It was growing late. Aayla Secura was standing on a balcony of the Temple, looking out over Coruscant, the sapphire-blue, blood-red, and rusty-orange sunset alluringly beautiful at this time of the evening. The lights from transports and buildings alike gave the illusion of a billion jewels glittering in the air between buildings. Though the air was smoggy, and not as pleasant to breathe as it was to look at, Secura didn't mind stepping out once in a while to gaze out at the city and wonder what the future held for her mysterious Padawan. The roar of speeders and starships and large transport was a loud hum, sometimes intermitted with mechanical alarms, depending on the traffic passing by at the moment. Secura leaned against the marble banister, the cool stone against her vibrant blue skin.
I find it more relaxing to gaze at the scenery from inside, Master, came a gentle tendril of thought.
Spying on me, I see, thought Secura, amused. Her blue skin reflected the strange glow of the sunset, and she turned to see Young Sunrider standing just inside the large arched doorway that led out to the marbled balcony.
Their shared and momentary glance was interrupted by a starfighter crashing into the landing platform below. Smoke billowed up and sparks flew as the cockpit flew open and a young Jedi stumbled into the crushed marble flagstones. Blood streaked his face, his dark black hair smouldering where a couple sparks had found their way into it. A spot on his skull was matted with blood, as if he had cracked his head against the cockpit glass, or against the control panel. He glanced around, as if searching for someone, and then collapsed only a meter from the ship.
Aayla Secura leapt from the balcony, her headtails waving in the air as she soared downward, and landed lightly on her feet, springing down to the landing platform where the starship had burst into flames. The young Jedi was very light, and she lifted him onto her shoulders, quickly carrying him up the stairs into the Temple, away from the flaming mass of twisted metal that had been, seconds before, a blue and gold starship.
Sunrider appeared with Eeth Koth and Mace Windu, and the young Jedi was placed on a stretcher and taken deep into the Temple with Master Secura and Padawan Sunrider at his side, his destination a bacta tank in the Medic Center.
. . .
Kiran awoke in a clear synthetic fluid, his vision blurred. He could see figures moving around outside the tank, and noises they made were so muffled by the bacta fluid that he could hardly distinguish between human voices and mechanical sounds.
He closed his eyes and tried to remember what had happened before the crash.
Master Jhoren Lorus' grey grizzled face was solemn as they landed on the surface of Ossus, a dangerous mission because the planet was toxic. The Jedi Council had sent the two of them there to track the whereabouts of what they thought was an Rogue Sith. However, the moment the gunship had set down upon terra firma, an ambush of heavily armed Native Ysanna attacked them. Kiran had woken up in that strange cave and met the Sith Lord. Darth Scion had his accomplice bring out Kiran's old Master and tortured the old man until Kiran had begged with tears for his Master's life. And then—then with a wicked laugh, the Sith had slashed open the throat and belly of Master Lorus. The old Jedi Master barely had the time to tell Kiran to get off the planet to warn the Jedi Council, before his body fell with a very moist thud. Kiran had blinked twice, then looked up and glared at the Sith Lord before throwing himself at the dark cloaked figure, eager to engage his enemy in battle . . .
The movement outside his tank had increased. Then he felt a pressure shift in the liquid around him. In a few moments, the bacta fluid had drained down past his shoulders and his vision cleared as it kept draining out of the tank. In minutes the entire tank had drained and he was being mechanically lifted out of it, synthetic liquid dripping from his dark hair. A robotic arm carefully removed his breathing mask, and he coughed a little bit. He could taste a sickly-sweet tang in his mouth and it nearly made him gag.
"He is looking much better, Master Windu," said the Medic Droid. "He will be kept here for medical observation for twenty-four hours."
"Master Windu?" asked Kiran weakly, stumbling forward. The white medical wrap around his waist was sagging off his hip a bit. A pair of strong arms caught him, steadying him.
"Careful. You've been through a big ordeal. It's time to rest easy, you're safe here." The voice was calming, gentle and kind. It was a very feminine voice.
