Chapter 34
The suns went black.
A dark fleet made silhouette patchwork, a mockery of storm clouds in a desert land. Thousands of them, more than the Republic ever had, more than the Separatists had ever known had existed. Inside them, one could already hear the buzz of droid communication, the clamber of metal and wire soldiers ready for a fight. And worse, the voices of sentient beings, the low baritone of clone troopers, men and women of a hundred worlds.
Padmé and Rex watched them overhead.
"We have to follow them," she breathed. "Rex, this is what we've been feeling."
Rex held onto her as the sand whipped around them in razor-sharp flurries. "We go and we die."
They clutched each other for another minute, losing precious moisture through their eyes and sweat.
"Stay and we die," Padmé said. "Democracy is dead, the Republic is dead—we die of starvation or fighting or execution from either side, the story ends the same. Rex, look at me—" Rex did. "—if you can't find it in yourself to fight anymore for a Republic that betrayed you, I understand. But then fight for Anakin Skywalker, who you know didn't leave you even if he's no longer with us. That's how the Force works, and he's right here. He loved us, Rex. Loves us. He loved this galaxy even as it drained everything from him when he should have been dead seven times over. I'm fighting alongside him. I'm fighting because he's all I can believe in anymore. I have to hold onto that."
Rex fisted his shaking hands. Not trusting his voice yet, he nodded.
"I can… I can somehow feel he's saying he loves me," Padmé said into his neck as they stood in solidarity against the storm. "Its stronger than the dread of what's to come."
"It was always how I felt before we fought together."
"Force, this just can't be the way we go, Rex. Two against billions."
"Every enemy soldier we cut down is one less gun to the head of an innocent. And every second we're alive there's hope and even after that."
He pulled out of the embrace, failing to hide his weaknesses. She looked at him—right through him, to his very core—and saw a goodbye he couldn't voice. A thankfulness to everything she had done, and was about to do. Thankfulness for being with him.
They loaded their weapons, cleared their backpacks of extra weight until it was just munitions.
Over the crest of one last dune, the village came into view. Tents flapped helplessly without people to tie them down again; beings scattering and screaming, looking for shelter from the roar of the jets and wind.
They walked through the chaos, following the point of the ships as they disappeared over another dune and into a storm of sand that rose miles high and impenetrably thick. Like thousands of insects swarming as they got closer, the grains they stirred up joining the multitudes in the air. The sheer force of it held them back from entering.
Padmé pulled him back into the town, grabbing tarps and boots and whatever else she could find for protection for their skin and eyes and mouth. There was a never-ending stream of cries for help, reaching and joining the high buzz and low rumbles around them. Rex's mouth moved but no words reached her ears. She wrapped and tucked, helped him pull on shoes.
"I'm with you no matter what," she shouted, hands on either side of Rex's cloth-covered face.
He nodded against her skin. "May the Force be with us."
Hyperspace dropped away from them.
Ships met their return to Anakin's home planet, a fleet spread out wide before them, more vast and dripping with Dark, seeming to bring with them a storm that lit between each vessel, highlighting in stark reliefs the gun turrets, laser cannons three times as large as the shuttles they rode. Their presence seemed to effect the very gravity they depended on.
"We've found our disturbance," Anakin breathed.
He cruised to a lower altitude, eyes still drawn to this Sith-spawn fleet.
"Do they see us?" Obi-Wan asked. His voice was tight. Ahsoka's hands flew over the dashboard, trying to mask their presence in encryptions while Anakin continued to drop lower, lower, until the underbelly of their ship might as well have been a low-quality sandspeeder model. The four ships behind them followed.
His headset crackled. "Are you seeing this, General Skywalker?" Appo said. "Chiszk, those Destroyers go on forever."
Anakin swallowed, hearing the dry click of his throat. "I see them, Appo. These aren't Separatist-made."
They weren't Republic either, some strange mutation of the models, stretched and adorned with destroying tech, things Anakin might have sketched unknowingly, angrily in his youth, something to take out an entire world in one blow. His breathing hitched as he saw the broadside artillery cannons. One shot, and those would not only wipe out their five shuttles, but Tatooine itself.
A mechanical masterpiece; a complete deprivation of Light.
"Those cannons..." Ahsoka's hands gripped the controls. "Anakin, those look like they could..."
"Could destroy a planet? I...I think they could, Snips. The question is, why haven't they fired on us yet?"
He felt her dread through their bond, which strengthened once again every passing minute despite their stripped titles, despite Ahsoka's missing beads. "What do we do? We can't take them all."
