It simply didn't make any sense. His victory, while not certain, had seemed fairly assured. His defeat, while not entirely unforeseen, felt completely ridiculous. Even all this time after the disastrous battle for the Malastare System, Admiral Trench could not quite wrap his head around it. He'd taken everything into consideration, or so he believed.
Sure, there was a world where his gambit was found out beforehand and successfully neutralized by his Republic Opponents. The Harch Admiral had planned for that eventuality and had had half a dozen backup scenarios depending on what went wrong.
The problem was… everything had gone _right_. The initial part of his fleet, sent into the Malastare System piece by piece to avoid detection and hide out on one of the moons with the assistance of their mole in the Dug Ruling Council… that had gone perfectly.
So too had the much more bombastic and flashy entrance of the rest of his fleet into the system gone well. Seeing a force that was in turn slightly outnumbered by their own, the Jedi Generals in charge of the Republic Fleet in orbit over Malastare had done exactly as Trench anticipated. They'd gone down to the planet together to put an end to the suspicion of a 'Dug Insurrection' that the Harch Admiral had planted in their minds.
To be fair, it wasn't that Trench was concerned about facing either of the Jedi stationed in the Malastare System in a proper space battle, commander against commander. Anakin Skywalker and Aayla Secura… neither were known as tacticians.
However, he'd been warned by Count Dooku himself that as the war went on and more and more Jedi died, it was possible and even likely that some of the survivors might develop a technique called 'Battle Meditation'. This, from what the Count had been able to explain to Trench, involved the Jedi submerging themselves in the Force and connecting to the battle itself, improving their side's cohesiveness while sowing potential discord among the other side.
Neither Skywalker nor Secura were said to have access to this technique… but that was precisely why the Count had warned him in the first place about spontaneous development. Because every battlefield that a Jedi survived was one where they might just have learned something new.
Suffice to say, the thought of having to face supernatural nonsense in battle rather than just another space commander, competent or not, was something Trench did not desire. He had enough to worry about in the material universe without being waylaid by Force Hocus Pocus.
That was precisely why he'd made the gambit he did, to get Skywalker and Secura down on the planet where the distance between them and their fleets should have precluded any usage of 'Battle Meditation'. _Should_.
As far as he was aware, they'd both been confirmed on planet. Not just by the mole in the Dug Ruling Council, but by additional spies that had managed to infiltrate the planet.
And yet… and yet, looking back at the battle, looking at how things gone, this 'Battle Meditation' that Dooku had spoke of seemed to be the only explanation left. Nothing else made sense. The way that the Republic Fleets had joined together and fought against Trench's combined, larger force was… nothing short of spectacular. It was the sort of triumphant defense that they would make holovids about.
… Was there a third, hidden Jedi among the Republic Fleets? Someone who hadn't gone down to the planet? Someone who had used Battle Meditation to win the day? If so, that could mean there was a mole in Trench's own fleet. If they knew his plans, then that would explain why exactly the Harch Admiral had been so thoroughly outmanuevered… and tricked.
Trench's mandibles click as he grimaces. Treachery then. That was what had led to his loss. Treachery most fou-
The doors to the bridge suddenly open in the midst of his introspection. Having been forced to retreat from Malastare, Trench has taken the ragged remains of his fleet just a short distance away to try and cobble together enough of a force that he might launch a second attack later on, once the Republic let it's guard down.
As such, he's sitting there on the bridge, droids crewing the bridge's stations, when those doors open. Out of the corner of his eye, Trench looks and expects to see yet another droid. Only to then have to do a double take when instead he sees a black cloaked figure walking towards him.
Whirling around, the Harch Admiral rises from his chair, both his synthetic and biological eyes narrowing in consternation.
"Who are you? How did you get onboard?"
Belatedly, he realizes something that makes his eyes widen… he can only see the cloaked figure through his biological eye. The other eye, a prosthetic from his last brush with death, registers nothing in front of him whatsoever.
Looking around, Trench sees no reaction from any of the droids to the intruder either. Neither the guards nor the bridge crew seem to be able to register his presence.
"Intruder! INTRUDER ON THE BRIDGE!"
Immediately, the B2-series super battle droids that are SUPPOSED to be guarding the bridge come alive, bringing their wrist blasters to bear and swiveling back and forth.
"Roger… roger? Intruder… not detected?"
Trench growls and gestures to the cloaked figure who at this point has stopped right in front of him.
"He's standing right in front of me!"
Droids are interesting. One might assume that their programming means they're all the exact same, but it's not quite like that. A droid brain is constantly learning… even ones like mass produced battle droids. As such, while the rest of the super battle droids continue to sweep their blasters around the bridge as their sensors tell them that there's nothing and nobody there… one of them actually just takes Admiral Trench at his word.
"Roger-roger!"
With that, the super battle droid fires… right at the back of the cloaked figure. Trench watches in disbelief as said cloaked figure steps to the side while at the same time the tell-tale snap-hiss of a lightsaber being activates fills the room.
It all happens too fast, truth be told. The Harch barely has time to recognize that the lightsaber is the color red, signaling something distinctly un-Jedi-like is going on. And then that red lightsaber makes contact with the single blaster bolt fired in his direction… and casually flicks it right into Trench's chest and through his heart.
Choking on his own spit, the Harch Admiral collapses back into his chair with a smoking crater in his chest, his biological limbs failing him as his mechanical limbs grasp at the air ineffectually. After all, they're connected to his biological components… which are very rapidly shutting down.
"Apologies Admiral. It seems you've been the victim of a… misplaced bit of droid programming."
