Scry on his Enemies

A patient hunter did not spring the trap the instant prey appeared. He waited until the prey's choices had narrowed, until every path led exactly where the hunter intended. Tempus remained motionless within the shadows beyond the doorway, his crimson eyes fixed upon Darth Vader and Princess Leia as the currents of history swirled around them.

Every instinct urged him to ignite his blade and trust surprise to accomplish what centuries of planning had prepared him for. Every lesson etched into Darth Chronos's holocron warned against confusing opportunity with impatience. The future was not a single road. It was an endless network of converging paths, and only a fool committed himself before seeing where they led.

His hand drifted away from the hilt of his lightsaber. Instead, he reached into the Force. The crimson glyphs of Chronomancy spiraled silently around his fingertips as the air behind him folded inward, opening a circular wound in reality behind him no larger than a doorway. Tempus stepped backward through the aperture.

The battle vanished. Silence welcomed him. His fortress existed nowhere history could touch. It possessed no coordinates upon any star chart because it occupied no point in ordinary space. It possessed no date because it drifted beyond the river of time itself, suspended within the endless gulf called the Null Horizon.

Here, moments possessed no meaning. Clocks lined the towering walls of the chamber, each frozen at a different hour, while enormous gears turned without driving any visible machinery. Crimson temporal currents drifted lazily through the vast halls like ghosts searching for centuries they had lost.

Tempus had not built this place. He had inherited it. The holocron had revealed its existence only after accepting him as its new master, guiding him through geometries that no conventional hyperspace route could ever reach. The fortress existed outside causality itself, protected from paradox by its very separation from reality.

No Jedi could sense it. No Sith could discover it. Even reality itself struggled to acknowledge that it existed. It was less a fortress than an observation point from which one might look upon eternity without becoming part of it. He approached the central dais. The black holocron responded immediately.

Rather than opening another gateway, Tempus formed a much smaller temporal aperture, scarcely larger than a viewport. Its surface shimmered like dark water rimmed with crimson light, remaining invisible from the far side while allowing him to observe events unfolding across history. He had no need to stand within the corridor of the Tantive IV to witness its fate.

The portal revealed the diplomatic compartment exactly where he had left it. Leia remained under guard. Vader remained motionless before her. Tempus folded his arms behind his back and simply watched. This was no longer reconnaissance. It was study.

The holocron had granted him the ability to move through time, but knowledge of moments alone meant little without understanding the people who inhabited them. History recorded victories, defeats, speeches, and deaths. It did not record hesitation before a decision, the subtle shift of a warrior's footing, or the unconscious habits that revealed strengths and weaknesses alike.

Vader fascinated him most. The Dark Lord scarcely moved, yet every movement possessed purpose. He wasted no effort. He relied upon silence as readily as intimidation, allowing his presence to do much of the work before words or violence became necessary. The Force surrounding him resembled a star collapsing inward upon itself.

Vader compressed unimaginable pain and discipline into something almost inhuman. Tempus had read countless accounts describing Vader as the Emperor's executioner, but none adequately conveyed the oppressive gravity of his existence.

Leia intrigued him for entirely different reasons. She was afraid. He watches every accelerated heartbeat, every surge of adrenaline, every involuntary tightening of muscle betrayed the truth. Yet none of it reached the surface. She refused to surrender even the appearance of fear.

Her eyes remained fixed upon Vader with unwavering defiance while her mind searched relentlessly for information, opportunities, and weaknesses. Even as a prisoner, she continued gathering intelligence. Even in defeat, she remained engaged in the battle.

Tempus understood then why the holocron had marked her as one of history's great fulcrums. She did not merely survive events. She changed everyone around her. He allowed the temporal window to linger as the interrogation continued, committing every detail to memory. There would be another opportunity.

History itself guaranteed it. When that moment arrived, he intended to know his quarry, and every obstacle standing between them, better than history ever had. History was not conquered through reckless displays of power. It yielded only to precision. Vader was not merely another Sith to be defeated.

A battle here, in the opening moments of the Galactic Civil War, would draw far too much attention from history itself. The current was flowing exactly where it had always flowed. There was no need to dam the river when he could simply wade further downstream.