TriGemini: Yes, poor Palpatine is just not having a good week. He's having to go from Plan 'A' (What we see in the movies) to about plan 'D' at this point. I don't think he's made plan 'E' yet, so if this doesn't work he's pretty much hosed.
fictionfrek101: I love the longer reviews, I'm glad that you liked it too much for words!
SidiousSith: Wild, yeah. This story is getting pretty out there. Oh, now I can't not have a Sith running around mucking things up can I?
Jedi Knight 13: I didn't even think 'Vader' when I wrote that, but hey, it works. Thank you, and enjoy!
Lunatic Pandora: He wasn't ready for that, and Anakin will meet Qui-Gon at the same time that his face is revealed to Obi-Wan, which should be next chapter.
Kelev: That is explained in this chapter.
Chronormu, terriestal-angell, AgiVega, MrPowell: Thank you all for joining the tale!!!
Teresa: Your welcome. It is of course, when you get down to the nitty gritty of writing, the writer's job to torture their characters. It isn't any fun to read a story where everything is going great. I suppose that it is most fun for me to torture Palpatine, but he's so easy...
DanaeMarieSkywalker: Until Palpatine's what? My lips are sealed on his Ultamate Fate...Are you wondering about the Special Session of the Senate?
Barranca: Thank you, I try to weave well. I cannot tell you the Ultimate Fate of either Qui-Gon or Maul...Sorry. Oh, and thanks for joining in!
Chapter 26
Qui-Gon walked up to where his Padawan was leaning against the retaining wall of one of the fountains. He seemed slightly upset, but he'd seemed slightly upset since he'd walked in while Leia had been telling her story. "This is my favorite fountain, Padawan, but I've never seen you near it voluntarily before."
"It is a path to understanding, Master."
"Now you're just mocking your old Master."
"No, I think I am beginning to understand it."
"Finally. I was starting to think there was no hope for you, Padawan."
Obi-Wan grinned. "So does that mean that I'm ready for my trials?"
"I've given much thought to that recently. I think that with maybe one or two more missions under your belt, yes, you will be ready."
"So are you going to train Anakin, once you have me knighted?"
"No. I will not," Qui-Gon said with a tinge of regret. "But I'm sure that he will be trained."
"You mean me, don't you?"
"I never said that, Padawan," he retorted, tugging lightly on Obi-Wan's braid.
"You only say that when someone hits closer to the truth than you like, Master."
"Are you saying, Padawan, that I am predictable?"
"No, Master, you are the least predictable Jedi Master in existence. But you have your moments."
"Are there others of these moments you wish to share with me?"
"You are entirely too over-protective of your Padawan."
"Obi-Wan…" Qui-Gon said, pleading for the boy to understand.
"There will come the day when you are not around to protect me. I will be very sad when that day comes, but it will come nonetheless."
"Padawan, I am not the only one trying to protect you this time. Yoda has decided that it is not something that you need to know about either."
"I see."
"And what is that supposed to mean, Obi-Wan?"
Obi-Wan took a long time to answer. "It means that I can see that something is amiss with the future. A great war is brewing, even now, though the conflict has many years before it breaks out. The Sith rise and show themselves, somehow taking over, and even destroying and scattering the Jedi. Darkness falls over the Republic. Something happens, I don't know what, but Luke is in the middle of it. Leia and Ben are there, too. And this Han, who, to all appearances, didn't come back with them. If the four of them are so pivotal in the future, and are here, why didn't he come back as well?"
"The answer to that is part of the pain that was caused. I will not answer that question for you, as it is not my secret to tell."
Anakin walked through the Room of a Thousand Fountains to the edge, where there were staircases up to the upper floors. He took one, up to his rooms. He paced about, restless, until there was a knock at the door. Wondering who would disturb him, he went over to the door and opened it, and his jaw about hit the floor.
"I didn't think I would shock you quite this much."
