STAR WARS REBELS || Her Wings Of Fire

CHAPTER TWO: Heart Of Stone

*Here's your update, Art. NOW can you stop pestering me? XD*

Sorena walked down the long hallway of the Star Destroyer that had dropped them off, her long strides propelling her towards her assigned quarters.

She was quite proud of her plan to lure the rebels who had blown up Tarkin's ship back to Lothal. With the subtle persuasion of the Dar'mah Ji, or the 'Art Of The Clouded Mind', a talent she had perfected in recent years, the bait reeling them in would seem without affiliation of any kind to the Empire.

Vader's quarters were along the way. But as she passed his door, she heard something that gave her pause: an angry, mechanized yell.

She sighed exasperatedly. "Leave it to him to have another temper tantrum about something silly," she muttered, and opened the door.

The moment she walked inside, she was greeted by a cry that, with the same booming microphone, would have terrified the living daylights out of anyone else: "Who the kriff dares enter my quarters without knocking?!"

"Same person as always," Sorena called back, unruffled. She crossed her arms, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the lack of light in the room. "What are you about to blow to smithereens, Sky Guy?"

For a moment, it was silent aside from the gritty sound of his respirator.

Then: "Don't call me that. It's an old name of is not of any consequence."

"I will call you that, and there's nothing you can do about it to stop me unless you want to stab me through the throat. The past should be remembered." She felt around on the wall beside her. "Turn the lights on, will you? I can't see anything and I don't know where the switch is in here."

As she finished her sentence, the lights were powered up. Blinking at the sudden change in the brightness of the room, she made her way over towards an almost impossibly comical sight: Vader crouched down next to his meditation sphere, trying desperately to wedge it open with his powerful metal fingers.

"Kriff it... Help me with this, Snips," he said, dropping the cultured tone he used with other agents of the Empire in favor of his old jargon from the Clone Wars, like he often did around her. "The wires are acting up again – it doesn't like the new power source some idiot plugged it into earlier."

When in public, they appeared to be the perfect team. They balanced one another out in brute force and a menacing demeanor, and in political finesse and skill at negotiating. It was well known that she was Darth Vader's favorite out of the disciples of the Dark Side working for the Empire, outdoing even Mara Jade and Starkiller for first place.

No one knew, however, that it was only because of their shared history – both on the battlefield and on the command deck. He had made her powerful.

But when it was just the two of them, they squabbled like an old married couple. Not that they were a married couple, but that was the best description she could come up with for dynamic of their partnership in general.

Vader heaved against the metal with all his might, but he couldn't get it to open. After one last try, he gave up and let himself fall back against the cool surface of the shiny black object.

"If you can't open it with your metal hands, what makes you think I could with flesh? Use the Force on it."

"It's resistant to the Force," he said. "Why do you think I always insist upon bringing it with me? I don't want just anyone breaking in."

"Then what's the problem with it?" Sorena asked, her mood for verbal sparring fading away. "It's got to be something in the wires."

"It is." He was hesitant to give out any information. If anything, he sounded almost sheepish.