Vader made the trip that led near to the same hanger he had landed in. As he neared the cantina, he was unsurprised to find it littered with stormtrooper bodies, some older than others.
He did, however, find it a bit unexpected that the most recent victims were only unconscious instead of dead. Just like Farmile implied.
Speaking of whom, Vader felt the boy's presence in the cafeteria.
Most people, especially new recruits, didn't think about Star Destroyers having things like a cafeteria, but they certainly all did. After all, organic crews needed to eat, and a ship the size of the Executor meant they needed many to meet everyone's needs. Not to mention having separate cafeterias meant that they could isolate one if the food became tainted.
Vader looked to the side and saw Farmile sticking his head just above a turned-over table. "Vader! You're here."
"Farmile," Vader acknowledged as he approached him. Then he stopped.
Farmile blinked in surprise, and it wasn't at Vader.
The Dark Lord turned around to see a dozen short, scaly humanoids kneeling before him.
One of the Nohgri looked up at him and spoke with a respectful voice. "Mal'ary, you have returned at last," he greeted
"Ghazhak," Vader recognized. "I had wondered what had become of you that were on the Executor."
There was a chill in the air, the Nohgri remaining kneeling before Vader's ire, ready to accept any punishment, while Farmile rubbed his arms to stay warm.
"Tell me, why is it that Ozzel and this waste of a mutiny went on for such a time?" Vader asked pointedly.
"Our Lord," Ghazhak spoke solemnly. "We are all that remain."
Vader's wrath dimmed at that. There were about four dozen Nohgri Death Commandos on the Executor. For their numbers to be down to a fourth? "What has happened?"
There was a weariness about all of them as Ghazhak looked up. "Unlike the crew of this ship, we were undivided in unity even if our desires became divided. Many wished to prevent the poisoning of our world in this timeline if such is possible, but we all desired to find and aid you, Mal'ary."
"Even after I struck down the Emperor?" Vader questioned pointedly.
Ghazhak nodded firmly. "Our loyalty has always been first to you, Lord. More, to us, that was not the Emperor, but a stranger who might have become him one day. Just as we would not have any loyalty to the version of you native to this timeline."
Vader was not surprised by any of that and waited for them to continue.
"When the Fool moved against you, and others moved to aid you, of course, we plotted to deal with the traitors. However..."
"Karvims!" another Nohgri snarled.
"Those of Madness," Vader translated, and realized what they meant. "The Nutters."
Ghazhak nodded. "We plotted against The Fool while keeping eyes on these maddened souls. We decided that they might be the larger threat in some ways. And we were correct."
There was a great sadness about them all that Vader sensed. "What happened to the rest of your numbers?"
Ghazhak let his shoulders slump. "There was a bomb maker among the Karvims. He made many for the Fool. We tried to stop and end the bomb maker. We succeeded, but not without cost. Many of us died in the explosions of bombs we tried to disarm, others were taken into the void. We lost six more to a suicide bomb the bomb-maker had attached to himself. After such, many of the hidden routes into the Fool's location were cut off. We settled for sabotaging his forces where we could. We have no excuse for our failure, Mal'ary."
"Question?" Farmile spoke up, gaining curious looks from the Nohgri. "Why didn't you join up with the ones on Vader's side?"
"We follow the Mal'ary, and only trust in his leadership," another answered.
Farmile looked confused by that, but Vader understood. The Nohgri of the Death Commandos had gained his distaste for incompetence. "If Piett had failed, what was your plan?" Vader questioned expectantly.
Ghazhak raised his head to meet Vader's dark gaze. "To rid this vessel of as many traitors and failures as we could."
They would have done everything to kill everyone on board, even if it killed them. No, their own deaths would have been a goal in such an endeavor.
He was pleased it had not come to that, even if the idea of dealing with an Executor fully under Ozzel's control was less than ideal.
"You are forgiven," Vader said, the words almost foreign to himself at this point. But it was the only way to appease any honor-based suicidal thoughts these warriors had. "None could have predicted the situation we found ourselves in. You have done well in aiding to keep the Executor from falling into Ozzel's control."
"Great Mal'ary," Ghazhak said in awe, many of them looking as though they were having some sort of religious experience.
"Umm, Lord?" another spoke up, this one sporting a cloth wrapped around an eye, one that was likely destroyed and vacant. "Apologies. Kohvrekhar is my name," he introduced nervously, getting many disapproving looks from his fellow Nohgri.
"What is it?" Vader asked evenly, knowing there was likely a good reason.
"I don't mean to question you, but...who is this child, may I ask?" Kohvrekhar questioned, looking at Farmile. "Is he a prisoner? He deemed himself a...stray you picked up?"
