Conversation VII: The Sith's Apprentice
It was like a scene from a nightmare, the Chancellor revealed as the Sith Lord fought Windu with relentless furry. Anakin ran into the office just in time to see the Sith's red saber flicked out to the perilous drop outside the shattered window. His blood ran cold as Windu leveled his lightsaber at the fallen Chancellor.
"You are under arrest, my Lord," Windu said menacingly, furry just under the surface of his words.
"Anakin! I told you it would come to this. I was right. The Jedi are taking over." Palpatine begged with his eyes for Anakin to understand.
"You old fool," Windu chastised, arrogance twisting his face, "The oppression of the Sith will never return. Your plot to regain control of the Republic is over." With a contemptuously victorious smirk he said, "you have lost."
"No! No!" The Chancellor yelled denials. "You will die!" From his fingers Force-lightning arched across the window. Mace barely managed to raise is light saber in time to take the terrible power of the attack.
"He is a traitor, Anakin," Palpatine cried.
"He's the traitor! Stop him!" Mace growled through gritted teeth.
"Come to your senses, boy. The Jedi are in revolt. They will betray you, just as they betrayed me."
Just as they betrayed Ahsoka, Anakin couldn't help but think, the image of his lost padawan springing to his mind. Master Windu's screams tore the air of the windy office.
"You are not one of them, Anakin. Don't let him kill me," Palpatin begged even as Windu screamed. "I am your pathway to power. I have the power to save the one you love. You must choose. You must stop him."
"Don't listen to him, Anakin," Mace ordered even as he fought the deadly lightning.
"Help me! Don't let him kill me," Palpatine's wide eyes were intent on Anakin, "I can't hold on any longer." The lightning faltered and failed leaving steam rising from Palpatine's disfigured body and Windu's lightsaber.
"You Sith disease. I am going to end this once and for all." Windu raged, consumed by his anger.
"You can't kill him, Master. He must stand trial." Anakin felt panic gripping his hear as he looked at Windu, seeing a reflection of his own anger. Just as he had fought the beast that killed his only family Windu was taking revenge for his family, the Jedi who were lost to the pointless and terrible war.
"He has too much control of the Senate and the Courts," Windu justified desperately, hands tensing as they gripped his lightsaber. "He is too dangerous to be kept alive." Beneath him the traitorous Sith begged and pleaded in his croaking voice.
"It is not the Jedi way," Anakin insisted. "He must live…" he hasn't told me how to save Padme yet, Anakin thought selfishly. The Sith begged and begged even as Windu raised his lightsaber, eyes blind with fury.
"I need him! Master don't!" Anakin cried. "NO." With a shout he interceded, his own blue saber flashing up and severed Windu's hands from his wrists. There was a moment of stunned silence in which Windu gasped, staring dumbly at where his hands had been then raising his eyes to the young master who had attacked him, not comprehending. Then the Sith laughed triumphantly.
Anakin had to shut his eyes against the flash of the Sith's Force-lightning as it threw Windu backward, over the ledge of the window and out into the windswept heights of Coruscant. His screams faded and were snatched away before his body ever found solid resting ground. Anakin stared on at the expanse of Coruscant.
"What have I done?" He asked himself. He wanted to puke. Instead he just fell to his knees and stared out the broken window. He remembered Rex, and the haunted look in his Clone Captain's eyes after Umbara, the look of a man who'd killed his brothers. Anakin hadn't understood at the time.
"You are fulfilling your destiny, Anakin." Palpatine stood slowly, moving painfully to his chair where a dark hooded rob hung. "Become my apprentice. Learn to use the dark side of the Force."
"I will do whatever you ask," Anakin said brokenly. He'd killed a member of the Council, the Jedi Order would never take him back. There was nothing left but to follow the path laid before his feet, the path that might save Padme.
"Good," Palpatine's disfigured face twisted into a mockery of a smile.
Anakin begged, "Just help me save Padme…" But his voice trailed off as he remembered, laying in bed the last time he held her in his arms, feeling her breathing and the vital life moving in her. He could feel the small movements of the baby under his flesh hand as it cradled her belly, his baby, their baby…
"I'm scared, Ani."
"There's nothing to be afraid of, Angel. I'll protect you. I won't let you die, I promise. I promise," He repeated into her hair. Her smell surrounded him and the warmth of their bedroom was comforting after many long nights in cold Star Cruisers.
"That's not what I'm afraid of." Her words surprised him and he fell still. Padme sensed his confusion and rolled over to look him in the eye. "Anakin, I'm worried about you."
"I'm fine Angel. You shouldn't have to think about me, just you and the baby."
"No, Ani. I'm worried that…" her brown eyes glimmered, "if your visions do come true what will happen to you? To the baby?"
"They won't." He said firmly.
"Anakin, please," She whispered, voice close to breaking, "please, promise me that if anything happened to me you would…you would stay the same."
