Star Wars One-Shots

A Fine Addition To My Collection (Part 1)

Author's Note: This is a gift for Sinvulkt on ao3. I hope you enjoy it! :D

This is also for the 501st Bingo square of "Imperial AU". ^-^

We'll post the second part next week. :)

~ Amina Gila

No bonds are stronger than those forged on the battlefield, through blood and war. Anakin Skywalker is gone, but that doesn't mean Darth Vader has forgotten. And he will not let the Empire harm those who were once his vode.

The 501st never reported back from Mandalore. It was one of the first things Vader asked about when he was coherent enough to remember and know something beyond the pain that's become a constant of his new existence. Find them, he'd ordered Appo as soon as he heard. Do whatever it takes.

It didn't take long before Vader received a report with the Tribunal's last known location before the signal went dark. And then, taking a shuttle and a group of clones to assist, he takes off to go there himself. He needs to know why his boys never came back home, if they're all really dead and how they ended up on an uninhabited moon in the middle of nowhere. If his master knew what he was doing, he would refuse to let him go, which is why Vader slips off without saying anything. Sidious doesn't understand what the clones mean to him.

They were his vode during the Clone Wars. He was one of them, even if it wasn't something they ever spoke about. They accepted him fully and completely when no one else ever did. Maybe he's not Anakin Skywalker anymore, but Vader has not forgotten. He will not let harm come to his boys if he can do something to help them.

The Force feels heavy with death as they head down to the planet, and it's all Vader can do to stay on his seat and not start pacing around – which would be very inadvisable given that he's not wholly comfortable with his legs yet. They're still... glitchy sometimes. It's hard to keep his balance in the suit.

Finding the Star Destroyer itself isn't that hard. It crashed on the planet's surface, and the atmosphere in the area still looks clouded and hazy.

He can't feel the temperature anymore. The last thing he remembers feeling was Mustafar's heat, so he doesn't know if it's hot or cold here. It looks cold, he thinks, though he could be wrong. His visor shades everything red, and he wouldn't know if those clouds are rain or snow. Neither have started falling yet.

The ground is coated with a thin layer of dust and ash, not as though he's surprised to see it.

And a short distance away from the cruiser, his eyes fall on the rows and rows of helmets. All with Ahsoka's markings, and all of them... gone.

There's hundreds here. It looks like close to the same number of men he sent with her. And they're all dead.

So, this, he thinks bitterly, is the final resting place of nearly everyone left in the 501st – everyone he sent with Ahsoka. The only thing that keeps him calm is that he doesn't see Rex's helmet as one of them, which means... he's probably still out there somewhere.

Ahsoka's lightsaber is here, too.

He doesn't let himself think about what that means right now.

The Force twinges, not a warning, but something, and he turns abruptly to see two figures stumbling from the debris. His heart nearly skips a beat when he recognizes them. Jesse and Kix. Force, they're alive. He's moving towards them before he even registers it, stumbling a bit when his legs don't quite move the way he'd anticipated.

"Troopers," says Vader, inclining his helmet, even though all he wants to do is cry and scream, because they're alive. And everyone else is dead. "Can you tell me what happened here?" He gestures towards the graveyard and debris, Ahsoka's lightsaber in one hand. "Was it Maul?" That's the only thing he can think of, because why would this have happened otherwise. A chill runs through him at the thought, as he wonders, if Ahsoka and Rex are alive but not here, are they hostages?