Jedi Insurgency 285 (Interlude 46)

Ever since that fateful day on Coruscant, Vader had practically vanished from the public light. In the past, Anakin Skywalker would be the type of man to restlessly chase after his foes, lightning fires, and pressing the enemy at every turn. However, his repeated failures, and recent healing had taught him some modicum of patience. 

For the past month, he had locked himself within the chamber next to the Darkside Nexus, losing himself to studying Vitiate’s holocron. 

During this Interlude, the Imperial Palace had continued without him. Fleets had moved to engage the emerging Alliance, and many a minister had schemed beneath the cold direction of Supreme Commander Thrawn. 

Yet above the shattered Senate District, nothing had truly changed. The city center remained a graveyard of durasteel and glass. Towers that had once housed the galaxy’s wealthiest senators lay broken across entire avenues. Vast chasms split the foundations of the megalopolis, and the old Senate building itself was gone. 

Around the devastation, however, mountains of metal had slowly begun to pile up. Thrawn’s plan to squeeze the neutral worlds had borne fruit, and the resources necessary for reconstruction had been delivered. Pestage would scoff at this, knowing the price of construction had just begun, that it would take years, if not decades to return to the order of old. Contracts, labor crews…not one of these had been established as of yet. However, Thrawn did not explain his reasoning, as he was following Vader’s design. 

Durasteel girders stretched across landing fields in carefully sorted rows. Phrik composites, synthstone, transparisteel, reactor assemblies, droid brains, repulsorlift engines, power conduits, armor plating, and salvaged ship components had been gathered from across the Core and Mid-Rim. Entire cargo fleets had emptied themselves onto Coruscant at Thrawn’s command. The materials covered hundreds of square kilometers, stacked in geometric formations beneath the watch of stormtroopers and Imperial engineers.

Meeting this desolate scene from the steps of the Imperial Palace was Crown Prince Vader. 

The lessons of Vitiate had not humbled him. Nothing in the galaxy could have accomplished so impossible a task. But they had sharpened him. Tempered him. The wildness of Anakin Skywalker had not vanished, nor had the furnace of Darth Vader cooled. The flames had merely been given shape to something new, something more profound. 

Surrounded by hovering drones, Vader had taken a lesson from Revan's book, and decided to be more public with his acts of greatness. So that his subjects could better understand who protected them. 

Stepping to the edge of the stairs which dropped off at a sheer cliff, he gazed upon the ruined district.

Hundreds of millions watched the live stream, as this was the Crown Prince's first public appearance since that fateful day. J-Day, the Imperial propagandists, and news anchors on GNN called it. For it was the day that the Jedi brought destruction upon their capital, murdering billions. 

Vader lifted one hand, and a tremor spread throughout the vast plain. 

Reactors flared to life across the ruins, cranes turned without operators, and cargo platforms rose from the earth. Mountains of raw material shuddered as though something vast had breathed life into them.

Vader rose from the terrace, and floated into the sky. His cloak billowed as he floated above the broken city, and the Darkside rushed to meet him.

It surged upward from the buried foundations of the Imperial Palace, amplifying his already extraordinary power. 

Across the Senate District, metal shrieked as it rubbed against other pieces of metal. Millions of tons of durasteel lifted into the air, and began to merge. Although Vader had lost his powers of magnetism-as that had been a gift of the Infinite Gear-he had genuinely learned the skills of Mechu Deru, and was an accomplished telekinetic in his own right. Moving these material things with his mind was as challenging to him as pod racing. 

Vader’s Mechu Deru spread through the machinery like invisible lightning. He felt every circuit, conductor, dormant processor as if they were his own flesh. Technology became an extension of his nerves. He saw defects too small for scanners to detect, sensed structural weaknesses in alloys, imperfections within power cells, corrupted fragments of code hidden deep within droid memory cores.

Closing his eyes to focus, Vader molded these parts into one million functioning labor droids. One by one, the pieces locked into place until their crimson photoreceptors stared up at him as one. Hours had passed during this construction, yet he had only just begun. 

Droid hovercraft formed alongside their smaller brethren. The broad industrial vessels equipped with tractor arrays, construction claws, fabrication furnaces, and heavy lifters. They descended in perfect formations, dividing the devastated district into sectors before beginning their work as Vader commanded. 

