Prologue: A Shadow From The Past

Place: unknown

Time: irrelevant

"God damn it!" I shouted as loud as I could, before becoming aware that I was no longer in the seat of my disintegrating Dragon. In a futile attempt to save a pair of ZAFT pilots whose Mobile Suits were wrecked, I got caught on the edge of the CYCLOPS system, just as it detonated under the EA headquarters in Alaska. The display screens in my X311's cockpit shattered one after another, showering me with pieces of their monitors. All I knew was a wave of unbelievable agony. The last thing I remember was the incredible heat that caused my blood to boil.

Then I was here. Again. The Earth was just as breathtaking as the first time I saw it from this position, all those months ago.

Ever since I ended in the GS universe, I flirted with death on countless battlefields, yet feeling it actually claim me was... Dying was disconcerting. "I fucked up and should be dead," I said in a hollow voice.

"You should be. However, I made a deal," a melodic voice sounded from behind me. It was the ethereal being who had plucked me from my home dimension the first time around.

I did not bother turning around. She liked her mysterious act and stayed invisible. For all I knew, she lacked a corporeal form to show me and anything I could see might be just more smoke and mirrors.

"Which means that I need to deal with another mess," I stated.

"Correct. Then, if you do not get yourself killed, I'll be able to return you here shortly before JOSH-A was destroyed. I'll be nice and won't tell your girlfriend about that stunt you just pulled."

I winced. Ever since I was sent here, I had to deal with a mountain of troubles, which became much harder when my "favorite" ROB decided to become a chat buddy with my girlfriend. They had a lot of fun at my expense...

"Ahh. Don't pout. After all, she's the main reason I went to all that trouble of giving you a second chance." Her voice became coy.

"Who needs to die this time?" I sighed.

"Funny you ask. You don't remember, do you?" The woman sighed. "It was to be expected, yet..."

"What are you talking about?" I asked in confusion.

"One Republic Chancellor, a few of his cronies in the Senate, and the Separatist leadership. You have a war to end. It's all because you must prepare the galaxy to face the Vong. They aren't exactly what you expect, my Knight. Remember, the Vong must be stopped. Have fun!"

The curses that left my mouth were not fit for print.

=RK=

I awoke, slumped over the controls of a fighter. That's an upgrade from the shuttle ride where my last adventure started.

I frowned. There was something wrong with that thought.

I shook my head and looked around.

This time, my mind was clear-er. There was no sign of the numbness that plagued me for a week after my previous trans-dimensional travel. Those were the high points of my situation.

Yet, even those thoughts felt wrong. Off. My mind was clear, true. I couldn't say the same about my memories. I could remember fighting to get as many Eurasian soldiers out of the CYCLOPS blast radius as if it happened minutes ago, nevertheless I knew decades passed since I got myself killed over there. My mind went to the image of Earth seared in my head. I haven't thought about my homeworld in a very long time. Nor about Natarle or my comrades. I couldn't afford to – that life was over. I don't know when exactly it happened. It wasn't a sudden decision but a gradual process until one day I awoke and going back home to 'Nat wasn't so important any more for I already had home here. I had sacrificed too much of myself to survive as a Sith. I tore my morals to shreds and I'm sure the person I used to be didn't really come out of the Sith Academy on Korriban. A slave went in there, a former Earth Federation Lieutenant Commander seconded to ONI. When I was permitted to leave to do my first master's dirty work, a Sith Acolyte left and that was over sixty years ago…

Then why the battle at JOSH-A where I died was so vivid in my mind? What did the entity say? That I had forgotten?

"Who you are, my Knight. Why are you fighting for. May you find your heart in this future. Until the end of the road, when we shall meet again, fare thee well, my Knight." Her voice echoed in my head and I knew I won't be meeting her until the day I die.

Her words didn't make much sense. What did the Republic Chancellor had to die? Besides the fact he was the nominal leader of the enemy? What Separatists? There were just us, the Sith, our allies and the Republic with its own. Did someone on the Dark Council planned a coup or something, just like my supporters there did?

