"Senator Amidala, Senator Organa. Thank you for coming."
Mace Windu wears the face of a weary man, even for a Jedi. Padmé musters up a gracious smile. Beside her, Bail nods. "Of course, Master Jedi. The Senate is most eager to hear what you have to tell us."
"Indeed." Mace looks even wearier at that, and stands with the smooth grace borne of years of training. He strides over to the holoprojector and taps a button. Padmé tilts her head—she's been in this particular room in the Jedi Temple multiple times over the past few years, but looking around with fresh eyes, it occurs to her for the first time that the technology the Jedi are using is by and large very old. Living with Anakin and all his mechanical fiddly bits has taught her something of the Republic's technological history; to see the way the duraplast casings on the holoprojector are scratched and worn with the ages that have surely passed since it was installed is something of a new understanding, at least in light of Mace's expression. "Understand that we, the Jedi, have investigated to the best of our ability. We present nothing but the truth as it has been found."
Padmé and Bail very carefully do not exchange glances, although she can see Bail's aborted motion to turn in the corner of her eyes. "The Senate trusts the Jedi," Padmé says, stepping forward to get a better look at the document that is being projected to them. For once, the words don't taste of lead. She has said them many, many times, perhaps more than she ought to have said them, but she never was good at letting go of hopeless causes. Not like the Jedi themselves seem to be. There is good in the Jedi Order, she knows it. Their contributions to the galaxy as a whole are eminently valuable—even if they had once been more beneficial as peacekeepers, not warriors.
The thought doesn't waver once in her mind, even as she feels the blood drain from her face with each paragraph she reads. Long conversations with Anakin and Obi-Wan, some over encrypted comms, some in person, some conducted in stages of text transmissions and captioned holos and voice clips exchanged while they were off in one end of the galaxy or another, all played their part in convincing her of the importance of the Order, however flawed it is.
Funny, how the two of them refuse to talk to each other about their philosophies and yet find themselves standing in positions that are separated only by semantics. Where Anakin sees the Jedi as a potential force for social justice, Obi-Wan insists that their primary purpose in the wider galaxy is peacekeeping—something not entirely dissimilar to what Anakin has expressed to her, really.
"Oh my," Bail murmurs, pulling the part of Padmé's mind that has been separating her current reality from the realm of her thoughts back into sharp focus. Bail's hand twitches at his side, like he wishes to cover his mouth. Padmé glances at the section he's perusing and sees a picture of the incense burner that the Chancellor had often had out during his visits with her.
Then she reads the accompanying text.
"It was an aid for Sith rituals?" Padmé blurts out, feeling sick. She knows tragically little of the history of Force-users and Force usage, but she remembers Obi-Wan's return from Jabiim, the shadows in his eyes, the way Anakin had trembled as he held her and refused to tell her what had happened.
Sith artifacts are dangerous, Obi-Wan had ended up telling her. Anything imbued with Dark energy is. The Dark only wants to ruin. To destroy. It will use anything to accomplish its purposes.
It had taken him nearly a year to recover from that, and even now she sometimes sees him pause when he plays with Luke and Leia, eyes going glassy and distant with remembered horrors that he never speaks a word of. If that's at all what the incense burner is like...
"Our investigators noted that it looked to have been used recently," Mace confirms.
Bail puts a hand on her shoulder. "Padmé."
"What else is there?" Padmé turns to Mace, setting her jaw at the suspicion in his eyes. He means well, she knows, but like much of the Jedi Order, he has never been complimentary of her marriage to Ani. If they can't see—she starts, but stops herself with a little shake of the head. She can't think about that right now. "Please, Master Jedi. I must know the depths of this."
"Of course. That is why you're here," is Mace's careful, measured reply.
Padmé turns back to the report, trying not to scowl. She has a job to do.
The first thought Anakin has when he steps into what looks to be a research facility is this:
Damn. Obi-Wan was right.
Spread out before him and his men is a large hexagonal room, sleek and steely, with a very large data terminal in the center—it looks almost like an obelisk with a bunch of control panels surrounding it, a blocky design that Anakin wouldn't have chosen for himself given some design specs and half a chance. It's just—inelegant. Rex shifts at his side; Anakin glances at him, and Rex shrugs. "I've seen this kind of thing before, sir. Only from a distance. They had half a dozen spread out in different places during officers' training."
"Ever seen them used?" Anakin asks, gesturing for two men to stay back as guards. It puts him at three men besides himself. Probably not enough support to take on Count Dooku of all men, unless the injuries incurred on the Invisible Hand had put a significant dent in his dueling capabilities. His jaw sets. Obi-Wan would have been more than enough if Anakin hadn't tripped that sensor on Axxila—
"Not that I remember, sir," Rex says, and that's when the central door opposite the entrance slides open, coming apart in two smooth, efficient halves.
"Ah," says Count Dooku, eyebrows raising. Something dark and metallic falls into his silvery hands with a thunk. "A desert rat and his toy soldiers. Here at last, I see. The Republic is so dreadfully behind the times."
