"I'm coming for you."

"I know." And he did know. He'd beaten Vader twice now. He doubted he'd survive the third encounter. Technically he had died in the first.

"As long as she lives, I will always control you." Vader's voice rang out from a distant memory. They'd taken him for trial. Vader had escaped. It should have been over for him. 

His own visage stared at him. Sometimes in anger, in other times there was longing. It was another Starkiller clone, Galen understood. The last one. The one Vader had deemed a perfect replacement. He haunted Galen's dreams with taunts about the future. Sometimes he asked Galen to return to Vader's side.

He wondered if Vader understood their connection through the force.

Galen's eyes opened to the darkness. His breathing came in short quick gasps and he inhaled slowly to calm himself. Next to him, he could feel Juno's warmth as she turned over to face the wall. The one-time decorated Imperial pilot turned rebel Officer had come with him, giving up her command of the Alliance ship Salvation. He could hear her breath in the darkness next to him. Her swollen belly carried their twins. 

Vader had killed her so many times in his visions of the future that he had no idea how she still lived. He put a hand on her back just to make sure it wasn't a dream.

He sighed. There would be no more rest for him tonight. He sat up in bed and swung his legs over to the side. Taking another look at Juno, he noted every line of her face, every scar, every curve of her body for a moment. Then he stood and padded silently out of the room, taking his lightsabers from the nightstand. They were never far from his reach.

He reached out to the force, its presence both comforting and a painful reminder of his past. 

But something was coming. He could sense it in the air.

His practice room was dark. He took a seat and waited, meditating as he did so. The force churned out of balance.  He felt the dark before the dawn. He hated waiting most of all. The wait before the fight was the longest. 

 A loud roaring in the distance signaled the arrival of a vessel. The house shook slightly but none of the other inhabitants woke up. 

The force reverberated around him. He closed his eyes and sighed.

And waited.

There was another presence. So similar and yet so different. What he would have been if not for Juno. In truth what he should have been. 

He had no regrets. Every second spent with her was a second stolen for himself. Something he was never going to be allowed to have had he stayed with Vader and followed the path to the dark side. 

A lock clicked and the front door opened. There were many booted feet outside. Footsteps crossed the room and entered his practice arena. The light clicked on.

Galen opened his eyes and stared at a mirror image of himself, dressed in the black robes of a Sith apprentice. 

His alter ego carried twin red lightsabers, both strapped to his belt. He sat in the same crossed-legged position as Galen and assumed the same meditative posture. There was one difference between them. The dark clone had a scar across his eye. It ran from his cheek over his eye to the forehead. He remembered such punishments, and how often they were inflicted.

"I see you were expecting me." The voice was his.

Galen nodded. The air practically hummed with power around them. "You knew I was."

"This place is surrounded," the dark clone said. "If you fail... her life is forfeit. No..." The dark clone looked at him. His eyes lit up in surprise. "You've been busy. Their lives are forfeit."

"Nothing in you wanted to save her?" Galen asked. 

Vader had often told him of the clones before him.  Because of the memories used to imprint upon them to speed up their training, they'd all defected in some way. None would obey Vader after some time. Some had refused to kill their father, and all had refused to kill Juno Eclipse. All of these were destroyed. Why would this one be any different?

 "I struck her down easily," the clone said. His lips quirked in amusement. "She was but a barrier to what we will become."

We?

Still, the clone's eyes flicked in the direction where Juno lay asleep. Galen's hands squeezed into fists where they sat on his legs. It was the same brown eyes, the same gaze, but none of the affection. For the slightest second, he felt hesitancy on the part of the clone as regarded the woman in the other room. Perhaps they weren't so different.

Perhaps...

"No!" The dark clone, fierce in his denial. He leaped out of the meditative posture, the twin red blades swinging to life in his hands. "I'm nothing like you."

Galen, still surprised at the reaction, had half a second before he felt both the force shove and the heat from the blade near the side of his head. He managed to block both as he sprung upright but barely. 

The skin above his eye burned. The shove knocked him back a few feet but he remained upright.

The clone leaped back and away from him, landing nimbly on his feet. The movement was all too familiar to Galen. 

"I'm glad it wasn't going to be that easy. I've always wanted to test my mettle against myself. You've always been my biggest challenge. Not Juno Eclipse."

The dark clone came in again, blades swinging, a red blur. They spun and slashed at each other, blades whirling, dark and light, opposites and yet the same. 

He would swing in and Galen would counter. Galen would throw a feint to the right but the other clone caught onto the tricks easily enough. Galen managed to match the flowing pattern with his own sabers. The ebb and flow of their momentum careened around the room as the lightsabers hit and clanged off each other. Blue and red lights flashed with each hit and sparks flew. Soresu style fighting lasted longer and both were adept at their forms.