He shut his mouth with an audible click of teeth, then said, "Come in, come in. I'm sorry. You have questions?"
"Yes. Are you…"
"No, no. It was simply the most logical reason for you to be here. Come in, Leia."
He escorted her to the common area, where there were chairs, and a sofa arranged in a roughly circular design. "Would you like anything? Tea, caf?"
"No, I'll be fine. I wanted to ask you about Alderaan. You really wouldn't have destroyed it?"
"No. In fact, I don't think I would have even bothered building the Death Star, as much of a pain in the rear as that thing ended up being."
"Will you talk about Mustafar?"
"You don't want to hear about Mustafar. It was the day that I lost all semblance of control over myself. It pains me greatly to think of that day. Ask me anything else, Leia, but please, not that."
"I want to know. Maybe this will help me understand why Mother was so, so very sad. I want to understand why I never had my parents, my real parents. I loved Bail and Breha, but I need to know why I spent my life with them instead of you and Mother.
"You did so because I was stupid and angry when two people who loved me, more than I loved myself, even, asked me to do the one thing I thought I couldn't."
"Tell me, please, Father. I think this is the piece of the puzzle that I'm missing."
Anakin sighed, "If you want to hear about my darkest day, I can certainly tell you," he was still for a moment, trying to collect his thoughts about that awful day. "You are so like her. She'd do this very same thing to me."
"What's that?"
"Prod me into something that she wanted and I didn't. I could almost never say no to her."
"Tell me. Tell me why my mother was so sad."
"This is the last conversation I had with her before she died. I was younger than you are now, maybe by a year now," He started with an excuse, like walking into water instead of diving, "I'd killed everyone that I could get my evil hands on, kill, kill, kill," Shame started to creep into his voice, "I'd gone to see Padmé, told her where I was headed, and why. I told her I'd be back," He looked down, unable even to meet Leia's eyes, and he'd only just begun the story, "Obi-Wan went to visit her, figured out several things, that she was pregnant, that you and Luke were mine. He told her what I'd done at the temple. She was distraught; refusing to believe it, something I think Obi-Wan was counting on. He hid away inside her ship, and she decided to come to find me. I don't know if that was exactly the order, but all of those things did happen." He paused, having set the stage, but not ready to go into the action.
"Why did you go to Mustafar?" Leia prompted.
Anakin sighed. "I don't suppose it matters anymore, but I went to Mustafar because Sidious had told the Separatist Council to meet there. I'm fairly certain that that is how he knew where they were, at this point anyway. I believe that he controlled both sides of the war. I went and I slew every one of them. It was to me, the end of the war that I'd spent three long years down in the trenches fighting. Everyone who was in power in the 'opposition' was now dead. I was not going to have to fight anymore. It was freedom." He looked at Leia, trying to judge her reaction to what he was telling her, but, like her mother, that Senator's mask had dropped over her features.
"I contacted Dear old Palpatine, who told me that I should contact the Trade Federation and tell them to shut down the droid army. Before I could get any farther than that, I saw Padmé's ship arrive. She wanted so badly for me to tell her that the awful things Obi-Wan had told her weren't true, but I could not. All she wanted was for me to love her, but all I could see was her dying, and that I couldn't save her. I even said so to her. She told me all she wanted was my love," he said as a tear started down his cheek. "I wanted to listen to her, but I was consumed in the hate and rage of the Dark Side. There was no room inside me for love anymore. It had been pushed out of the way, into a dusty corner in my soul, to lay forgotten for 20 years," He'd gotten off track again, but not unreasonably so.
"I'm not sure that I understand how it's like that."
"I pray that you never have to, Leia. The Dark Side is like a very addictive drug. I think I will regret for the rest of my life, telling Padmé that the Darkness would save her. If I had only listened to her, even then, she might not have died." Anakin took a couple of deep breaths to calm himself.
