Star Wars

Deception of the Jedi

Part One: Just After Revenge of the Sith

Mechanical breathing filled the air as Vader made his way from the ship to the tombs on Naboo. Though his master had told him Padme was dead—a thought that shot pain through his heart even now when he was mostly a machine—Vader could not believe she was dead. It was impossible! What of the child? She at least would have lived for her, if not for him.

Granted, he was no longer who he used to be. He was more machine than man, more droid than human. He wasn't the Jedi Padme knew. His heart was colder, and he doubted that he would ever again be Anakin Skywalker, ever be the man Padme loved again.

It was painful even thinking about it.

Vader walked quickly towards the tombs of past Senators and Queens, both of which his beloved Padme had been.

"State your name and purpose," the security droid squawked, blocking the entrance.

Vader itched to destroy the thing on the spot, but knew he had the clearance to get past. Being Emperor Palpatine's apprentice had its benefits.

"I am Lord Vader," he said in the rumbling voice that was not his. "I am here to confirm Senator Amidala's death for the Emperor."

The droid stepped aside, punched in a code on the console next to the door, and said: "Name validated. Please enter."

Had he been able to, Vader would have given the droid a death glare, but he contented himself with sending the droid flying far enough to damage it, but not to destroy.

He stepped into the tombs, the somber aura reaching him even through his black armor. He took a breath, not quite deep but as deep as he could, and headed towards the newest tomb. Towards the one with the engraving Padme Amidala. Without the slightest misgiving he pushed the top of the tomb back to find it—

She was there, the jappor pendant he had made her still in her hands. His love, his wife, his darling Padme was dead. Yet he had not felt her presence leave the Force. He should have! He was her husband! And yet…if had truly loved her wouldn't he have felt her die? This was so frustrating! He could almost hear Obi-Wan saying: Just allow the Force to flow through you Anakin. You will find the answers you need.

He let out an anguished cry—in response to both the fact that Padme was dead and to the fact that he still considered Obi-Wan Kenobi his teacher deep down—and could feel nearby droids being destroyed in his grief.

Padme was dead. And so was the last trace of Anakin Skywalker.

Part Two:Just before and during A New Hope

"Aleena!" Leia called. She stood in her dressing room, trying to figure out how to get the dress her father, Bail Organa, had said she should wear to the Imperial Senate induction, on. It was far more complicated than it had looked on the mannequin.

"Yes?" Her soft-spoken handmaiden Aleena Demona walked in. Aleena was Leia's favorite handmaiden, though she had at least ten. She felt a connection with Aleena that she didn't feel with any of the others. In fact, when she was a child, Leia used to pretend that Aleena was her mother. She looked the part. With her curly brown hair and soft brown eyes, Aleena could play the part of her mother with perfection.

At the moment, those eyes Leia had come to love in the past nineteen years of her life were dark with some sort of hidden pain. She had often asked about Aleena's past, but the only answer she would receive is that she lost her husband near the end of the Clone Wars. Leia once asked if she had had children, but Aleena never answered, and a look a pain so great shadowed her eyes that Leia had never asked again.

"Will you help me with the dress?" she asked sheepishly. At 19, she should at least be able to dress herself, but she still had trouble with some of the more complicated pieces.

Aleena's eyes softened, some of the pain disappearing, and nodded. With a few deft movements, the dress hung upon Leia as if it had been always been there. "You look lovely," Aleena said, her voice catching.

"What's wrong Aleena?" Leia asked, grabbing her hand.

"I had children once," her handmaiden explained. "They were taken from me by the Empire."

"Oh. I'm sorry."

"It's all right." With that, Aleena curtsied and excused herself, her duties as handmaiden finished.

"Don't you understand?" Aleena said angrily. "She cannot be allowed to find the Force! If she finds her ability, she will use it and Anakin…" She paused a moment and swallowed heavily.

"He's no longer Anakin Skywalker. And Vader will not hesitate kill her or worse," Bail said, finishing her sentence.

Aleena blanched. "No!" she whispered fiercely. "Anakin would never do something like that!"

"He nearly killed you!"

"But he didn't. And the decoy seems to have worked! With the copy of the jappor pendant in the decoy's hands, he thinks I'm dead! He hasn't come searching for me, just as we planned nineteen years ago!" She scowled at him, still not believing that her love would do something so heinous.

"Nevertheless, what do you suggest we do?" He was agitated and she knew it.

"Send her to Obi-Wan! He can help her keep it in check!"

Bail looked at her in disbelief. "Sending her to Obi-Wan Kenobi will put her in the very danger we swore to shield her from! And what of Luke? What do we do when his Force-abilities begin to manifest themselves?"

Aleena shook her head. "Think, Bail! Leia is in the public eye! If she touches on her Force abilities Anakin will sense her! He will turn her to the dark side!" She sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose, stressed beyond belief. "Luke is taken care of on Tatooine. Owen and Beru will keep him safe. So will Obi-Wan. Tatooine is isolated anyway. If the Force manifests itself within him, we will have plenty of time to teach him to control it!"

"What will we tell Leia? She's very smart," Bail said desperately, trying to protect his only child from the dangers the journey to Tatooine would put her in.

"I don't know!" Aleena flung her hands up in the air. "We'll think of something! We can tell her that…that…. We can tell her that your old friend is going to teach her things that will protect her from Imperial soldiers. Mind tricks."

"But—"

Aleena cut him off. "I've already taught her a few, you know that. This will be more extensive. Just…tell her that my friend will help with more mind tricks than I could ever teach her. She trusts me."

Bail sighed and rubbed his temples. "All right."

"Thank you Bail! Thank you!" Aleena cried, relief apparent in every movement.

"Against my wishes, we'll send Leia to Tatooine. Tell her to pack, Padme."

She nodded, her relief subdued hearing her name.

"Good-bye Aleena!" Leia said, hugging her handmaiden tightly. "I wish you could come!"

Padme smiled. "Me too, love. But I am too old and my place is here on Alderaan. I will be here when you get back."

Leia smiled and turned, waving one last good-bye as she boarded the consular starship Tantive IV, headed to Tatooine to ask for Obi-Wan Kenobi's aid. "I'll see you when I come back!" she called, giving Padme one last smile before she left.

That was last Padme saw of her daughter.

A few days later as Padme sat her chambers, she stroked the jappor pendant that Anakin had given her so long ago, when he was a boy and she was a girl. Their lives had been simple then, but the Wars had ended that. "There is still good in him," she whispered to the pendant. "I know."

At the same time, Leia unknowingly stood next to her father as he held her back. "No!" she screamed, attempting to break free from his iron grip. His mechanic breathing kept a steady rhythm as Governor Tarkin gave the order for Alderaan to be eliminated. She uselessly screamed again as all she loved—Aleena, her father, her mother—died at the single push of a button.

Screams filled the air on Alderaan as a green laser flew towards them. There was nowhere to run. Padme watched with a cool senatorial detachment as she watched her death approach. She grasped the jappor pendant in her sweaty palm and hoped it would be painless. Her only consolation was that Annie already thought her dead, so it would be painless for him.

The last thing she saw was a brilliant flash of light.

A shock flooded through Vader as he felt a presence he hadn't felt in years blink out like a candle. Padme had been alive. Joy flooded through him for a moment and then quickly disappeared as the awful truth came plummeting down on him:

He had killed her.

Vader watched the destruction of an entire planet without any feeling at all.

Anakin Skywalker rose from his grave, screamed silently, and was buried even deeper than before.