ludicrous notion - he had never been here before.

Cloak sweeping over the dirt-encrusted roads, troopers flanking him as he went, the Dark Lord ended up in the far south of the town. Small sandstone huts stood here, cowering in the shadow of the central city, their windows downcast like saddened eyes and their faces drooping with fear. Vader halted here, his eyes set on but one - with a flick of his wrist, he sent his troopers forward into the house, and waited.

There was a scream, a woman’s cry, then the outcry of a man, followed in tandem by the panicked shriek of children.

Still, Vader waited.

The first trooper appeared, dragging a woman and a young girl. His friend followed him, kicking a man out onto the sand, then drawing out two more small, female children.

Vader took them all in with one glance. The two troopers rallied behind the fallen man with their quarry, whilst the waylaid human, spitting the dirt from his mouth, finally made to glance at the Dark Lord. His hands splayed on the sand, he shakily rose to his knees, then struggled to his feet.

With a waft of some invisible force that he neither wanted or wished to understand, though, he was thrown back to the floor, whimpering with terror.

“The Emperor is displeased.”

The Dark Lord’s voice boomed across the landscape like the that of some unearthly immortal. From the nooks, crannies and allies around the edge of the scene, eyes peered, emerging from the darkness, curious as to what was happening, and who it was happening to. Fear and a morbid love of for once being better off than someone else kept them all from acting; it wasn’t their business, after all.

The waylaid man again rose his head, taking in the sight of the dark figure against the bright sand; “Lord Vader,” he finally muttered, his every word shaking, “I…”

“You fled.”

The woman and the girls continued to struggle in the hold of the stromtroopers, though their struggles were now growing lax as they proved futile. One of the girls, the smallest, was clutching a plush bantha toy to her chest as though her life depended on it rather than anything else. Vader gave her a brief glance, before turning his attention back to the man; he was stuttering, trying to conjure some words that word inspire the Emperor’s protégé to clemency.

Vader waved his hand across toward him, flinging the man from on his stomach to on his back without much effort. The man again sobbed as he ht the ground with a thud, unable to compete with such skill.

“You fool. You cannot flee the Emperor’s wrath.”

“I didn’t mean to!”

“You thought that you would be safe out here,” Vader continued, now circling the man, his feet making a track in the sand, seeming to isolate the captive on his own little island, “You fool. Nothing is sacred, even out here. I should know.”

“Please…” he continued to plead, “I just couldn’t do it… I couldn’t kill those people… I couldn’t…”

Another gesture from Darth’s hand clamped the man’s throat and drew his voice from his body; clutching his neck, the ill-fated individual writhed across the sand and grit, painfully striving to fill his lungs with air.

“The Emperor’s bidding takes precedence of all other things. You know this. You said such when you took your oath, Officer.”

With a heave, the man sucked air again into his lungs - Vader had released him. For now. Warily, he turned to the Sith Lord and, eyes wide, waited his penalty.

Vader signalled to the first stormtrooper.

“No!” the man screamed, watching the trooper press the nozzle of his gun to the lady’s head.

“Let us play a game,” Darth rumbled, though his voice suggested that he was far from in a playing mood, “Your wife is forfeit, Officer. The Emperor ordered the people of [Karbos] destroyed. They would not yield to him. Why did you not do as he so bid?”

“How could I?” the man, some fallen officer, cried, “There were so many, so…”

“One day, the Emperor’s wrath will destroy world’s for their disloyalty. Yet you could not destroy a mere city.”

“But, my Lord!”

“Your wife’s head is on the line, Officer.”

“What do you want from me now?”

Vader seemed to mull this over for a moment, “An apology.”

“Then I am sorry, very sorry!”

“But perhaps,” Darth went on, almost as though he hadn’t heard him, “Perhaps that isn’t enough. You have to remember.”

He waved his hand. There was a shot. The lady fell to the floor.

The man yelled, trying to tear onto his feet, but Vader’s indiscernible powers pinned him down. The three girls were screaming.

“You bastard, you bastard!” the Officer screamed over and over. The watching crowd backed up into their hiding places a little, wary of the Sith Lord, yet too interested to peel themselves completely from the horrific scene.

“Enough,” Darth went on lazily, constricting the man’s throat again, “Only cowards flee. If you truly are regretful for your weak actions, then it is required you go back to his Highness and apologise to him. Personally.”

The officer on the floor looked like he’d sooner spit on the Emperor than apologise to him; Vader picked up on this without much effort.

“Ah, then I feel that you chose ill when you took your oath to the Emperor.”