And stars help him, Anakin sees the past four years pass by in flashes, remembers death and loss and terror and destruction until it all runs together like the blood of his fellow Padawans on Jabiim, the rain on Kamino, the sightless stares of the dead in a thousand different systems, lost a thousand different banners. Somewhere indelibly marked on his being, on his soul, is the unrest and the unbalance of a galaxy, a universe of terror waiting every time he closes his eyes, and it is all because of this man, standing before him.
Anakin does not think. He barely even blinks. "Dooku," he hisses, igniting his lightsaber. His men fall back in unspoken agreement: stay alive, keep the jetii alive. "You're under arrest. In the name of the Galactic Republic."
"Perhaps I should be offended that they've kept sending such a young dog to nip at my heels," Dooku observes, eyes cold and derisive and haughty in a way Obi-Wan, for all his posturing and pretensions of elitism, has never once been. "You know so little of the galaxy, Knight Skywalker. You hardly even know the truth."
"If it's truth from you, I don't need to hear it," Anakin snaps, taking a step forward.
Dooku tilts his head, a slow, elegant motion at odds with the lack of fluidity his advanced age would suggest. He tucks what Anakin only has a moment to recognize as a holocron into a strange-looking pouch at his belt. "No? I suppose you don't need to hear the truth behind the Chancellor's death, then."
Anakin pauses.
Dooku smiles.
"Lie," Anakin says, his heart beating in his mouth. "You're bluffing. The Chancellor suffered a heart attack. Everyone knows that."
For a strange moment, Dooku almost looks pitying. "Not even you could possibly be foolish enough to believe that."
"Then tell me what you have to say!" His hand tightens against his lightsaber. The leather of his glove bites into his palm again. The rush of pain brings clarity, however brief, and he uses that to grit his teeth and shove aside the rising fury in his bones. "Cooperation may bring you some degree of clemency in the courts—"
"Spare me," is the bored reply. Keeping the terminal between them, Dooku steps forward and stares Anakin in the eye. "Listen well, then: your precious Chancellor's death was the will of the Force."
"So, a combat trial?" Lana asks, turning in place from the center of the room to look at Obi-Wan, who stands on the sidelines. She looks at him with wide eyes, thinly-restrained mirth lurking behind them. "Five droids, Master?" Then, clear as day but passing in nature: Overkill. I'll regret this come the morning.
"The place of a Padawan is to obey," he warns, letting the thought slide past without acknowledgment. She doesn't seem to be aware of what she's doing, or even aware that she's doing anything at all. For all her observational prowess, she appears blind to the fact that her mind is just like his: a durasteel fortress. If anyone has access to it, it's because she wants them there.
That, or the inchoate channel forming in the back of his mind is neither his work nor hers.
Lana ducks her head, a faint smile tugging at her lips. Kark. Guess he sensed it. Need to stop bothering the pilots late at night and get some real sleep— "My apologies, Master."
Obi-Wan raises an eyebrow. "Oh, I'm sure," he says, because so much of his twenties was falling asleep frustrated and waking up to litanies of: I'm sorry for going podracing against your will, Master, but I used the funds to help out that children's hospital, and the old Twi'lek lunch lady, and sprucing the astromechs up, and what if I made a donation to the Naboo embassy—and the present is demanding his attention. He stops himself from sighing at what are now age-old memories. "We'll start with one, and add them in as you progress through the katas. Remember to keep your balance at your center—you're balancing on your toes right now," he adds, and at his tone Lana rocks back on her heels with a touch of chagrin. "Better. Now, begin."
He waves and one of the droids whirs to life. Lana takes a breath and ignites her 'saber.
The droid attacks, aiming for her knees. She jumps back and nearly stumbles on the landing—she needs more velocity drills, Obi-Wan thinks, raising an eyebrow—but she recovers well enough, sucks in another breath of air, and just as the droid comes at her again—
"Yes," Lana whispers to herself, eyes glowing. She's caught the upper end of the droid's staff by angling her 'saber perpendicular to its neutral white beams, a painstakingly precise move that is far more Form II than VI, but her grin tells him she's quite forgotten about all of that. "Finally!"
In a split second she whirls away from the bladelock and thrusts her hand out. The Force swells.
The droid crashes into the far wall and lets out an indignant screech as its maglevs reorient it upwards.
Lana coughs. "Sorry," she calls, though Obi-Wan isn't sure if it's meant for him or for the droid.
"We'll add the next one in," he decides. She cuts him a betrayed look. He resists the urge to smile. Her instincts aren't all that bad, really, and in a kinder age she might've had time to develop her forms naturally, but for a Padawan who's never seen battle before, discipline is going to be the most important factor in how she handles any potential fight. "Save the grand improvisations for when you can land that jump, Padawan. A Jedi's primary interest in battle is always defense. Let's do this again, from the beginning."
"Yes, Master," Lana sighs, settling back into the opening stance of Niman.
Imagine this:
In the world beneath the worlds, the luminous energy field connecting all spirits to one another, the galaxy is shifting.