"She started crying then, she still wanted me to be who I was in her heart, she asked me, 'At what cost? You are a good person. Don't do this.' I was lost, though, lost in the drug of power, I screamed at her, raging with the heat of the darkness that was consuming my soul. 'I won't lose you the way I lost my mother!' I told her, 'I've become more powerful than any Jedi has ever dreamed of and I've done it for you; to protect you,' and I thought that I had. I thought that I had done all this to save her. But I hadn't, not really. She didn't need saving, she needed me. I'd done it because I couldn't stand the thought of having to be without her. It's been a really long time in coming, but I understand now that if I had loved her enough, I would have been able to let her go, come to terms with her death, if that was truly her fate."
"Do you think your going to the Dark Side is what killed her?"
"I don't really know. It might have been that she wouldn't have died. I went and looked at her medical records at Polis Massa. There was no medical reason why she died."
"There was no reason for her to have died?"
"Not that the medical staff could trace down. Although now that I realize that the medical records were incomplete, as there was no mention of either you or your brother, there may be a reason that was directly related to the birth."
"What happened next?" Leia prompted him, as he'd gotten lost in thought.
"Oh, she begged me to come away with her, to go hide ourselves from the burden of the Empire, raise the child that was growing inside her, together with her, but I couldn't tear myself away from the Dark Side. If only I'd been able to hear her words, but the power singing darkly through my veins beat a pulse that drown everything else out, I told her ridiculous things, we wouldn't have to run away anymore, we could rule the galaxy together, overthrow the Chancellor," he sighed, "even then I didn't believe that he had the best interest of the galaxy at heart," Anakin had gotten up, pacing to help him remember the conversation. This memory was both the thing he spent the most time trying to repress, and the one that popped up most often at the surface when his mind wandered.
"'I don't believe what I'm hearing,' she told me, 'Obi-Wan was right. You've changed.' I didn't understand what she meant then, but I do now."
He felt the heat coming to his face, shame at the next series of events already crawling on every nerve. "Even his name infuriated me, 'I don't want to hear any more about Obi-Wan.' I screamed at her, 'The Jedi turned against me. Don't you turn against me, too.' I couldn't stop myself, I felt possessed, like the rage running through my body had a consciousness. But it was what she said next that always chills me to the core, and that was, 'I don't know you anymore. Anakin, you're breaking my heart. I'll never stop loving you, but you are going down a path I can't follow,'" he stopped for a few moments to let the emotional build up dissipate a bit.
Leia had curled into a ball at the emotional tension that he was creating. "Do you want me to continue? It only goes downhill from this point on."
"I don't know what to say. It's almost like I'm seeing it inside my head."
"You probably are. I think that you might be getting the reverse of the effect that I was telling you about this morning."
"So what happened next?" Leia asked him.
"'Because of Obi-Wan?' I shouted at her enraged again because I thought that my best friend was coming between her and me. I was always so insanely jealous, because of the secret that the marriage was out of necessity. She was unwaveringly loyal, and all I could do was be jealous of any moment that I wasn't with her," he shook his head, understanding the folly of his youth.
"'Because of what you've done,' she told me, 'what you plan to do. Stop, stop now. Come back! I love you,' she begged me again, and maybe I would have seen reason, although I doubt it. It was at that moment I saw Obi-Wan coming out of her ship," he looked at Leia, knowing that the hardest part of the story was coming up.
"Something bad happened then, didn't it?" she asked him.
He stretched one arm up to the back of his head, scratching where he should have had hair, "Yes. Do you want to hear about it?"
"Yes. I want to hear it all. It's starting to make sense to me, a little."
He nodded, "So, I saw Obi-Wan coming off of her ship, and I said the most awful thing—and thought the most awful things, images of her and Obi-Wan together swam through my head. 'Liar!' I screamed, 'No!' she told me, the horror of what was going to happen now, so clear on her face. But I was so far gone into the rage that I couldn't see it. 'You're with him. You've betrayed me! You brought him here to kill me!' I screamed at her. She tried to tell me the truth, 'NO! Anakin. I swear ... I,' was all she got out before I wrapped my anger around her throat."