"Padme," he breathed her name like a prayer.
"Promise me. I love you, this man that you are right here, right now. But I'm terrified that this war and… and my death might… kill you, turn you into someone that I don't recognize. Ani, that would break my heart." Tears spilled over her wide eyes and rolled over the bridge of her nose.
"Padme, shhhh," He had held her close and ran his fingers through her curls. "I promise. I promise." He'd whispered it over and over until she had no more tears and drifted into sleep.
That was the night he'd dreamed of her screams again but they were different. Before she'd screamed his name, called to him, whispered her love for him. Now she cried, "Luke, Luke… No! Don't take him from me. No!" Those cries, heartbreaking and desperate, were stronger and motivated, motivated to live and fight… for what Anakin didn't know. They were not the heart broken and dying pleas of his earlier nightmares.
"To cheat death is a power only one has achieved," Palpatine talked as Anakin drifted back and forth in his memories, "but if we work together, I know we can discover the secret. The Force is strong with you. A powerful Sith you will become. Henceforth, you shall be known as Darth… Vader. Yes… kneel." Anakin responded automatically to the command and fell to his knees, head bent.
"I have a task for you, my new apprentice," the Sith said in his croaking whispery voice that almost cackled with excitement. "When the Jedi learn what has transpired here, they will kill us, along with all the Senators. Every single Jedi, including your friend Obi-Wan Kenobi, is now an enemy of the Republic. You understand that, don't you?"
"Master," Anakin whispered. That dread that had tugged in his chest at Obi-Wan's departure was now an anchor that dragged toward the planet's core.
"We must move quickly. The Jedi are relentless; if they are not all destroyed, it will be civil war without end." Palpatine went on, "First, I want you to go to the Jedi Temple. We will catch them off balance. Do what must be done, Lord Vader." Anakin's head shot up as he realized what was being asked of him. The Sith's back was to the younger man as he spoke, "Do not hesitate. Show no mercy. Only then will you be strong enough with the dark side to save Padme."
So I must kill my allies, my family, younglings in Padme's name to save her. What will I be then? Anakin thought. She was right to worry, he realized. If I do this she will never accept it and if I don't she will die. I cannot win. I will loose her…
"No." He whispered.
"What?" Sidious turned to see Anakin's unfocused gaze snap up to his yellow eyes.
"No!" Anakin gave a terrible cry and jumped to his feet. His lightsaber flashed at the Chancellor.
"Fool!" A red beam appeared and blocked the vicious attack. "You should have listened," the Sith warned.
"I will never fall to the Dark Side, I will never betray Padme!" Anakin growled.
"So be it," the Sith's yellow eyes narrowed, "you will both die!"
Sideous broke their locked sabers and pushed Anakin back, he attacked relentlessly and with a furry that Anakin could not combat. The younger man gave ground and his blocks became sloppy in desperation. He knew after just the first strokes his violent Ataru style would never be able to protect him and he could not match the ferocity of the Sith. His heart plummeted as his footing faltered.
The Sith's blade swept downward and with a sickening slice and the smell of burning flesh Anakin's right leg was severed just above the knee and he fell backward to the floor beside the window, losing his grip on his lightsaber and crying out in primal pain and fear.
Tears stung his eyes as Anakin lay moaning on the floor on Palpatine's office.
"You should have joined me, boy. You should have done as I asked and we might have saved your pretty little whore."
It was all Anakin could do to force his lungs to keep breathing past the pain.
"We could have ruled this Gallaxy together, we could have brought it to peace," The Sith sneered. "Oh well, you'll never see that day." The Sith raised his blade and brought it down in a vicious stab. Anakin only just managed to roll out of the way but the blade cut a deep gash along his side and back causing him to cry out again and curl in on himself.
"You might not live," Palpatine said smoothly, "but your child will. If I cannot have you as my apprentice then I will find another, that child is destined to be strong in the force. He will make a fine replacement for his foolish father!"
Sidious turned his back on the dying figure, crumpled on the floor. He didn't see the comm device in Anakin's hand or hear the hushed instructions that were no more than gasps.
"Arrtoo… bring ship… here…"
Sidious turned at the beeping reply from the droid echoing from the comm speaker. He saw Anakin rolling over. There was a hateful look on the Jedi's face as his eyes caught the Chancellors, a look that said, over my dead body. And then Anakin was gone.
He disappeared over the lip of the window.
"NO!" Palpatine screamed and ran to the ledge, looking down to see the maimed figure caught from the terrible fall by the bright yellow Jedi starcruiser and whisked away from his tower. The Sith shook with rage, rage at the infernal interfering woman, rage at the pompous self-indulging Kenobi, rage at the headstrong boy who didn't know what was good for him. He fumbled with his comm, "Captain! Get a shuttle ready, take me to Kalevala."
Author's Note: And this is where the conversations end. This continuity continues though! Check out my author's page for the sequel.