The rest of the reptilian aliens couldn't help but be curious as well.
"Consider the boy a guest. For now," Vader answered vaguely, still not sure what to make of Farmile entirely but certain the Force had some plans for the boy.
"Thank you, I think they were considering eating me," Farmile thanked, perhaps a bit too casually.
"We do not eat children," one of the Nohgri said indignantly.
"Well, we try not to. We did eat the corpse of one by mistake," Kohvrekhar recalled awkwardly.
Ghazhak growled at his fellow Nohgri. "I told you, I did not know their kind got bigger! I was certain they were diminutive even full-grown!"
Vader watched the exchange with hidden interest. He had suspected that the Nohgri sometimes devoured the targets he sent them after, but he had never bothered to question if that was indeed the case. There was often debate among the sapient races about whether cannibalism applied to all sapients or just to one's own kind. The Nohgri evidently were of the latter opinion.
"So, anything else to do on this city-ship?" Farmile questioned idly.
Plenty, even if Vader didn't say as much.
There were still the various Nutters to deal with before the Executor was truly secured.
"Lord Vader!" a call came over the communicator. "That horde of Mouser Droids is trying to break out of the contained area! I think the Nutter that made them has taken direct control of them."
Speak of the Sarlaac.
"Take the boy back to my shuttle, all of you remain inside until I say otherwise," Vader ordered swiftly before turning to march off to the next battle.
"It's never boring around him, is it?" Farmile asked to the Nohgri.
They all just looked at the strange human youth, wondering if this one was a Nutter as well.
Meanwhile
"Magister. I know you must be rattled and my people have paid you a great offense, but I must ask if you would be willing to aid us still in curing this blight?"
Plagueis couldn't have said no even if he wanted to. Because the persona of Hego Damask certainly would not turn down the request to help potentially save a planet from such a disaster, especially not from a grieving father.
A father whose son Plageueis had himself set up to be killed in his place, but the good Counsellor didn't need to know that detail.
Still, he had to play it carefully. Not just because the Jedi were watching, but because Skywalker believed Damask was still injured from the beating he had taken earlier. So, he made sure that his acceptance had been done with a smile that appeared to be strained by pain.
Thus he was taken back to the lab provided to him while the Albingi security rushed to apprehend any resisting Blight conspirators and their former allies who were Vader's runaways. Lynn was on the hunt, he could vaguely feel. He wondered if she would show herself to the Jedi at all. It would give him a bit of wiggle room, having them distracted with another Dark Sider, but it wasn't a requirement by any stretch.
Here, Plagueis busied himself with studying and testing samples of the blight. He already had created a potential cure, but he was busy refining it to actually be viable for something that had already spread to an entire continent.
But his mind had been focused elsewhere. Just what had these fools been planning, exactly? He knew the goal of the Albingi conspirators, but what was the intent of the humans who worked with them? If he had some alone time with them as Darth Plagueis instead of Hego Damask, he would peel the information from their minds. Sadly, Skywalker had shown up.
But perhaps the virus could reveal more?
It had several names, the most standard of which was the Garqin Scourge, named after an agriworld the blight got loose on in the Galactic North. But Albingi was in the Galactic Southwest, near the edge of Unknown Regions. Obviously, they had picked a disease that suited their needs and was likely to be unknown in this area of space, more so with the Republic at the edge of falling apart.
...Perhaps Plagueis had been looking at this from the wrong angle. Perhaps the time travelers were not truly aiding their Albingi allies, but another. After all, this blight and whatever racial conflict that would have arisen would have been devastating for the planet and divided the natives.
The supply of Alberries had come from Oseon, and the Jedi had followed a lead on the conspiracy there. Oseon had no shortage of wealthy, ambitious people, both criminal and not.
With the Trade Federation faltering, there were bound to be those seeking to take a piece of their market. The market of owning planets in all but name.
The issue was that there were genuinely too many suspects.
Actually...
Plagueis scowled to himself. Perhaps Hego Damask had been called in for more than one reason.
"Damask!"
The jump may have been exaggerated, but the Sith Lord was genuinely surprised to hear the barking voice as he turned to see a hologram projecting the image of the Counselor's traitorous brother, Carmon. "Yes? What is it?" he asked, being sure to add a tinge of worry to his tone.
But in all seriousness, if this man was contacting him and not being taken to a prison cell, something was off.
"Listen, the damn trash squids lied to us about the Blight! Whatever you do, don't cure it like you would the base disease!" Carmon ordered in a rather desperate tone.
Plagueis found his interest peaked, while Hego looked suspicious. "Why would I...?"