I closed my eyes and went over few meditation exercises to focus my mind. First I needed to figure out where I was then go join friendly forces so I could assess the situation. What happened anyway? The last thing I recall… Ah. The battle above Korriban. The Republic was launching spoiling attacks in attempt to break our momentum as we were in the final stages of the preparation for our final assault at the Core. I was caught out of position when the enemy arrived – in my fighter en route to a cruiser meant to bring me back to Dromund Kaas where I would be formally inducted as a member of the Dark Council.

Something happened during that battle, didn't it? I could vague recall the Force screaming a warning, then there was light and I was reliving my last engagement back on Earth. Whatever happened did a number on my memories. They felt quite scrambled yet otherwise my mind was clear. It was weird sensation.

On the bright side I couldn't feel any present danger which was reassuring. I took a few deep breaths and exhaled slowly finishing my last meditation exercise and opened my eyes.

I was in a cramped cockpit of a fighter I knew did not possess a hyperdrive and I had no idea where I was. My arms, which were clad in light and comfortable armored gloves, ran over the controls as I checked the status of my tiny ship. It was a modified Sith Interceptor, with a shield generator installed, as well as laser cannons with enhanced capacitors allowing a sustained rapid fire. Lastly, there were two racks of light proton torpedoes under the wings for attacks against hardened targets.

Yes, this was the ship I was in above Korriban. However said planet wasn't in sensor range, much less the two fleets viciously tearing at each other in orbit. I was reluctant to go with active sensors until I had better idea where I was stuck at.

As far as fighters go, my interceptor was a sweet killing machine – very good in a dogfight or even the odd bombing run. However, that did not help me with my current predicament. I was Force knew where, without a hyperdrive. I hoped that I won't be meeting my patron soon after suffocating. I sometimes called her ROB in my mind – as in Random Omnipotent Being, because she still hasn't properly introduced herself. Surely she didn't just drop in to troll me before I died? That's not the impression I got from her in our previous interaction, yet this latest meeting – it was off somehow.

Kriff it, what mess did I get myself in this time?!

I checked the starfighters sensors again. I could detect some gravitational disturbances at the edges of the scanner's range. So, there was probably at least one planet in the system. I hoped that it was inhabited or at least life bearing or I was kriffed beyond belief.

My hands ran over the controls and the Sith Interceptor's engines roared to life under my gentle touch. The nimble, little spacecraft carried me deeper into the system. I gave the autopilot a general course plot, and started checking what resources I had at my disposal.

I was wearing a black robe covered by durasteel armor. My head was protected by a mandalorian styled helmet, with an integrated computer projecting a small HUD display on which the status of my armor, oxygen supply, and shields were shown. It was good to know that I had some additional protection aside from the laminated sheets of durasteel and armored weave of my robe. I knew exactly what punishment it could handle so there was no need to test it. While my current outfit wasn't as durable as a proper heavy armor, it could still handle a lot of the stuff usually thrown my way, besides it was much more comfortable to wear that my Mandalorian crafted Cortosis Assault Suit.

My armor had some neat features. Like a dart launcher on the left arm guard, with knock out, poison and ion enhanced munitions – the last was for taking out droids. I was armed with a pair of heavy blaster pistols, and had four power cells for each. For tougher situations, I had a pair of thermal detonators, four frag grenades and two ion pulse grenades. For a moment, I thought that I was making a great impression of a Mando bounty hunter and I should know considering I've been posting as one a handful of times while doing odd jobs for either Baras or Imperial Intelligence.

I blinked in confusion. What the hell? Where did all those memories came from? I'm sure I just died back on Earth. The Kriff? That was decades ago! Did the other Sith do something to my mind? Or perhaps the Jedi?

A lance of pain split my skull at that thought. No. Not Jedi. What was I trying to recall? Acting as a bounty hunter but not really? I focused through the pain as I was taught back in the academy and the memories I was looking for surfaced… slowly and painfully but here they were.

Sith. I could remember now. Orders. Locations all over the galaxy – hunt down and dispose of low grade Sith who had went off the reservation and caused trouble for the Empire.

Wait what? Palpatine's Empire? Why would I need to take out a Chancellor or Separatists leaders then… Palpatine? Who was that and when did he got himself an Empire? The only Empire worthy of the title was ours.

The pain intensified.