Leia gasped, not expecting something that was so classically Vader. "Was that your answer anytime anyone annoyed you?"
Chagrin colored his features, "Pretty much. It was effective. If it isn't broken, don't fix it."
"So, then what?" she asked confused.
"I shouted at Obi-Wan, he shouted at me, Padmé went unconscious, and Obi-Wan kept telling me to let her go, so I did. We shouted at each other some more, circling. I didn't understand what he was wanting, until he was next to her. He reached over, feeling her pulse. I still remember the wave of relief from him. She was alive. Something in the deepest hollow of my being, where my feelings for her still resided, sighed in relief in return."
He looked down at his hands, thinking about how he'd used his own hands to do such awful things. "What happened then? Did you and Obi-Wan fight?"
"Yes. That is when the fight started. We fought for, I don't know how long. It seemed like hours. Mustafar was a planet of seething volcanic activity, rivers were not those of water, but those of lava, and cooled volcanic rock made up the rest of the surface. Not that there was really much of that, but it was there, in spots. We jumped to the tower, but something happened, making it snap, it fell slowly as we fought atop it, eventually dropping into the lava river below us. Each of us jumped onto one of the collection droids, and we continued to fight. I was so sure that the Jedi had been holding me back; that I was so much better than any Jedi out there, including Obi-Wan. I was the Chosen One, the Jedi poster boy. I was stronger than Master Yoda. I was on top of the world. The Dark Side whispered these things to me, and I listened. I listened and to me they were true."
"Then what?" Leia said, after he'd gotten lost in thought about the fight again.
"I got onto the platform that Obi-Wan was on. It was only just big enough for both of us. I said awful things, he said stuff back. He was trying to get me to see reason. He told me that he'd failed me. That the reason that I had turned was that he'd never taught me how to think. He got off the platform onto the bank of the river. He told me that it was over. I was so consumed by rage and hate that I couldn't see that he was right."
"Then?"
"I tried the most foolhardy stunt of my entire life. I tried to jump over Obi-Wan, so that I could regain higher ground, and we could continue fighting. That was when he did it. Sliced right through my legs, and cut my left arm. My hate for him boiled at that point. I didn't forgive him until after I killed him. He said the things that I always had wanted to hear him say," Tears started down his cheeks again. "He said to me, 'you were my brother, Anakin, I loved you.' Then the heat of the river caught me on fire. I burned, and he stood there watching for a moment. He couldn't kill me, even then, even out of mercy. He couldn't stand it anymore, so he left." Anakin took a ragged breath, releasing some of the emotions attached to the scenes playing in his head, some of them permanently. "He, so far as I have been able to determine, took Padmé to Polis Massa, where she apparently gave birth to the two of you, then died. I'm fairly sure that Bail was there, as he made the arrangements for Padmé's funeral. Maybe even Master Yoda, before he went to Dagobah."
"I'm not sure I'll ever understand what you did, but now at least I understand why you did it."
"I suppose that will do for the day, or did you want to torture this old man further?"
Leia looked startled when he said that, but he'd said it with the intent of relieving some of her tension, it took her longer than he would have liked, but she laughed quietly after a little while.
"Have you gotten a chance to talk to Master Qui-Gon yet? I was thinking that he wanted to have a talk with you."
"I'm not entirely sure what I would say to him. What do you say to the person who plucked you out of the crowd, championed you to a less than receptive audience, and then, when he died, the man who had been like a son to him, who took in such a restless waif, and then you turn your back on that love, and kindness, and try not once but twice to try to kill him?"
"I don't know what you should say to him, but avoiding him isn't the answer." They talked for a while longer, until Leia drifted to sleep on the sofa.
Obi-Wan wandered around until he ended up in the salle. Luke was there, practicing. "I figured you'd be off with Ben or Leia."