A gaggle of younglings are playing in one of the Temple gardens, justifications for their candor and energy swirling around in the back of each young mind. They are not strictly allowed to be playing at the present moment, but their carefully-regulated lives have been freed from a rigorous schedule of mandated naps and lessons by some matter that is of enough import to take Ali-Alaan away, and the Padawan who is meant to be watching them has instead decided to volunteer to be their referee.
"Be careful, now," the Padawan says, standing to the side, eyes on the two younglings facing each other with a kind of graceful poise that is too old to belong to children and too young to hide the excitement simmering underneath it. Maybe this will help them live a little, he thinks, scratching at his chin and trying not to hope that the persistent itch just under his jaw is a harbinger of hairy things to come.
One of the younglings settles into a clumsy imitation of the opening stance of Ataru—this girl still bears the vestiges of childhood in the roundness of her face and the comical clash of her high cheeks against her distinctive nose. The girl across from her is already grinning in anticipation, lekku carefully done up behind her back so as to keep them from flying everywhere, the stick she is using in place of a lightsaber held out horizontally, a staff to match her opponent's pretend 'saber.
"Are you ready?" the Padawan asks them. The younglings fall silent. The atmosphere in the garden grows hushed.
He nearly laughs, but thinks better of it in a heartbeat. They treat this moment so seriously, this little mock-duel between their groupmates. If he didn't know any better, he'd think they were seeing it as something sacred.
Wonderful thing, the mind of a child is. If Master Yoda says so, then it must be true.
Two solemn nods bring him back to himself. "Very well, then," he says, crossing his arms. "You may begin."
"I'll never join you," the round-faced girl pipes up, her eyes burning into her opponent with a righteous fire. "I am a Jedi, like my Master before me!"
The Twi'lek girl lets out a high-pitched cackle. "If you won't join me—" She bares her teeth, ferocious and presumably meant to be fearsome. "—then you will die!"
A gasp ripples through the rest of the group. The Padawan smiles. It's a gift they don't know they have, to be so shocked by the first mention of death.
"Oh, I don't think so," the round-faced girl declares, grinning despite herself. The two explode into motion, improvising right and left with wild twirls, inane flourishes, and experimental leaps—nothing you'd see in a real duel, the Padawan thinks. But they're having fun, the rest of the younglings are enthralled, and they seem to enjoy the noise their sticks make when they clash against each other, even though unfamiliarity with the balance of a real stick and not a training 'saber has put them on equal ground.
"Oh—" the Padawan starts when the Twi'lek gets in a lucky blow that sends the round-faced girl sprawling on the grass. She springs up almost immediately with no apparent hurt feelings. He breathes a sigh of relief—
The girl calls on the Force and leaps.
His heart skips a beat and launches itself into his mouth. It is, he decides, a singularly absurd thing to see an Initiate attempting the iconic Ataru flip, and the shock of it is clearly what keeps him from reacting in time when her fear ripples in the Force with a breathless intensity and she doesn't angle herself properly for the landing.
Clearly. Certainly not a damned impulse to wait and see if she would make it anyways.
The group freezes, watching on as she hits the ground shoulder-first with a pained hiss and rolls right into the feet of Jedi Master Yan Dooku, who looks down at her with a sneer.
"What," he says, looking up and pinning the Padawan with an absolutely frigid look, "is this?"
No one answers. The girl wheezes, but she's too winded to speak.
"Answer a Master when you are asked a question, boy," Dooku snaps, stepping away from the girl.
"It was a mock duel, Master," the Padawan says, swallowing. If he had a beard like that, would it inspire the same mortal terror in others that he feels in his bones at this very moment? "To run their energy off."
"And when this untrained child began to attempt one of the most difficult maneuvers of Form IV, why did you not immediately stop her from doing so and call the duel off?"
Face burning, the Padawan opens his mouth and closes it. Curiosity is about the farthest thing from a proper answer there could be, and he knows it.
"When you have finished with creche duty, you will go straight to your Master and report your negligence. In exhaustive detail." Dooku's tone brooks no argument, and for a moment it looks like that might be the end of it, but he pauses and his eyes go flinty. One of the younglings behind the Padawan stifles a little sob; the Master's irritation simmers around all of them in the Force, a prickly ball of severity that most of them have thus far never had cause to be exposed to. "Take the girl to the medbay. I trust the Healers will educate her on the lunacy of attempting to grandstand when she is hardly past the creche."
He spins on his heel and stalks out of the garden, cape billowing with the motion. The round-faced girl lifts herself up on her arms and brushes her blonde curls out of her face, staring after him with her lips in a thin line and her brow furrowed.
Before the sheer awkwardness in the air suffocates them all, she stands, dusts herself off, gathers her weapon up from where it had hit the ground, and turns to the Twi'lek girl, who has lowered her own weapon.
"Solah," says the round-faced girl, holding the stick out to her opponent. I surrender.
There is value in choosing one's battles wisely, even as a child. Lana Viszka Ruhr learned her lesson early.