Roadways were cleared, rubble was crushed, melted, and repurposed. Support pylons descended into the depths of the planet, drilling through ancient levels until they reached stable foundations. Transit corridors were excavated and reinforced. Power grids spread outward beneath the new streets like artificial veins. All was neat, orderly, as per the Sith Lord's design. 

Before long, great black pillars emerged from the ruins in ordered lines, each one immense enough to dwarf the monuments of the old Republic. They did not possess the elegant curves beloved by senators, nor the indulgent ornamentation of Coruscant’s wealthy elite.

They were brutal, uncompromising, and radiated solidity. Immense blocks of obsidian-black material climbed into the sky, their surfaces smooth except for narrow windows, armored balconies, and recessed landing platforms. Bridges joined neighboring towers at multiple elevations. Military transit lanes ran through the structures rather than around them. Hidden turbolifts connected barracks to hangars, command centers to bunkers, and armories to deployment platforms.

Every avenue possessed a strategic purpose. Either for logistics or mobilization, there was no wasted space. The haphazard spires and towers of old were gone, in their place were interlocking easily defensible castles. 

The old Senate District had been built to inspire debate. Vader’s district was meant to inspire awe. He saw the city as he had once seen the cockpit of a starfighter. He understood the movement of people as he understood vectors, acceleration, and pursuit angles. Traffic would flow without obstruction,  supplies could cross the district in moments. Troops could deploy from concealed garrisons and surround any point of rebellion before insurgents understood they had been detected.

There would be no confused maze of competing jurisdictions or the ornamental weakness of those weak willed creatures who called themselves ‘leaders.’ 

There would be order. A place where his soldiers, his people,  could live in peace, freedom, and security. Where never again a child would fear the lash of his master, or the sale of his mother. Schools, medical centers, research blocks, prisons, barracks, energy plants, everything dedicated towards his idea of a perfect society was included within this massive slab of a city. 

Next, Vader drew deeper upon the nexus. Dark energy flowed into the rising structures. Vader altered the buildings so that they were stronger, sturdier, potent even against the weapons of the Force. 

Where Vitiate had relied upon ritual and sacrifice, Vader combined Sith sorcery with modern engineering. Even a Force Storm would not erase this city quickly. Palpatine’s tempest might scour its walls. It might melt armor, shatter towers, and fill the skies with lightning.

But the city would endure.

The sun rose over Coruscant, reflecting crimson across the black towers.

Hours passed.

Then days.

Vader did not descend from the sky as he fulfilled his vision, relying solely upon the Force to maintain his bodily functions. 

Minute after minute, hour after hour, the once desolate location grew at a rapid scale nearly inconceivable to those observers. What should have required decades took shape beneath the relentless direction of one mind. Across the planet, and into the stars, citizens watched through holoscreens as the live stream persisted. Many a Skywalker hater, or anti-Imperialist was shaken by what they witnessed. The sheer power of one man put fear into would-be revolutionaries, whilst those who would espouse the evils of the Empire were mercilessly dog piled online. Anyone with eyes could witness the humanity, and the breadth of care Crown Prince Vader had. 

Before long, even the healing miracles Revan had performed became attributed to Vader. Only such a handsome man like Vader-who was out in the open, and famous for his justice during the entirety of the Clone Wars-could truly be trusted. Who was this no-name? Who was Revan to challenge their beloved idol? 

By the third day, the central towers pierced the cloud layer. On the fifth, the new Imperial avenues had been completed. Finally, on the eighth day, Vader turned toward the final mountain of metal.

It was the largest gathering of material in the district: the remains of warships, factories, ancient towers, orbital stations, and secret Imperial weapons projects that Thrawn had deemed useless had all been gathered here. Coils from prototype superlasers lay beside hypermatter reactors. Star Destroyer armor had been stacked atop the skeletons of decommissioned dreadnoughts. Components intended for projects hidden even from the Imperial Senate had been brought together at Vader’s command. Upon viewing his Master's private stash, he had come across something called the Death Star plans, and he had become inspired. 

Since childhood, he had dreamed of machines. On Tatooine, he had built a protocol droid from discarded parts because he had wanted to help his mother. He had assembled a podracer because freedom had seemed possible. Then his first battle at Naboo was when he had saved his Angel…ever since then, Vader had fallen in love with flying, with the joys of creation & destruction. 

That moon-sized battle station lacked the innovation he was looking for, and even for him, would likely take a year or more of dedicated effort to construct. However, not all was lost. This was his opportunity to achieve that boyhood ambition. To construct a vessel that could carry his will across the stars.