Galen managed to step back and assess. Both were breathing hard. Sabers hummed.

"I despise you," the dark clone said as he panted. "You let a woman get in the way of true power."

"I let love in," Galen replied. "You should try it."

"What do you think will happen here when you die?" The dark clone laughed. Again Galen was struck by how much they were the same. He used to sound like that.

"You'll take Juno back to Coruscant until the children are born. And then you'll both die."

The dark clone straightened. "No," he said. "They'll all die here."

"You think Vader doesn't know they exist?" Galen laughed. "He couldn't come himself, he sent you."

"A test."

"One you are failing."

The dark clone laughed. "I will be Vader's successor after we destroy the Emperor."

This time it was Galen who laughed. "The Emperor takes on many apprentices. But he'll never have a true successor. Surely you knew that."

The dark clone lunged and this time Galen was hard-pressed to keep him at bay as he launched in the more aggressive juyo form. Both were trained in it, but it was also far more taxing. 

Galen found himself cornered, not seeing much but crimson in front of his eyes, the hissing of the blades close to his face even as he moved to block them. He reached over and grasped the table with the force, launching it through the air, only for it to be deflected immediately. It crashed into the floor, the wood splintering. 

It wasn't much but it gave him a small opening and he pressed into it forcing his saber towards the dark clone's exposed side. He was immediately rebuffed and found himself sailing through the air. He landed on his feet just in time to block another force shove. The singe of burning clothes and the hole in the side of the black robes of the clone let both know just how close he'd come. Both men breathed heavily.

Galen grimaced. Juno had to be awake now. He could sense her moving. He could only hope she remembered their plan.

"This place is surrounded," the dark clone said as if reading his thoughts. "She leaves, she dies. Those stormtroopers don't know anything else beyond what I've told them."

Galen said nothing. His lightsaber hummed in his hand. He placed one on his belt. Lightning crackled in his free palm, the only sign of his feelings. He'd always been able to summon an immense amount of energy when Juno was threatened. Something Vader understood all too well. Or he hadn't. Galen had bested Vader in a rage when he thought Juno had been killed. 

The dark clone smiled, but it did not reach his eyes. He clipped his saber onto his belt and opened his palms. His own lightning crackled at his fingertips.

"I fear we are evenly matched."

"No," Galen said. "I have everything to lose here. You have nothing." He dropped to the floor shooting lightning up, not at his intended target who stood poised to retain the energy, but at the ceiling above him. The dark clone let go of the force long enough to flick his gaze to the ceiling. The wooden beams fell on top of him, and his face registered surprise only for a moment as he was covered in debris.

Galen did not dare hope the clone was dead. The next second, the pile exploded upward and the clone pushed out of it. Dust billowed into the air. The red blades were in his hands again.

Galen wasted no time in going in low, looking for an opening as he swept his saber towards the dark clone's legs. He pushed in even as the clone stepped back under the ferocity of his attacks. Galen allowed himself to hope for just a brief moment that he could stop this here and now. But the dark clone launched himself from the wall leaping over Galen and standing in front of the room where Juno was located.

Galen slammed the lock in place with the force. It would be a futile move if he was killed. But in the heat of the moment, it was the best he could think of.  He circled cautiously, desperate to get in a shot and place himself between them.

The lock clicked again and the door slid open. Juno appeared in the doorway. "Galen?"

Both combatants froze. Galen noted, even the sound of Juno's voice had an effect on the dark clone. Whatever imprint Vader had used, the clone had not been able to purge himself completely of the memories. Or the emotions they caused.

In her hand, she held a blaster. Her eyes widened at the sight of both of them. She glanced between before settling on Galen. He stared back at her distracted only half seeing the clone move towards Juno. He understood it was a feint even as he moved to intercept it. He roared a challenge hoping to keep the attention on himself. In the last second, the stinging pain surged through his body emanating from his shoulder as the lightsaber pierced through.

He dropped the lightsaber from his left hand, barely registering Juno's cry of horror. The blade went out and the hilt clattered to the floor. He looked up again seeing himself, one arm roughly holding Juno. The other pointing a lightsaber at her. 

Let go. It is almost finished.

"Famous you will never be. But important you are." Yoda's last words rang out through the force. "Blind they must be to the true pawn."

Galen dropped to his knees. He was tired. Blood dripped freely onto his shirt. He felt a haze over his vision and he blinked it away. 

Something had changed. The balance had shifted once more. Somewhere in the force a presence both familiar and foreign manifested. A different kind of salvation, one that Galen could not have foreseen.

At that moment, despite the pain in his body, Galen began to laugh. 

