Alive Again

Prologue

"The oppression of the Sith will never return! You, my lord, have lost."

Mace Windu's words echoed through the Chancellor's wind-blown chamber. The arrival of Anakin Skywalker was barely noticed by the two figures, one prone, the other standing over him with a lightsaber, adjacent to the magnificent, but ruined, transparisteel window.

"No, no, no! You will die", croaked Chancellor Palpatine as streaks of Force lightning flew from his horribly crooked fingers.

Windu's blade caught the brunt of the blast, and the Jedi barely stumbled back a step. The master of Vaapad let the dark energy flow through his blade and back at the powerful chief of state and Sith Lord. Skywalker, now close enough to the battle, flinched as the lightning crackled between the Jedi Master and the Chancellor.

Hardly turning his head, Palpatine spoke to the young knight to his left. "He's a traitor."

With equal ferocity, Mace Windu shouted, "He is the traitor." An intense burst of lightning made the Jedi Master grunt, but he did not lose his focus on the man beneath his blade, and took another step towards him.

Sensing the Jedi's growing strength, Chancellor Palpatine pleaded to Anakin, "I have the power to save the one you love…you must choose."

For the first time since entering the room, Anakin's face twisted into a strange knot. He turned again to Windu, but his eyes were not those of a Jedi Knight. His wild hair and pale face completed the image, not of the handsome young man he was, but that of an ogre.

Windu sensed the younger man's confusion, and he allowed himself a momentary peek at Anakin. The Jedi master could almost feel the bile bubbling up into Skywalker's throat as his fear and anger billowed forth from their long hidden recesses. Windu shook his head slightly, managing to ward off yet another surge of lightning while uttering the words," Don't listen to him Anakin."

The Chancellor continued," Don't let him kill me. I can't hold it much longer. I…I…I can't hold it…son…I'm too weak. Anakin, help me…help me."

And then, with his last plea for Anakin's help, the Sith's strength seemed to vanish, and the lightning holding Mace Windu in place disappeared.

"I…I…I can't hold on any longer." Palpatine didn't even seem to realize that his face had been twisted and scarred beyond recognition. He was now little more than a flesh and blood gargoyle.

Windu seized upon the opening to pass judgment on the still smoldering man curled up in the cradle of the destroyed window.

"I'm going to end this once and for all." Windu's eyes burned fire as hot as the blade of his sword.

"You can't-"

Windu's eyes slid back to Anakin for a second with the realization that the young knight had not yet spoken since his arrival. The growing sense of betrayal flowed through the master like an acidic ocean tide.

"He must stand trial."

Windu was past the point of considering a trial for the creature below him.

"He has control of the senate and the courts", shouted Windu above the ever-present wind. " He's too dangerous to live."

Almost forgotten in the exchange between the two Jedi, the Sith lord wheezed again another plea for clemency. "I'm too weak. Aagh. Don't kill me…please."

Skywalker concurred. "It's not the Jedi way. He must live."

Windu had noticed a slight change in the young man's voice with his last words, but chose to ignore them. He was after all the only master in the room, and his decision had already been made. Everyone in the room can sense what Mace Windu is going to do next.

"Please don't."

"I need him," shouted the beleaguered Skywalker, realizing that he too had already decided what he must do. He watched Windu's blade rise into the air, and then, as if in slow motion, it started to fall again.

"Please don't." The look on the Chancellor's face was convincingly full of genuine despair.

"NO!!!!!!"

Anakin Skywalker's blade sprung to life as he whipped it out from its place on his left hip and slid effortlessly across his chest to his mechanical hand. A quick stab of Skywalker's hand sent the blade back to the left at an angle where its bright tip met Windu's wrist. Mace Windu almost didn't feel the lightsaber's heat as it severed the bone, muscle and blood of his hand from his arm.

But he found himself screaming nonetheless.

His lightsaber's purple blade zipped back into the hilt of the sword, before dropping out of sight into the blackness of Coruscant's underbelly.

The thought to be almost-dead Palpatine merely smiled. Then a look of rage engulfed his already melted face, and the Chancellor screamed his revenge at the still moaning Jedi Master.

"POWER!"

Windu's body convulsed as a new blast of Force Lightning struck him. This latest blast, amplified by Palpatine's rage, ripped through the Jedi's already damaged body like a hungry krayt dragon at mealtime.

"Unlimited power!"

Another ten seconds of lightning assaulted the great Jedi master before it finally lifted him into the air and out of the wrecked window. The Sith lord smiled again as the Jedi managed a strangled grunt as he plummeted to the ground below some three kilometers away.

XXX

Thousands of light-years away, on the embattled planet of Kashyyyk, Jedi Master Yoda clutched his diminutive chest and winced in great pain.

XXX

Makkan Libb lifted his head from the garbage receptacle from which he'd found his latest meal. He thought he had heard a thud; the peculiar wet thud of a slab of meat being forcefully slammed down onto a cutting board. He heard nothing now though, and continued to find more of the discarded, and more-green-than-it-ought-to-be, slices of bread. He nibbled on a second stale piece, when something else caught his ear.

A hawk-bat. At least one if not a small group of three or four. The creatures typically traveled in packs, but occasionally one strayed away from its group to hunt on its own.

But what would a hawk-bat be doing here at this time of night as the temperature steadily dropped well below its comfort zone thought the dark-skinned boy as he scooped the crumbs from his chin and into his open maw.

Unless it was very hungry. And if that were the case, it must have seen some food. The sound of the wet thud echoed in his mind.

Whatever it was, it was surely better than this three-week old bread.

Makkan gathered what few valuable scraps he had gathered from the dumpster and made off in the direction of the hawk-bat's cries. As he approached the increasingly louder screeches of the animal, he instinctively grabbed a long metal pipe that lay in a heap of rusting metal at the corner of a darkened alley. As he did so, the hawk-bat's cries became soft chirps. It had obviously found what it was after. Makkan leapt into the alley's shadows swinging his weapon wildly, and yelling at the unseen creature within.

"Go on, get out of here…Get you filthy - "

Makkan's words got lost somewhere between his throat and his mouth. As his eyes adjusted to the black of the alley, he could make out the silhouette of a small hawk-bat, probably a juvenile, perched atop the crumbled mass of what had surely once been a man. A small pool of blood had already formed around the figure's head, and the hawk-bat seemed intent on starting its meal there as it skipped over to where the blood was leaking out of the man's shaved skull.

Makkan found the strength to continue swinging wildly at the avian nightmare.

"Go on I said…GET."

The end of Makkan's improvised weapon caught the creature's outstretched wing, and it shot off into the heights of the alley, but not before hurling a bloodthirsty cry at the young boy. It hadn't gone very far, but it seemed wary to return to its meal while the boy stood there. Makkan swung again as the hawk-bat tried, unsuccessfully, to land. This time the hawk-bat hissed and flapped its wings in annoyance as it hovered over the boy and the body Makkan now straddled. Makkan lunged at the beast with the pipe, and caught it square on its hooked beak. The creature yelped, then flew off, obviously in search of less aggressive prey.

Certain the hawk-bat had gone for good, Makkan knelt down besides the man on the ground. The pool of blood around his head was still growing, but it seemed to have slowed down. Makkan noticed that the man's clothes were warm to his touch, and charred black in some places.

"Hey, hey mister, are you alright?" Makkan felt stupid asking the question aloud, but he didn't know what else to say. The boy felt at the man's neck for any sign of life, but found nothing. He cautiously lifted open one of the man's eyelids, and jumped away when the eye dilated with the introduction of what little light filtered into the dark alley.

"Oh no." Makkan whispered to himself. "This guy is still alive."