Another figure joined Carmon. A Jedi Master, at that. "Magister, we are sending you data we have found in one of their hideouts," Qui-Gon informed, and indeed files were being sent to the lab's computer. "I'm not sure if it is genuine, but if it is..."
Plagueis turned to a monitor and began to scan through the information.
It wasn't Hego who was shocked now, but Plagueis. "Amazing," he said in honest astonishment. "Horrible, but amazing. They mutated the virus with another, giving it what they call a death-wail state. Instead of dying off with the cure, the virus goes into overdrive for a very short period. And the result with the berries is the release of a gas that is potentially deadly."
"If the cure was given as planned..." Carmon said gravely. "Not only would the virus spread beyond the quarantine areas, it could potentially devastate our planet's population."
"You underplay this," Plagueis said as he turned to look at the samples of the blight. "I'm afraid that, if we had continued, this could have resulted in your people's extinction."
Carmon trembled in rage and horror.
"Thank you for the information. I will isolate one and confirm the death-wail. Perhaps if I see it happen, I will be able to decipher the proper counter to it," Damask said, more to himself than them.
"We will keep you informed of anything else. May the Force be with you, Magister," Qui-Gon said as the hologram went out.
Oh, the Force was definitely with him. And Plagueis suddenly realized why he felt the Dark Side all over this scheme. A near extinction event, the death cry of an entire race with the survivors likely fighting for survival and vengeance as this world became a graveyard.
The Dark Side smelled a feast upon this world.
How amusing that Plagueis would have to deny it such a thing.
Especially since now he was too far invested in this.
He approached one of the samples of the blighted berries and stared at the specimen. Or rather, the masterpiece of a crafted disease. "Now, just who made you?" he asked, stroking his chin.
It seemed he had a rival as a scientist in the biological areas. There weren't many that could claim that.
And the best way to get to know this "rival" was to get to know his work.
With that, Plagueis got to work in earnest on curing this plague.
Meanwhile
Vader had ventured back into the depths of the Executor.
"Private," he addressed into the communicator, contacting the trooper left in Vader's quarters. "What is the situation with the Mouser Horde?"
"Calm, Lord Vader. A bit too calm," the trooper answered uneasily. "They were moving all over the contained area. Now they've just stopped. Maybe they've run out of power? I wouldn't be surprised if that Mouser Nutter didn't keep them charged."
A possibility, but Vader doubted such a simple answer was the case.
He rounded the corner, and saw the sealed blast doors down the hall that contained the murderous mechanoid swarm.
And someone was waiting for him.
"Lord Vader! You have returned, at last!"
Vader briefly took the man in. He had been sitting on the floor, leaning against the blast doors, and now rose to greet the Dark Lord. He wore the universe of an officer, but none of the clothes fit him properly. They were also covered in oil stains and burn marks. He wore an orange helmet with a protective visor, along with protective gloves for working with machinery.
"I'm sure you don't recognize a lowly technician such as I! But in time, I have become the Colonel of my dearest, dutiful comrades," he said with a proud, crazed smile about him.
"Private, open the blast door," Vader ordered without even addressing the madman before him.
The "Colonel" continued his speech even when the door opened behind him, and the horde of Mouser began to stir to life once more. "I was no fighter, My Lord Vader! So I hid and waited for the fighting to stop. And in my solitude, I found friends with these simple droids. Forgotten until they were taken to be stripped of parts by both sides!"
The mousers ignored the man, their leader and maker, and began to swarm towards the Sith Lord, picking up abnormal speed as they crawled over one another and up the walls.
"For why should this ship belong to you, who abandoned us! Or the soldiers who abandoned those of us who kept the ship running even as they tore it apart! No, Lord Vader, the Executor belongs to the Mou-!"
That was as far as he got.
As the horde closed in around Vader, he reached out his hand. The mouser droids exploded- no, not exploded, they were torn apart. Bolt by bolt, gear by gear in an instant. The debris was sent flying backward, the force shredding the mousers behind them and increasing the shrapnel being propelled. Like a system of satellites in a collision cascade, each only added to the damage being down.
When Vader was done, the killer mousers were destroyed and their Colonel had been so thoroughly destroyed that all that remained of him was his boots with blood stains and chipped bones.
The rest of him was scattered in the room the mousers had been previously contained in, lost amongst the fragments of mousers lodged into the metal walls and doors.
The Dark Lord calmly scanned the area for any surviving droids.
A lone survivor dropped from the ceiling, trying to attack Vader with its modifications and extra limbs.
It froze in midair and floated forward until it was in front of the Sith Lord.
"A pity. I could have made use of his talents," Vader said, crushing the mouser with the Force.
And with that, the Executor was his once more.
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