"No," the dark clone said. Sweat beaded against his forehead. He shoved Juno away from himself and stared at the air in front of his face, at something only he could see. He reached out and searched the force for a sign of his master.

"He's gone," Galen responded. He grimaced and held up a hand to his injured shoulder. A doctor would have a great time fixing this wound. If he lived to get into a bacta tank.

"I will go back, I will kill this... this..." The dark clone paused searching through the force for the name. "This Luke Skywalker."

"You understand," Galen said. "You had to come here, just like I did. If you weren't here, Skywalker would never have been able to get close enough to his father, to turn him back. Those bastards were playing the long game." Galen felt a hint of admiration for Yoda. Even as he felt anger bubbling inside him. He squelched it down. They'd paid with their lives for their mistakes.

"No," the clone said again, his denial taking the edge out of his voice. 

"The Emperor, Vader, they're both gone," Galen continued. 

The dark clone turned. The lost look was gone. There was only one of triumph. He squared his shoulders. A maniacal grin spread across his face. 

"Then I have only to finish this bit of business here," he said." He ignited both lightsabers, his gaze intent on Galen. "And then I'll take care of Skywalker. I think I'll make him my apprentice instead."

He advanced on Galen who held up his good arm and faced the dark clone. His job was done here. It wouldn't matter to anyone in the long run. No one outside of Juno would know what happened here.

A blaster went off. The noise stopped both men dead in their tracks. Galen stared at the clone of himself. The clone looked down at his chest. Where his heart should be was a gaping wound. 

Whatever the dark clone had been about to say was cut off as he slowly sank to the floor. Blood poured from the wound in his chest. His face was a mask of disbelief as he turned and stared at Juno. 

The blaster still smoked in her hand, pity written across her delicate features. Pity and grim determination. 

The energy leached from the room. The clone mouthed his denial again but all that came out was a small gasp. He reached out a black-gloved hand toward her.  Anger and denial radiated off his dying form, but the one that really stuck out the most was regret. 

As if she could sense this, she took his black-gloved hand that only moments before had been trying to kill the father of her children. He stroked her cheek. 

"I'm sorry," Galen said to him. He sighed inwardly as Juno stepped back. This clone hadn't been any different than the rest. He'd just hid it his true feelings better. Vader had always been ten steps ahead of him. But someone else had been ahead of both Vader and Palpatine.  

And then the dark clone passed. The energy dropped in the room. Galen inhaled. There would be no more taunts from his alter ego. 

There was still the problem of the stormtroopers outside.

"Stay here," he told Juno. "There's one last thing I have to do."

"But--" 

"I'll be back," he said lightly. He smiled and walked outside ignoring the pain in his shoulder. The arm would be stiff but he could at least do this one last task with it.

He walked outside. 

One last time, he thought. 

He could sense them in the dark. At least fifty of them hiding out there. He felt pity for what was about to happen but there was no other choice. 

"My Lord, is it done?" A voice called out.

"It is," he said.

A light shined on him then as the booted feet moved in his direction. They all paused as one. A well-oiled machine. He ignited his lightsaber. The blue light only confirmed his identity. He lifted the lightsaber across his chest a second before the first blaster hit. Deflecting the shot, he continued to move, letting the force guide his hands. Blaster fire ricocheted back and forth away from him as they moved in.

The closer they got the less they fired and he was using the lightsabers to cut them down.

And then he leaped in the air and unleashed a force repulse so violent that it vaporized the nearest stormtroopers completely.

He paused landed on his feet and listened. After a few moments, the insects stirred again. Ash began to settle all over everything in his viewpoint, like snow on Hoth. There were bodies further away but he left them and turned to go inside.

Juno stood in the doorway, blaster in hand. 

"If Vader is dead, shouldn't we go back?"

"No," Galen replied. 

"Why?" Juno was disappointed but he understood her desire to help rebuild what she'd helped to bring down. "I don't understand," Juno said. "If this Luke was able to turn Vader..."

"Luke won the battle," Galen said. "But he will lose the war."

"And we can't help him by going back?

Galen pointed to her swollen belly. "The new Jedi order won't last long. Even with us there, even if we did everything right. It would still come down. WE won't go back. But they will. They have to survive, they have to make it. It's they who will help rebuild. Not us."

Juno opened her mouth and then closed it again, her hands going protectively to her stomach. "What did you see?"

Galen went to her then and wrapped his arms around her. The air smelled of burned flesh and ashes rained down on them. 

 "I saw a future where some Jedi were playing the longest game of holochess I've ever seen. And they just said checkmate."

Despite the circumstances, Juno laughed against his chest.

They were alive. No one was hunting them anymore.