Sith.The Sith Empire. It wasn't being a bounty hunter I vaguely recalled. I remembered being a partially trained Sith Acolyte whose good for nothing master sent me hunting embarrassments for the Empire. I spent years at that job before returning to the Academy on Korriban and becoming a proper Sith under Baras.

I had the Force then, didn't I? But of course I had it. I was a Dark Lord of the Sith.

What the kriff?! What was happening with my memories?!

It was like a veil that had been covering every one of my senses was suddenly lifted. It seemed that I truly saw, heard, and felt for the first time in my life. My senses went into an overdrive and I was lost. I saw even the tiniest imperfection on the control panel of my craft, I could hear every little sound and sense each vibration made by the interceptor. My armor felt like shards of broken glass upon my skin. Even the tiniest twitch caused me to feel stabbing pain as my clothes rubbed on my oversensitive flesh.

Then it became much worse. Some kind of barrier was breached and a tsunami of memories hit my mind in an unyielding wave. My world exploded as a whole life flashed before my eyes and I remembered.

From my first memories as a small child on Dromund Kaas, to my misfortune in ending as a slave before manifesting the Force and being sent to Korriban after tearing apart my "master"… I remember accessing the Force for the first time. Then I got my memories from Earth back, something which increased my rage at being a slave. The rush I felt when the Force answered to my emotions and my 'master' being crushed under the power of my mind alone.

I remembered everything.

It all ended with a titanic battle over Korriban where I was engulfed in a flash of light. A Sith Lord who commanded the Imperial Fleet protecting that world activated a super weapon of some sort. I was sure of it. Then I felt the Force screaming of deadly danger and… what?

I shook my head, trying to clear it. Now my memories were making sense but my mind felt like a bunch of Gamoreans went wild on my head with war-hammers.

In a sense everything began and ended at the same place.

Korriban – the place where I arose from being one of the countless wretched slaves under the Imperial yoke and became a Sith Warrior. It was there, where I chose to disregard most of the creed of the Sith, and to try to changing the Empire from within.

It was Korriban, where my ambition died with tens of thousands of Sith and Republic sailors and I ended up here.

Somehow. Was my patron to blame? Did she sent me here? Did I die again?

I snapped back to the present. My right hand fell to a cylinder, hidden in my robes, and I felt relieved the moment my fingers closed around it. Holding the hilt of my lightsaber, a weapon that was literally part of myself as far as the Force was concerned, soothed my nerves.

I used it as an anchor for my mind. The torrent of memories almost shattered my very being, nearly washing away who I was. This was not like the last time when I got only skills and fragments of someone else's past. This time it felt like I "lived" through the life of Darth Vael… Because I did. At least a version of me did if I, he, died above Korriban…

No. That wasn't true after all. The Force stirred around me driven by my confusion and need for answers. She felt odd, a bit distant and weaker yet she answered my intent. I could feel her soothing presence wrapping around me. Some called her a mere energy field, but I knew better. The Force was alive. I'm not sure if she truly had agenda or her own or if we, the Force Adepts using her gifts made her express one through our combined actions and emotions over the millennia. Perhaps once long ago the Force was merely the energy binding every living thing in this galaxy. Nowadays she was so much more… An ally, an enemy and constant companion… too many things to put into words so those who lacked her touch could understand. How do you describe the color red to the blind? How do you explain the way your lover's voice moves you to the deaf?

There was an ancient echo in the Force. A whisper just on the edge of my hearing. An impression if you will. I knew it just as I knew myself for it was of me.

The Force didn't lie.

I know I lived as Vael. I was that Sith Lord and something went terribly wrong so I could be here and now… whatever that meant. I could feel it through the Force. All the people I knew and had bonds with… They were gone. Mere echoes. Under other circumstances this revelation might have broken me, yet those closest to me were already dead – claimed by the war I among others made sure we would win. The final downfall of the Republic was all but guaranteed no matter what limited success their final offensives could boast of.

I stared at the stars through the canopy of the cockpit. It made a twisted kind of sense. If this was happening to anyone else, I would have thought that this stunt of ROB's was pure genius. This wasn't my time, was it? She apparently made a deal and needed this Palpatine disposed off, didn't she? However, I recalled our last deal. She knew by the time I would likely die I wouldn't really care about going back to Earth. I was a different man with different home.