Anakin closed his eyes, letting himself fall through the present and into the Force, letting it guide him. The Light was shivering, Darkness infiltrating his mind in lapping rhythms, calling his name. Anakin Skywalker. Anakin Skywalker.
He followed the voice, the Dark, his vision settling on a pale face, a black hood. Yellow, bleeding eyes met his.
Anakin Skywalker. It is your destiny.
The Dark and Light ripped away from him, and he jolted back into the present, into his seat, into his position as pilot. He saw not the eyes of a Sith, but the fleet ahead. And the Force seemed to incline itself, chiming its approval of the conclusion he had drawn.
"Palpatine—Darth Sidious. He's on the command ship."
He felt the wrong coldness, crystalizing the marrow inside his bones.
"I have to face him."
Ahsoka cursed. "Absolutely not."
Obi-Wan held his shoulder tighter. "I let you go to him once and nearly lost you. If we face him, we face him together."
Anakin looked down on his home world, the selling tents peeled right up from their stakes to reveal their gritty insides, the spare parts, the food carts, the swindler's dens. More than a few organics were gathering things up in their arms, looting what they could in the chaos ensuing. His mother's place wouldn't have been far from here, a short, hot ride in a speeder would bring him to the stucco walls and open door. Anakin felt her absence pang in his solar plexus.
Anakin looked at them. "I can't lose you."
"Imagine how we feel," Obi-Wan countered.
A beat where the storm outside was louder than their thoughts traded in their bonds.
"We get on board the command ship, make our way down to its main reactor," Anakin said. Ahsoka shook her head.
"Too predictable. We need to overtake the bridge, especially if we have the element of surprise."
"I don't mean to undermine, but there are just three of us. There could be thousands of soldiers on those ships each," Obi-Wan said, fingers tapping at the back of Anakin's chair.
There was the idea, right there, planted like a sarlacc in his thoughts. "Oh no, no. There has to be a better way," Anakin groaned. "I have a bad feeling about this."
Ahsoka and Anakin saw the plan around the same time, solidifying by the standard second.
"We couldn't possibly—" Obi-Wan tried to argue, but Ahsoka was ahead of him.
"The 501st could attack the cannons while command is occupied. We'd take out a squadron or two. And we might survive a few extra minutes before the next person takes charge."
"But—"
"We give our men the best chance. And, we make time for the possibility a signal gets out, and for reinforcements." Anakin looked above them, at the hulking fleet. "Force knows we're going to need them."
"We wouldn't have any means of escape," Obi-Wan said. "We'd be essentially stranding ourselves on a planet-destroying vessel with the most dangerous Sith the galaxy has ever seen."
Another beat.
"All right," Obi-Wan gripped the bridge of his nose. "But if we survive this, I want our legend to explicitly say that I was against it."
Ahsoka tapped into their comm system.
"Appo, Hawk, Jesse, Dogma—how many of those ion cannons do you think you could take out if we gave you a distraction?"
Vokara Che sat beside a former clone corporeal wearing a poncho.
"Name's Comet," the young man said, sticking out one calloused hand. "Yours?"
"Vokara."
It was past strange, teetering on the brink of bizarre, that they held no ranks. She did not deign to be called Master or General. He didn't pull rank either. Two sentient life forms fighting to stay alive in a free galaxy.
Comet lurched forward as their unmarked transport jumped into hyperspace, course set for Tatooine. The Wolf Pack, as the young men referred to themselves as, sat around her polishing weapons and painting helmets. Plo Koon sat up front with the pilot, their small band of comrades were beyond the relationship of soldier to general, into the brilliance in the Force Vokara often saw in Master and Apprentice relationships. Complete trust.
"You all right, Vokara?" Comet asked, leaning forward to see her face without her lekku obstructing his view. He wouldn't find any evidence of her distress. Her Jedi mask of calm was still firmly in place.
"We cannot be too late," she said.
"Sinker and Plo'll get us there. They always do. For once in our entire lives, we get to think of ourselves too. We're not running into that sandy, blob-infested planet unarmed. We'll take the time it takes to keep each other safe." Comet looked away, determination in his eyes. "No suicide missions. Not anymore."
"None of us may come out of this alive. We have only a sense what we are up against."
"We trust your senses, Vokara. Plo too. And going down fighting beside your family is different than running in on a Senate's whim. It's our free choice to be here. Each and every one of us chose to fight. Do you know how that feels?"
Vokara reached for her hip, where her old lightsaber lay. "I do."