"They're talking. I'm not getting in the middle of that." Luke said, with a strike move.
"What do you mean?" Obi-Wan said, He took off his outer cloak and started to practice with Luke.
"I mean she's got an awful temper, and his is twice as bad, and they haven't been on the best of terms, ever, but they promised to try," he said as he went through the next move.
"What, for your sake?" Obi-Wan asked, with a little bit of humor in his voice.
"For everyone. You want to spar?" Luke said as he finished the last move of that set.
"I guess I could do that. Why aren't you checking on Ani?" Obi-Wan said, stripping down to the bare essentials of clothing.
"That's where Padmé is." Luke informed him.
Obi-Wan stood ready to spar. He understood not being around those two—they were oblivious to the rest of the world when they were together. "Alright. So you're here because it's easier than being around other people."
"Yeah. Sometimes it is. Coruscant makes me nervous sometimes. It's so big," Luke said as they started to test each other, circling, and crossing blades, each waiting for the other's opening move.
"It's not really any bigger than any other planet." Obi-Wan said, as he countered a strike that Luke started with.
"That's not what I mean. There are so many people here, all crowded onto the planet." Luke said, trying a different strike, but again being countered.
"I suppose that for someone who'd been raised on Tatooine it would be a bit intimidating." Obi-Wan said, realizing that there were many parallels that he could already draw between Ani and Luke. He was sure there were many more, but he wasn't allowed to have that information. He pressed an attack, surprising Luke for a moment, but quickly they were back to circling one another.
"It is. I think Anakin will have a bit better time with it than I am." Luke said, pressing another attack.
"Why's that?" Obi-Wan asked, slightly confused.
"He's younger, and he'll have you to show him around." Luke answered.
"You could come, too, if you wanted." Obi-Wan offered. He liked Luke, and wanted to be able to spend more time with the young Knight.
"Nah. I don't think that I need to spend so much time on Coruscant. It gives me the willies."
"Come on, there must be something that you find to be a redeeming feature of Coruscant?"
"If there is, I haven't found it yet."
Padmé sat down on Ani's bed. He'd fallen to sleep, with a datapad in his hand. It was not really that late, just past sundown, but he'd been through a lot. She gently pulled the datapad out of his hand, and laid it on the small table by his bed. She tucked his hand into the bed, then pulled the blanket up over him, and was about to leave, when he woke up.
"Padmé?" he asked her groggily.
"Shh. Go to sleep. You need your rest."
"No, I want to talk to you. I didn't think that you'd get to come see me."
"We are staying at the temple, so it wasn't that difficult. Leia came with me, but she went to go talk to someone else."
"Are you going to go back to Naboo when you're done talking to the Senate?"
"Yes. I cannot stay here. My place is with the Queen."
"And I can't go with you. I want to learn to be a Jedi like Master Qui-Gon, and Master Yoda and Obi-Wan and Luke." he said, naming off every Jedi he'd met. "Obi-Wan promised that I would be a Jedi."
"He did, did he? I'll bet he's right. I'll bet you'll be a great Jedi."
"I only wish…"
"That everyone you love could be here with you?"
"Yes. I'll be sad when you and Leia leave with the Queen. I wish there was a way that Mom could have come with us, too."
"I'm sure that your mother will be fine. Watto seems nice enough, and there will be a way someday to get her out of there, I'm sure."
"I hope so. Can I have a drink of water?" he pleaded.
"I suppose so." She found a cup and a pitcher of water sitting on the table.
"So how is this guy?" a healer said, coming up and ruffling his hair as he was drinking his water.
He batted at her hand with his right arm. "I'm bored."
"Do you think it would be ok for him to go visit some friends of ours?" Padmé asked, getting an idea.
She studied him for a moment. "I don't think it will do any harm. He's got a reasonably good grasp on how to use his new arm, and it doesn't seem to be bothering him too much. An hour?"
"We should be able to be back in that length of time."