Indeed, even as the cloaked figure is speaking, the other super battle droids on the bridge are tackling the one who shot to the ground. Its protests are quickly silenced by its compatriots, the only droid to actually listen to the Admiral being brutally and 'manually' shut down by the others.
At the same time, an alert to the medbay goes out… but it will be much too late by the time they arrive. The B2-series are armed with what can only be described as 'hand cannons' and their wrist blasters are decidedly no joke.
The last thing Admiral Trench thinks to himself as the life truly fades from him… is that he knows that voice.
But how in the whole goddamn universe had Anakin fucking Skywalker snuck onto his bridge? And why was his lightsaber red? Alas… for the Harch Admiral who had survived so many brushes with death before… these questions would never be answered.
-x-X-x-
Making his way back to his starfighter, Vader slips into the cockpit without a word. The moment he does so, a series of beeps and whistles greets him, causing a grim smile to spread across his face.
"I told you not to worry, Artoo. Didn't I? In the end, I was just fine."
A low whistle is his response, the Astromech not sounding remotely impressed. Vader just huffs, a little amused but mostly exasperated. He hadn't taken R2-D2 with him on some of his early ventures after coming back in time… he'd been flying solo when he went and recruited Grievous and Ventress, for instance. However, it would have been odd not to bring the Astromech along on the Malastare Mission, and from there… well, Artoo had refused to stay behind with the fleet when Vader left.
It was fine… he trusted Artoo to keep his silence. The Astromech was an eccentric little bugger, but his loyalty was never in question. Even after Vader had ruined everything in the original timeline, even after he killed Padme and lost it all… Artoo still wound up looking after their children, after Luke and Leia.
… Vader didn't know if Luke or Leia would even exist in this timeline. They certainly wouldn't exist in the same form, that was for sure. But he did know one thing… Artoo was dependable. In some ways, to a fault.
"You're the one who didn't believe I could do it even after I showed I could hide myself entirely from your sensors. Really, stop worrying. As far as anyone is concerned, we were never here. Admiral Trench was just shot by one of his own battle droids… whether that was enemy action or a simple malfunction, well, that's for the Separatists to figure out.
Of course, no matter how hard they tried, they wouldn't really get anywhere. Mostly because the super battle droid hadn't been malfunctioning or internally sabotaged. It had simply been following its Admiral's orders faithfully and reliably.
As Vader flies them out of the hangar of Trench's flagship, he does consider the ragtag remains of the Separatist Fleet that had attacked Malastare for a long moment. If he wanted to, he could see to its complete and total destruction, especially now that he'd seen Trench die with his own two eyes. The spider was just a bit too… good at slipping out of the noose for Vader to be happy with anything less.
… But no. Let the handful of ships left after Trench's disastrous defeat at Malastare limp their way back to the Confederacy now that their Admiral was dead. Let the news of his defeat and then the subsequent ignominy of his humiliating demise wash away any reputation he had and stab directly at the morale of the remaining Separatist Forces.
The death of Trench would remove quite the pillar of the Confederacy's Military Apparatus. It would almost certainly accelerate the rate at which the Separatists would start churning out ST-series droids to take over for the flesh and blood military officers they were losing at a truly exorbitant rate.
Unfortunately for them, the ST-series was fraught with… issues. Called 'Military Strategic Analysis and Tactics Droids', the ST-series were technically supposed to be able to replace the need for organic military minds altogether. Key words there being 'supposed to'.
In actuality, they were notoriously unreliable and if not for the manufactured nature of the Clone Wars, Vader doesn't doubt that reliance on the ST-series alone would have led to the ultimate defeat of the Confederacy all on its own.
With Grievous in Vader's back pocket and Ventress more than ready to jump ship at any time, Count Dooku was fast running out of reliable allies. Though to be fair, that was ultimately how it had all gone the first time around as well. Most organic Separatist Officers had died before the end, while those on the Separatist Council lived by cowering in fear on places like Utapau, only to be massacred on Mustafar by Vader's own hand.
With Trench dead and that loose end tied up, as soon as word reached the Republic by way of Republic Intelligence, he and Darth Accensa would likely be recalled to Coruscant anyways. But that could still take weeks… weeks that Vader had no intention of waiting, truth be told.
"We're going home, Artoo. Going to sneak in and see the missus."
A series of happy beeps and whistles follows that, prompting a smirk from Vader. If nothing else, he could always count on the Astromech Droid to be a rebel.
Even as they enter hyperspace though, Vader's mind is moving on to other things. Everything is proceeding as planned… so far. The war is dancing to Vader's tune this time around rather than Sidious'… and he's fairly certain that the Supreme Chancellor still doesn't know it.
However, there are certain actions that Vader will eventually have to take which will expose the truth to Palpatine. The death of Count Dooku is the most obvious one, which is the only reason the old man still draws breath. However, another obvious one will be if Palpatine tries to enact Order 66 early for any reason… and finds that it simply will not work like he wants it to.
Vader will have to deal with more of Sidious' contingency plans before anything else… but first, he's going back to Coruscant, he's going to see Padme, and he's going to not only remind himself what he's fighting for, but also find out if his beloved wife has any new information pertinent to their goals.
… He also might investigate the Jedi a bit more while he's there. Secura having Fallen on top of all the other Fallen Jedi was strange, but when she confessed that her own Master, Quinlan Vos, had _also_ Fallen… well, at a certain point it all started to beggar belief, didn't it?
There was something going on. Something about this universe that Vader was starting to think went beyond the changes he'd uncovered so far. And while he wouldn't let that distract him from usurping Sidious and remaking the galaxy in his own image instead… he was still intrigued enough to want to find out more.