The ship, the Sith' maw a vessel born of dark side sorcery and chaos-forged design, tore through the known boundaries of space. Darth Vader stood motionless upon the bridge of the Sith's Maw, his obsidian armor outlined against the impossible swirl beyond the viewport. Hyperspace was gone. In its place churned a nauseating sea of fractured color and psychic discord — a current of pure, warped thought, as if reality itself had been turned inside out.
He had followed a tremor in the Force, something ancient and malign. It was not the Force as he knew it, yet it resonated with grim familiarity — a sensation like screaming granite, a glacial will pressed through time, pain, and silence. This was a dark current, more psychic toxin than energy, abrasive even to his hardened mind. It clawed at his thoughts, scraping across the jagged scars of Anakin Skywalker's death.
Yet in that static, he had heard whispers. Promises of power through unrelenting violence, ascension through cunning and deception. Khorne and Tzeentch — though the names escaped him, the urges did not. Rage and manipulation. Fury and design. It was not the seduction of the Sith, nor the seduction of the Jedi. It was something alien, beyond the dichotomy of light and dark. And still, he resonated with it.
The ship slammed back into reality, bursting forth into a star system dominated by a colossal, dying sun — a crimson colossus surrounded by a corona of decaying energy. The sensors blared incomprehensible errors as the ship's instruments failed to parse the system. Vader did not need them. He felt the source. A world of unnatural geometry, orbiting the sun like a tombstone in a dying graveyard.
The Sith's Maw descended through the poisoned sky, settling into a canyon that resembled not a natural formation but a deliberate wound carved into the crust. He stepped into the ancient dust, the atmosphere dry and charged, laced with ozone and something older. His respirator hissed. His boots crunched on untouched sediment.
The Force was muffled here, blurred by the same static he had followed. But the dark current ran strongest below.
He walked until he found a wound in reality, a door unseen until one ceased to look. A void in the Force, carved clean. The surface shimmered at his approach, responding not to his presence, but to his nature. A vast gate, buried beneath stone and silence, parted before him.
He entered a cavernous chamber, its walls lined with vertical slabs — metallic sarcophagi, cold and dead. The air was still, expectant. Then came the whisper of ancient systems flickering to life. One by one, dim green lights ignited, casting the room in spectral hues. The static surged.
Then one sarcophagus hissed open.
A towering figure stepped forth — skeletal, ornate, terrible. A Necron Overlord. Its frame exuded age, not decay, but permanence. Its eyes burned with emerald fire as it raised a staff humming with charged energy. The Force twisted, uneasy.
Vader's lightsaber ignited in a crimson blaze.
The words weren't spoken — they existed, fully formed, in his mind.
"You are ancient," Vader said. His voice boomed, modulated, cold. "And you have power. But this world is not as dead as you believe. Something stirs beneath your slumber. I would know its source."
The Overlord paused. Its photoreceptors scanned him, processing unknown data — Force energy, warp taint, and the logic-defying blend of man, machine, and godling presence Vader now represented.
Vader did not flinch. "I come not as a servant of Chaos. I am its executioner. I seek to restore order where madness reigns. You… are a remnant of order."
He did not resist.
---
He was taken deeper into the Tomb World. Through silver corridors humming with ancient energies, past walls etched with hieroglyphs that glowed with restrained menace. Construct-servitors glided silently beside him. Vader walked like a dark god among them, patient, observant.
He reached the heart of the tomb — a vast domed chamber where energy flowed in ley-lines across the floor, meeting at a throne of alien design. Upon that throne sat a being unlike any Vader had seen.
Taller than the Overlord. Adorned in sigils of command. Eyes that glowed not with malice but understanding.
The Silent King.
The voice was different — not intrusive like the Overlord's, but existential. It bypassed thoughts and planted itself in the marrow of his soul.
"You know me?" Vader asked.
The air shimmered. The psychic static here was not chaotic. It was contained. Controlled.
Vader stepped forward. "Then you know I do not serve Chaos. I seek its destruction."
There was no judgment in the words. Merely observation.
"You have warred against the Warp. Against the Aberrant Energies. We share that purpose."
Vader didn't argue. He couldn't. What stood before him was beyond rhetorical domination. But he leaned into what he did best — ruthless intent.
"You mistake me. My ambition is not self-destruction. It is purification. I would see this galaxy reforged. In order. In law. In fire."
The Silent King rose.
---
In the weeks that followed, Vader remained on the Tomb World. He was not detained. Not trusted. But permitted. He studied. He learned. He adapted.
He traveled to lesser tombs, awakening Necrons damaged by time or cosmic disasters. To some, he appeared as an aberration. To others, a strategic advantage. He played to their programming — their hatred of Chaos, their obsession with reclaiming dominion.
He used the Force to influence mechanical minds subtly. He offered logic. Efficiency. He demonstrated Chaos-tainted relics and how to destroy them. He proved his value.
And all the while, he planned.
He learned of the Necron Dynasties. Their rivalries. Their fractured states. He learned of the Silent King's vast but dormant network — a slumbering army waiting for purpose.
He whispered suggestions into the ears of lesser Lords. He showed them how vulnerable the galaxy had become. How Chaos spread through it like rot. How only unified precision could excise the infection.
He seeded doubt in the infallibility of the old codes. He offered modern application — cold logic applied to new galactic circumstances.
He began to chart a path through the Necron Dynasties. Not as conqueror. Not yet. But as catalyst.
---
On the final day of his first departure, the Silent King met him alone within a chamber of stars — a holographic map of the galaxy spun between them.
"I have shown you a galaxy that festers."
"No. I wish to direct them. Control is illusion. Strategy is eternal."
"You taught me."
The Silent King was silent.
Then:
Vader inclined his head. "Then I shall burn precisely where required."
As he left the Tomb World, the Sith's Maw streaked toward the stars once more — no longer aimless.
He had found allies who hated Chaos.
He had found tools sharp enough to kill gods.
And he had taken the first step not toward redemption, not toward peace.
But toward the galaxy's first true order.