"Yippee!" the boy tore the covers off, and practically ran to the door. She followed him, laughing, and took him back to her guest rooms, where Jar Jar was waiting.
"Ani? Oh, My so smilen ta see that Yousa okeeday."
"It's good to see you too, Jar Jar." The sound of his voice brought beeping from another room, followed by R2. "R2! How have you been?" R2 beeped at him. "Really?" the boy said, intuiting an answer that Padmé couldn't have. She watched for a while as Ani continued to have a bubbly conversation with the droid, laughing at the droid's comments.
"Ani?" she asked when he started to repeat himself.
"Yeah?"
"Don't you want to talk to me and Jar Jar?"
"Oh, yeah," he said, hopping up onto the sofa between them. They had a nice talk before Padmé had to take him back to the healers. When they got back, there wasn't anyone there.
"I don't like it when I'm alone," he said to Padmé.
"I don't want you to be alone," she told him, feeling his sudden fear, "it can be really scary, I understand."
"Can you stay with me until the healer comes back?"
"Yes," she told him, tucking him in, then laying down on the bed beside him. He drifted off rather quickly, and she did as well, although she didn't even realize that she was as sleepy as he was.
Maul had gotten the path the Queen and her party would be following to the Senate building. He waited over the traffic of the mega city, feeling the primal emotions of those below, the senators, lusting after their secretaries, the underlings longing for the power of those over them. A jealous husband in a murderous rage, he grinned in satisfaction as he acted on that rage. The raw power of those raw emotions feeding Maul, this was what lesser beings were for, to feed their rightful masters. He closed his eyes and fed on an entire city of fear, anger, and violence. He felt a pimp beating a hooker for not making enough money, he denied her the death sticks she wanted, and then to Maul satisfaction he took his money in flesh. His anger and lust, spiced with her fear and pain, and yes, just a hint of the shame she felt. He smiled as the feast came up to him. He rolled spiritually in the darkness, letting it permeate every fiber of his being, letting it strengthen him for the coming fight. He thanked his Master for having shown him the raw power available. It was intoxicating, a powerful drug, but one that cleared his mind, gave him focus and strength.
The Jedi were fools to think that it was wrong to take what the great mindless masses offered up everyday. They went about their pointless lives, never getting ahead, feeling resentment at their lots in life. Often that resentment built to anger, then rage. Less often, that rage led to violence. Maul appreciated the power that came from murders and rapes and other violence, but he never felt the desire to inflict such things on people. He was Sith, he was above random violence. He wasn't above rape or murder, but he was above SENSELESS rape and murder. Violence was a precious resource, and one did not waste it.
His Master now had a new plan. Maul had a Trade Federation droid fighter that he would use to attack the Queens transport. He didn't expect it to finish the job, not with the Jedi with her, but he did suspect that the droid fighter would be able to force them down into bowels of the city. Once there he would be able to attack them without the whole planet knowing about it. Maul took time to appreciate the genius of his Master's plan, with the Queen dead, he himself would call for the vote of no confidence, having that authority due to the death of his sovereign, that and the prima faica evidence that the Trade Federation was behind the assassination would seal his election as Chancellor. His Master's next move would be to destroy the Holocron he had created for Maul. Just as well Maul already had the holocron in his possession. Using the Force to find its location had been child's play. However, the fact that he HAD the holocron didn't mean he was ready to dispose of his Master, far from it. If Sidious's plans worked, Maul could be very patient in waiting to strike. First, to confirm the Holocron was genuine, and second to let Palpatine do the hard work of forming an Empire for Maul to rule. It was an equitable distribution of the effort, in Maul's estimation.
The time for ruminations had passed; the Queen's transport was coming into range. He pushed the activation switch for the droid fighter. It leapt up from its hiding place among the glistening towers of the Capital and headed for its oblivious target.
