To be read as the tenth and final book in the series.
It all comes down to this.
It's been a year and a half since Ahsoka Tano lost her memories to the girl she once called her Padawan, Kaylira Tramino, and, tragically, lost the girl herself to the...
Vader's cloak fluttered around his legs, and even a gesture as subtle as that somehow managed to pick up twice the amount of ash that was was already clinging to the heavy black fabric. Annoyed, he pushed the dark folds back behind him, and pretended not to notice the fine grey coating that formed on his glove as a result.
This was a planet of endings above all else, Vader reckoned. To the naked eye, it had none of the fire of chaotic beginnings or intricacies of complex events nearer to the middle. Such things were far beneath the surface, away from prying eyes.
It was a place where the past was forgotten easily, and the future was disregarded as being too far away to deserve too much thought. And as much as he valued history, Vader had many things he would be better off forgetting; memories of a person he no longer was. He could get used to it here – if not for the ash.
The fury of the canyon-like fissure the locals called Geyser Ridge had finally abated, and he signaled for his men to follow him over the rocks to investigate.
The wind was dying down again, and it was only once every few minutes now that particles of ash would blow his way. But upon closer scrutiny, he sensed the ash carried something else with it. A fragment of sensory data was interwoven into each tuft of grey, and every time it was the same thing: a flash of agony, and then stillness.
It was instantly clear to him that Ahsoka Tano's associate had met a painful – though mercifully short – death, contrarily to the dozens of soldiers, Pyke and Imperial alike, who now lay scattered around the battlefield like old toys, discarded and broken beyond repair.
An officer, whom Vader assumed was now in charge of the area, came to meet them as they reached the foot of the rocks. "They're making for the west, my Lord. Shall I send a squad after them?"
"No. Let them believe they have outwitted us for now. The less suspecting they are of our true involvement in what has happened here today, the easier it will be to herd them into our clutches. Our Jedi quarry is clever and skilled – your troopers are no match for her." Suddenly, a new course of action occurred to him. "What are the defensive capabilities of the nearest troop transports, commander?"
"The ships are all equipped with heavy hull armor, my Lord, but until it can be repaired the Gozanti-class cruiser has only minimal shielding."
"That is their most likely target. We shall strike once they are in the air."
"My Lord, is that wise?"
Vader did not humor him with a reply. Instead, he looked once more at gruesome scene he was standing in, as unfeelingly as ever... but not without some measure of curiosity.
This was an odd play for her. It was inevitable that the years would change a person, but this seemed uncharacteristic of what he knew of the once Jedi Padawan. Instead of incapacitating her foes, as had been her practice years ago, she had taken them down ruthlessly and without mercy, looking on them as mere obstacles she needed to surmount and nothing more.
It was a mentality with unsettling parallels to Sith teachings.
Something had prompted her reckless disregard for the lives of her enemies. And Vader was determined to find out what.
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