"I'm all right," he said with a faint smile. "I can manage."
"Not yet, you can't," she said firmly, but still in that gentle tone. "You're very weak, and the injuries you sustained were great."
"I need to see . . . warn the Council . . . great threat . . ." he mumbled, leaning heavily against Aayla Secura. His hair was wet with the bacta that had started to evaporate, leaving a weird jelly substance in its wake. Sunrider glanced at her Master, who shrugged.
"Please bring him over here and set him on the observation table. We will clean him and let him rest," said the Medic Droid in an irritated tone. Aayla obeyed, carefully laying him down on the metallic surface, then backed away, a strange expression on her face.
"Come back tomorrow. He should be ready to leave then," said the Droid, guiding them to the door. It hissed shut behind them. Sunrider huffed.
"Medic Droids are so pushy," she said, with a backwards glance at the door.
"They were built that way, Padawan," smiled Master Secura, one of her headtails twitching in amusement. "And, as it is, the young male human is no longer our personal concern. Though he looks vaguely familiar to me . . ."
. . .
The Sith Lord, Darth Scion, paced the darkened room, waiting for the holocomm he was expecting from his Sith apprentice, Darth Jadus. Their holocomm's were usually brief, long enough for the Sith Lord to give detailed orders for his apprentice to carry out.
Finally there was a beep, and the Sith pushed a button on the holoprojector that sat on a desk. A figure concealed in dark robes and shadows appeared on the desk, only ten centimeters high, but menacing as ever.
"What can you tell me of your mission, Jadus?" asked the Sith Lord coolly.
"I am here, my Lord," said Jadus, his voice distorted by the holocomm. "I have not been found out."
"Good. If the Jedi have not sensed your presence on Coruscant, then it is doubtful that they will find you until our plan is well under way," said the Sith, his horned brow furrowed as he continued to pace.
"My Lord, how long will I stay concealed?" asked Darth Jadus.
There was a pause. The Zabrak Sith Lord was thinking. His dark clothes seemed to hide him in the shadows whenever he crossed the room where the light was faintest.
"You will stay hidden until I send for you myself," he said finally, walking as carefully as he was thinking. "In order to destroy the Jedi, we must lull them into a false sense of security. With the fall of Darth Sidious, they think they have won, and that there is nothing to fear. No doubt they are concentrating on whom they will place next in the Supreme Chancellor's chair."
"How can we stop them?"
The Sith's smile was laced with poison. "I will step forward and reveal myself. That old senile Sith Lord founded an empire, and now it needs a ruler. And we will destroy anyone that dares to even sit upon the Supreme Chancellor's place in the Senate!" His fist was gripped tightly in the air before his face. "I will rule in that old fool's place!"
. . .
Anakin awoke in the middle of the night, a cold sweat on his body. His sudden jolt awoke Padme, and she struggled to sit up, feeling in the dark for her husband.
"Ani, what is it?" she asked sleepily. He took her hand in the dark and kissed the back of it, letting her stroke his cheek.
"I have a horrible feeling that our troubles with the Sith have only begun," he said quietly. "I had a dream where the Republic was destroyed . . . I saw a dark figure who was a Sith, and he looked at me and told me he was going to kill me . . . and you."
Padme scooted close to Anakin and wrapped her arms around his bare chest, resting her soft cheek against his shoulder.
"I know that you think all your dreams are prophetic, Ani, but Palpatine is dead. The threat is gone—"
Anakin stiffened. "That's exactly what the Sith would want us to think, Padme. No one would be expecting them to rise up after the Sith Lord was destroyed. They've got to be hiding somewhere, and I need to find where they are and eradicate them."
"It's all right to be a little paranoid," Padme said, kissing his cheek. "I trust your feelings more than mine. If you really think that the Sith are on the rise, I believe you." She laid back down wearily and sighed. "Can you sleep now?"