Mace watched over a senior Padawan Lightsaber class. There were six students, and he'd promised to take one of them on, and train them in the Vaapad style. They were the best of the Padawans of senior rank, at least of those that wanted to learn. He personally thought that Kenobi was better than some of those here today, but he, like most Jedi kept his opinions to himself. He called two of the students over.
"I am dropping you from this competition. I do not think that you will have what it takes to learn this style. It does not mean that you are not good with the Lightsaber, just that you would not do well with this style."
"Yes, Master Windu," they chorused.
To the other four he said, "You are dismissed. We will meet again tomorrow."
"Yes, Master Windu," they said back, then took off to the showers.
Mace left to go see Yoda.
Leia stood on the platform with the other handmaidens. It had been decided that it was too dangerous for any but Padmé to go, and of course she was being escorted by the three Jedi. She watched and waited, as the rest of the handmaidens went back inside. She felt disquiet edging around her senses, then someone put their hands on her shoulders and she nearly jumped out of her skin. She turned and looked up under a Jedi hood to familiar piercing blue eyes. "You startled me."
"I see that. You can feel it, can't you? Like something waiting to happen."
"Yes," she said looking back out toward the senate building. As she did a ship, like a vulture, came up out of the city. She didn't know what attracted her attention to it, it wasn't like there weren't a thousand other ships joining into the traffic stream, but she was sure that it was going to attack her mother and brother. "There," she said, pointing it out to her father.
"Yes, I see it. You are doing well in trusting your instincts."
Palpatine stood on the landing platform that the Queen and those wretched Jedi where supposed to be using when they showed up. If everything went according to plan, they wouldn't be showing up, but he couldn't let on to that. He watched the traffic flow from the Jedi Temple. It wouldn't be long now; he'd sensed the four of them coming closer to him. He watched as a droid ship singled out their ship, trying to force it down into the city so that Maul could dispatch them.
They were far enough away that if he hadn't known what to look for, he wouldn't have seen it. He calmly waited, watching the fight, then the ship started into the underbelly, and the droid ship following it. He felt rather than saw Maul following it into the pits of Coruscant. After Maul had arrived at the Queen's ship, he took a moment to speak to the Chancellor. "Isn't it about time that they should be here?"
Yoda was in meditation when Mace found him. He cracked an eyelid, watching Mace settle into a meditation pose. "Troubled are you today, Master Windu?"
"I've felt unsettled all day."
"Felt it as well, have I. Important is today."
"I don't know what to think. It's like the Force is clouded."
Luke was enjoying the challenge of Coruscant's thick traffic. Letting the Force flow through him he easily weaved through the traffic toward the Senate Building. He felt the nervousness of his Mother and sent her a wave of energy, relaxing her. He soaked in the energy of the city. It was so full of life. Hope, love, compassion wafted up through the spires energizing him, it was like a cooling stream where he could drink his fill and never come close to draining it dry. Indeed he found the more he drank of the cooling energy the more was available. It was like the very act of fortifying himself fortified those of who he was partaking. A true symbiosis of existence, he opened himself up fully to the experience. Colors were more vibrant; the air smelled sweeter, details more easily seen. He thought back to the first time he opened himself up to the Force on the Falcon; it had been an incredible experience to KNOW what to do without knowing. That paled in comparison to what he was feeling now. It was like having eyes for the first time, he still needed to learn how to use this newfound sense, but it was exquisite to experience. He'd been noticing hints of it ever since he'd stopped his Mother from killing Ani on Tatooine.
He then felt something else, someplace below them, someone was being pressured to steal something, they didn't want to, but their strength was wavering. He sent them, almost reflexively, the strength that they needed to say no. He felt that strength go into them and internalize becoming a part of who they were. He started to understand better just what a loss the Galaxy had suffered with the death of the Order. With one small act, Luke had set an individual onto a path of contentment, if not happiness. He didn't know what their future would bring; only that it was now much brighter than it had been moments ago. He smiled; his mother looked at him and couldn't help but smile seeing her son so happy.