A home that if what I was beginning to suspect was true was long gone. Was this what she meant by implying I might find my heart in this future, I wondered?

I knew that my eyes, hidden under the helmet as they were, had a distinct yellow tinge around the irises as my fury grew.

I spent a lifetime as a Sith Lord and what now? Was it all as good as erased? The memories from my first life were stirring. Separatists. Dooku. Sidious and Palpatine. At firs those were names without context but eventually a bit of recollection came. The later two were one and the same – a Sith Lord who was able to hide his nature and got himself elected as the Chancellor of the Republic.

That thought made my blood boil. Did we lose after all or was our victory a fleeting thing?

In my fury, I turned up to the Force, hoping that the Dark Side would soothe me. I tried to clear up my mind and think about my situation in a somewhat reasonable manner. I tried to remember more but it wasn't easy. Not after so many decades.

Instead, I was confused by the way the Force felt. I knew it was off, but I didn't think about reflecting upon it earlier as I was lost in my mind. Now I dismissed any thoughts about the past or the future for that matter and concentrated all my senses on my power.

The Light Side was muted, as if there was a veil made of living shadows thrown over it. The Dark Side on the other hand... Well let's just say that I had never felt it stronger or more seductive than it was right now. Not even on my one and only audience with the Emperor in his inner sanctum on Dromund Kaas.

My memories stirred. Fear gripped my heart with fingers colder than the void between the stars. I had knowledge and skills from an old forgotten age. Even if, by some miracle, I prevailed over Palpatine and his army of cutthroats, there was no guarantee that I would not replace him and become something much worse.

I had nothing left to keep me in check. Everyone who mattered to me was dead… and that deal that ROB offered? It was about saving a woman I knew decades ago in a different universe.

I still felt something when I thought of her, yet… She wasn't here to keep me company. To keep me sane.

For all its atrocities, Sidious and his Empire paled in comparison with the deaths and suffering caused by the Sith of old… By the Empire I served.

I laughed bitterly. It wasn't like the galaxy needed a monster like me unleashed upon it once again…

I snarled. Now I knew what was off. Whatever happened above Korriban or perhaps it was my patron… it wasn't just that my memories from Earth were fresher, more tangible than they were in decades. Oh, no. There was a presence in me. An echo of the soldier I was once upon a time. It was thanks to him and his skills that I lived long enough to become the Sith I am today. But in order to survive I had to kill that man. This was my mind and he was merely a ghost from a forgotten era.

Power surged through me. It was vast, incomprehensible and terrifying. It washed through me and I knew my patron has been here all along studying me. The sheer power I could feel in this… this mere echo of her glory was almost humbling. Utterly infuriating too.

I felt her gentle touch upon my mind and I understood. The ghost of the man I once was was plucked away to be send for his just reward – the second chance he become the monster I am today to gain. That… words failed me.

Amused laughter echoed in my mind making my head ring with pure innocent joy. For a brief moment I was back on Earth watching my X311 Dragon in Mobile Suit configuration let go of the two ZAFT GINNs it was dragging and speed away on the wing of the CYCLOPs activation. The microwave radiation of the trap clawed behind it scrambling the engine exhaust but my machine made it out of the area of effect just in time.

Just like that I was back in the cockpit of my interceptor with laughter still ringing in my ears.

"I keep my word my Knight. The man I made my original deal with has still work to do back on Earth. Thanks to him you exist. Thanks to you he has his second chance. That merely leaves you and the task I gave you." The amusement in her voice grew up a notch. "My meddling in this universe is at end, my Knight. I'll merely trust you'll find your heart before its too late." She laughed again. "In your nature too, my Dark Knight. Fare thee well, Veil."

I slumped in my seat. The monstrous energy was gone, hopefully for good. I knew my patron was powerful but this… I shuddered. It was eye opening. Did I dare not follow up on her nice 'request'? I snarled. I was no ones pawn!

Was I going to have a choice? My memories of what back on Earth was known as Star Wars were fragmented. Unless I went to hide under some rock and ignored the galaxy sooner or later I would clash with Sidious. With the Jedi too, because them I remembered. They existed in this time and age. The one thing I could count on was that the Force would make sure I would meet them. The Dark Side wouldn't waste such a chance to cause more conflict.