Anakin smiled and stroked her hair. "Nope. I'm going to the Temple and telling Obi-Wan what I saw. I'm not taking any chances, not when we're this close." He leaned over and kissed her gently, touched her cheek with his fingers affectionately, then got out of bed. Within minutes he had dressed and hung his lightsaber on his belt. He went over to the bed and kissed Padme again.
"I love you. I will protect you with my life, milady. No harm will come to you if I can prevent it."
She smiled and raised up on her elbow to cup his cheek in her hand. "I love you too, Ani. Holocomm me when you're all done so I don't worry."
"You got it." And with one more kiss, he left the bedroom in a swirl of Jedi robes. The front door hydraulics hissed open and shut, and Padme felt a tear trickle down her cheek as she rolled over under the sheets. It would be a long, long night.
. . .
Obi-Wan was meditating when someone comm'd in at his door.
"Who's there?" he asked warily.
"It's me, Master. Will you let me in?" Obi-Wan knew by the tense sound of Anakin's voice that something was very wrong. As the hydraulics hissed open, Anakin didn't wait for an invitation, but walked in quickly, and stood before Obi-Wan Kenobi, who was sitting on the edge of his cot.
"I forgot how . . . cozy . . . these little alcoves are," Anakin said dryly.
"Did you interrupt my nighttime meditation to make me aware of how tiny my living space is, Anakin? Or is there something real you'd like to talk with me about?" said Master Kenobi, with a hint of a smile playing about his moustache.
Anakin's body language was tense as he kept himself from pacing the floor. "Master, I saw, in a dream, that the Sith are going to rise up again, this time a more powerful Sith Lord than Sidious, who will kill all of us . . . who will kill me."
"So, what you're saying is, you had such a bad nightmare that you had to come all the way to the Temple to tell me about it?" asked Obi-Wan genially.
"Will you stop trying to use humor and just listen?" Anakin asked frustratedly. "By the Force, sometimes you really exercise my patience!"
"I exercise your patience, Anakin? You really don't remember much of our Master and Padawan days together, do you?"
"Master! Please!" Anakin said with a tinge of anger.
"Very well," sighed Obi-Wan kindly, "Let's say that your dream is a prophetic vision of future events that will come to pass. So the Sith will rise up with an even more powerful Lord than Darth Sidious. What are we to do with that information? Did your dream tell you how many there were? Or how we can find them and defeat them before they have the chance to rise up and defeat us?"
Anakin gritted his teeth. "No."
"All right," said Obi-Wan, nodding calmly. "Well, even if the Sith do rise up against us once more, this time they don't have an agent inside the Senate, which should be helpful."
"We don't know that, Master," said Anakin quickly.
"Well at least they don't have an army of thousands of clones, which we do," said Obi-Wan. "Exactly how many Sith did you see rising up in your dream, Anakin?"
Anakin felt like Obi-Wan was poking fun at him, but calmly answered, "Just one."
"I see," said Obi-Wan, becoming silent and closing his eyes to think. "Well, I think you have reason to be worried, Anakin. Your dreams have been correct in the past, but that may have been because you made a move to correct the future you saw, and therefore, most likely created that future by trying to avoid it."
"Are you saying that my mother's death was my fault?" asked Anakin quietly.
"No, that's not what I'm saying," sighed Obi-Wan. He stood up and placed his hands on Anakin's shoulders in a fatherly gesture. "Look, my young friend, why don't you go home and get some rest. When you come back tomorrow, we will take this up with the Jedi Council and see what move they want to make. I trust your feelings, Anakin. If you think that there is a threat, then it is most likely your feelings are true."
Anakin turned and walked out of the room. At the door, he looked over his shoulder. "It means a lot to me that you trust what I think, Obi-Wan."
Obi-Wan Kenobi smiled at his friend. "It means a lot to me that you appreciate it. We will find out why you had that dream, Anakin. Don't worry."
"Thanks, Master," said Anakin, and the door hissed shut.
Obi-Wan sat back down on the edge of his bed, feeling troubled. He wondered, amused, if he would be able to fall asleep now.
. . .