The stars above the Mid Rim flickered like distant embers in a dying hearth. The Rebellion was no longer a whisper—it had become a scream. Across the galaxy, resistance cells flared to life, striking at Imperial convoys, sabotaging listening stations, and hijacking weapons caches intended for the Emperor's elite legions. The galaxy was no longer fully in Palpatine's grip—and he knew it.
But so did Vader.
Inside the prow of his personal Star Destroyer, The Eclipse, the Sith Lord stared at a shimmering projection. A series of red-highlighted systems blinked across the grid, each one tagged with the symbol of the Rebellion. The latest came from a backwater moon near Lothal. Yet this signal was different.
Encrypted. Ancient. A Jedi code.
He clenched his mechanical fist, the servos whining softly in the dim light.
Obi-Wan.
The ghost of Mustafar still haunted his dreams. His former master's eyes—filled with sorrow, not hatred—burned brighter than the lava that had once threatened to consume them both. Vader had won. He had struck Obi-Wan down. Or so he had believed. But the Force whispered otherwise.
Now, there were rumors of a hooded wanderer—older, quieter, but unmistakably powerful—offering aid to Rebellion cells before vanishing like smoke.
"I will find you, old master," Vader growled, voice filtered through the modulator like a distant storm. "And this time, you will fall."
He turned. Behind him stood Moff Jerros, fresh from a report on Corellia.
"The Rebels have stolen something, Lord Vader."
Vader's breath slowed. "What?"
"A datacard was intercepted—intelligence suggests… it holds schematics. Incomplete, but substantial. The Death Star, my lord."
The words hung in the air like poison.
"Track the transmission. I want the source burned. All of them." He paused. "Prepare to inform the Emperor."
Far across the stars, hidden beneath the gnarled trees of Dagobah, Master Yoda sat in deep meditation. His eyes, though aged and weary, gleamed with the flickering light of a small fire as he reached outward with the Force.
So few of them remained. A handful of Jedi, scattered and hidden like seeds in a barren field. But their hope lived on. Luke and Leia—children born of light and shadow—were alive, their destinies still uncertain.
He had sensed Leia's cold training under her father, her heart a war of loyalty and doubt. Luke, too, was being shaped by Vader's hand. The galaxy teetered on the edge of something far worse than war—a perversion of balance.
"Darkness grows, yes," Yoda whispered, speaking to no one and everyone. "But destiny… mmh. Still unclear, the end is."
Footsteps padded through the swamp. A cloaked figure, face concealed beneath the shadows of a brown hood, approached the old master. He knelt without a word.
"News?" Yoda asked.
"The children grow stronger. Leia's fury deepens… Luke is questioning. There is still time."
Yoda sighed, deeply. "Then watch them, we must. Intervene, we must not—yet."
Back in the Core Worlds, the Death Star loomed like a vengeful moon, its frame growing ever more complete. Palpatine stood within the observation deck, accompanied by General Tarkin and the lead Kuat Drive Yards engineers.
"The rebels are emboldened," Tarkin warned. "Striking military supply chains and embassies. The incident on Corellia is troubling—"
Palpatine raised a single, wrinkled hand. "Fear is a tool, General. And fear will be renewed."
He turned toward the viewport. The Death Star's superlaser array, still under construction, glinted in the light of nearby stars.
"Soon, all resistance will be reduced to ash."
Then his voice dropped, quieter, darker.
"But first… the traitors must be rooted out. Their leaders uncovered. Their worlds made examples."
Tarkin nodded. "Operation Cinder protocols are already underway."
"Good," Palpatine said, voice like rust scraping steel. "Let the galaxy burn, if it must. It will rise again from its own cinders—under my rule."
At the edge of the Outer Rim, an encrypted meeting unfolded inside a hidden Rebel base carved into the mountains of Polus. Bail Organa, Mon Mothma, and a dozen other commanders studied the stolen Death Star plans. The data was incomplete, but damning. A space station capable of destroying entire planets?
"It's worse than we feared," Mon Mothma whispered.
"We need to move quickly," Bail said. "Every second we delay is another second that thing gets closer to operational status."
"We'll call on our contacts in Bothawui, Chandrila, and Dantooine," one of the strategists said. "If we can smuggle the data to someone with the right technical knowledge…"
"Then maybe," Bail finished, "we find its weakness."
"Hope is not strategy," Mon Mothma added. "But it's a start."
Meanwhile, in the void between stars, The Eclipse changed course. Vader's path was set. The transmission had been traced to an outpost on Jabiim. It was a desolate place—a relic of the Clone Wars, where Jedi and Separatists once fought in endless mud and blood. It would be fitting, then, that a Jedi should die there again.
The Star Destroyer surged through hyperspace like a blade through silk.
Vader stood at its helm, the Force coiling around him like a storm ready to be unleashed.
And far below, on a forgotten world beneath cold rain and rusted metal, an old man waited in silence.