Then he felt it; this was something he was familiar with, danger sense. He instinctively took the transport to port as two laser blasts flew past through where they just were. He knew they were under attack, but he didn't know what to do about it. Their transport wasn't armed, nor was it as maneuverable as his beloved X-Wing. Only his Jedi reflexes were keeping them alive as he dodged another volley. He reached out with the Force, trying to determine who was attacking them, he felt the ship, but there was no pilot. He took the transport straight down through the traffic lanes. Luke knew this chase had to come to an end before anyone got hurt. He directed the transport to an abandoned building and gunned the throttle. His mother gasped at this and sent him a look, Luke didn't have time to acknowledge it at all, he waited, and waited. He felt Obi-Wan's tension level rise, then even Qui-Gon's began to elevate, then at the last micro-second he pulled up.
The transport groaned under the strain. Luke was pushing the civilian craft about as far as he would his X-Wing, yet somehow it was holding together. However that wouldn't last long. Luke could sense the stress points on the transport; she didn't have too many maneuvers like that left in her. Of course Luke doubted her designers even had them in mind in the first place. His hope of the fighter crashing into the building went for naught; that ruled out remote control. What was that thing, and what's more, who sent it? Surly the Trade Federation wouldn't have one here, on the Capital. Another thing that bothered Luke was that this was totally out of character for the Trade Federation, according to his Mother the Federation had plenty of parliamentary tactics at it disposal; also, the presence of the Jedi was to be an unexpected surprise, known only to her and Senator Palpatine. Palpatine knew, he must be the one behind this attack, but why, he needed the Queen alive to ask for a vote of no confidence. Under Senate rules, only the leader of a world could do so. It made no sense. Luke kept one step ahead of the droid fighter while he was puzzling this out, acting on the instinct borne of years in combat and his Jedi training.
"Ok, this isn't working, lets try a trip down Beggar's Canyon," Luke said, more to himself than anyone else, but loud enough for everyone to hear.
"Beggar's Canyon?" his Mother asked, Luke couldn't give her an answer as he put the transport through a half split S and headed down towards the undercity. The sun disappeared in the canyon-like walls of the buildings that made up Coruscant's surface. The traffic was lighter down here, but it was also a LOT tighter. Luke was hoping to lose the fighter down here, but it was sticking tight too him. Who ever programmed it knew what they were doing. The droid fired again, only not at them, but at a catwalk above, knocking it supports out, the catwalk fell right into Luke's path. Luke sensing the danger popped the transport up with the repulsors, which whined with the strain of the abrupt maneuver. Just before then, the droid opened fire at where they would be, Luke reacted a second too late and a blast scored the starboard side of the transport, further weakening that side. Luke then rolled the transport onto its side and used the repulsors again to bounce off a building and complete a ninety-degree turn at 200 KPH. The hull groaned, and the repulsors cried under the punishment they were receiving. Luke quickly righted the transport only to be greeted with two laser bolts flying past. The fighter was still with them. Luke was running out of options, the transport was going to give sooner or later, and Luke suspected it would be sooner. Then Luke saw a tee intersection coming up fast, he turned the transport back on its side again, hit the ventral thruster just before the buildings ended in the route he was on, and hit full repulsors again, hoping they'd hold out. They didn't, the transport slammed into the tee section, with enough force to loosen some teeth in the cabin. The repulsors then completely gave out and the transport assumed the flight characteristics of varnished permacrete. Luke angled the stricken transport toward a relatively wide, open roof. He then opened up all the transports drag flaps and began firing all reverse thrusters.
"Brace yourselves, this is gonna be bumpy," he said, and then the transport slammed into the buildings roof, tearing through the permacrete as it skidded along, rapidly approaching the opposite edge. He spun the ship sideways hoping the greater surface area would slow the ship more, as the edge of the building rapidly approached.
AN:The Ani/Anakin thing...Nine-year-old Ani is in the scene with Padmé.
Anakin is in scenes with Leia.