Across the district, millions of citizens who had arrived for the opening ceremony covered their ears as a mass larger than most cities lifted into the sky. Streams of molten metal poured from its edges like burning waterfalls. Plates separated, rotated, and fused. Vast internal chambers opened within the shifting mass. Reactors descended into armored cradles. Conduits grew outward in branching patterns, connecting systems faster than any construction crew could have installed them.

A black prow emerged first, long and severe, shaped like the edge of an enormous blade. Behind it formed a colossal central body, angular and monolithic, without the exposed superstructure of conventional Imperial warships. Its armor possessed no unnecessary seams. Weapons ports dotted the structure both big & small, whilst hangar bays were numerous as stars. 

It rivaled a Super Star Destroyer in scale, yet it possessed none of their cumbersome vanity.

The ship was compact where it could be, vast where it must be, and built entirely around speed, survival, and overwhelming force. Its engines were buried deep within the armored hull. Its command center rested at the heart of the vessel rather than atop a vulnerable tower. Redundant systems overlapped until destroying one merely awakened another. And upon its prow was that weapon inspired by the Death Star. Although it could not destroy a planet, it was indeed mighty, no lesser than the firepower of General Grievous's ship, the Malevolance. 

Vader poured himself into it.

He willed the ship to take form from his imagination. 

His rage, sorrow, and passion were poured into this creation of his birthing something truly legendary. His dreams became the stars mapped into its navigational core.

And his love…

The feeling he had spent months denying, burying, strangling, and transforming into fury, became the shield around it.

For one terrible instant, Padmé’s face appeared in his mind. Her innocent, tender, pure love touched his heart. For an instant, the Darkside merged with the Light, and the Force erupted.

A wave of power swept across Coruscant.

The black vessel shuddered as every system awakened simultaneously. Engines thundered without propellant. Lights ignited along its hull like stars appearing in the void. Its armor darkened until it seemed like a slice of space had been cut out, forming an object. 

The ship hung above the new district radiating a signature in the Force, powered by the Force. 

“Go forth, stand tall, guard my Empire, protect her, my Black Monolith” 

Every loyal Imperial who looked upon it felt something stir within them.

Stormtroopers straightened without knowing why. Officers felt their uncertainty fade. Citizens who had spent weeks fearing the collapse of the Empire looked upward and, for the first time since the destruction of the old district, believed that something stood between them and the chaos beyond Coruscant.

The ship was protection.

Authority.

A promise that the Empire would not fall.

But those who hated the Empire felt something else.

Hidden rebels throughout the capital looked upon the Black Monolith and felt their courage weaken. Spies forgot prepared messages. Saboteurs hesitated over detonators. Even Jedi far beyond the Core stirred from meditation with the sensation that some vast predator had opened its eyes among the stars.

Upon completing this creation, Vader's hands trembled. Blood ran from one nostril, and he nearly collapsed from his flight. The Darkside Nexus beneath the palace had grown quiet, drained nearly to stillness. His muscles shook despite the power flowing through him. For more than a week, he had commanded an entire city, a million machines, and forces capable of tearing continents apart.

Slowly, carefully, he lowered the Black Monolith into the enormous berth constructed at the center of the district.

Gently lowering himself upon a throne on a flat, empty spire, he beheld all he had wrought. 

Before him stood the new Senate District.

Black towers stretched toward the heavens in flawless formation. Military avenues gleamed beneath the morning light. Droids moved through the streets, completing final repairs tirelessly. Beyond them, larger than anything else in the city, the Black Monolith rested beneath the Imperial sky.

Pride. Hope. Domination. 

This was his Empire. 

A land where men from the bottom could make a name for themselves. Where merit, not money or connections determined one's own fate. 

Closing his eyes, he sent out a pulse through the Force. 

‘Luke. Leia. This and more is yours to inherit. Padmé…you cannot run forever.’ 

~~~~~

AN: Tomorrow is the last interlude for a good while, BUT to get it out of the way, I'll be double releasing Jedi Insurgency on Thursday (or I might scrap that interlude altogether. It's told from the Pro-Republic Clones’ perspective like how the 501st journal was told in Battlefront 2…the execution was ehhh)…Anyway! We'll be wrapping up the MC's Jedi Shadow Master Quest on Tython next week, then moving on once more into the galaxy proper!