Just then, Plo Koon appeared in the cargo bay. "We are receiving a transmission. I thought you all should hear it."
A faceless transmission was patched through, and Anakin Skywalker's voice filled the bay.
"This is Anakin Skywalker, along with Obi-Wan Kenobi and Ahsoka Tano. We've rigged this signal to reach as many of you as possible. If you do not know us, turn your attention to the thousands of wanted-holos flashing our faces. Some of you want us dead—understandable. But—"
It changed to Obi-Wan's voice, the usual composed gait of his tone trembling. "We contact you under only the most severe and desperate cause. A fleet of unknown size—there may be hundreds of ships—with estimated planet-wide destroying capabilities, are in Tatooine's orbit led by Darth Sidiosu, better known as Sheev Palpatine. Some have entered the atmosphere. We are only five frigates. We... we will be dead soon without reinforcements."
Ahsoka now. "Search your feelings. You feel this disturbance, the deaths the future holds if this fleet led by Darth Sidious is allowed to rule our skies. The Empire's promises for peace are hollow. They will rule in the way of the Sith; wielding anger and fear. And the entire galaxy will suffer."
They transmitted their coordinates, and a further description of the fleet, of the destruction Tatooine was already facing.
"Nothing can take away your ability to fight," Anakin's voice once more intoned. "Not your age, your species, your abilities. The war isn't over. It's only beginning. We'll need all of you. May the Force be with us. Skywalker out."
The message ended, leaving the cargo bay in the silence of hyperspace.
"Dooku was right." Vokara found her voice barely carried through the bay. "Every word."
"Then what are they in for?" Comet's voice was softer.
"Death."
Padmé held the Klatooinian at blaster point.
"You will lend your cellars," she said. The voice reserved for her most important debates in the Senate, free of Jedi persuasion only because she could not wield it. "To anyone who seeks refuge. For no fee."
The Klatooinian flinched. "I cannot possibly fit—"
She thrust her blaster closer, touching his skull before pulling back the barest centimeter. "You will lend your cellars. Or I will lend them in your name, over your dead body. Do you see those ships? Those cannons will fire, and they will destroy swindlers and merchants and beggars and Hutts. Your credits won't save you. Not from me. And not from them."
The triangle hulls were enormous, pointing forward, slowly edging toward them.
The Klatooinian snarled.
Then Rex smiled. "And the door opens."
Padmé ushered the town's refugee's under, into the wine merchant's cellars deep under Tatooine's surface, looking over her shoulder. The bustling bodies of species pushed past her, filing the cellar space, cowering in clumps. The room smelled of fear.
They turned around, Rex and her together, and hurried away from the underground hiding place. Better they be far away when trouble came. And trouble would come. Rex had spotted fighters with sharp angled wings and circular cockpits, laser cannons hidden so well as to almost be invisible. They swarmed the larger Destroyers like gnats, dodging the storm the ships brought with them.
The fighters drifted from their pack, screaming toward a few lonely unmarked vessels, five in a row, riding low enough that the sandstorm swallowed and spit them out closer to the fleet. An inevitable collision, an inevitable doom for those aboard. They edged closer, the unmarked ships angling upwards just slightly, so their paths would have no choice but to hit one another, a one-to-one ratio, good and evil.
"It's a dog fight," Rex shouted, just as the unmarked vessels blew over their heads, sending up streams of settling sand. "Trajectories probably locked. None of them are going to back down. Might even make the jump to hyperspace through them, blow 'em into oblivion."
Padmé held her breath. She pulled out her blaster. She fired.
The hull of the fighter lit up, stripping itself off its body in its haste to meet its foil. Debris flew in every direction, projectile fireballs hitting its squadron with force enough to knock them off of their trajectories. One peeled away, wings pointing it back into the sky; the others faced their sandy graves with honor. Their explosions rocked the very ground beneath their feet.
Padmé turned, eyes alight, as the unmarked vessels made their escape into the folds of the fleet, disappearing within the chaos. Because she knew that flying anywhere, as improbable as it was. Anakin was here, on Tatooine.
He had made it home to her.
Then hundreds of fighters jerked out of formation and aimed for their position, wicked red and black lines across razor-sharp, predatory wings.
Rex dropped to one knee, eyes on the sky. The scab above his eye began to weep. A single drop of crimson blood touched the sand, and was tucked away for safe keeping by the scorching planet.
He didn't notice, his backpack flying off his shoulder, pulling out was munition might protect them. There was nothing substantial to hide behind, nowhere to use as a bombing shelter without revealing the Tatooinians. Padmé's gun was still raised. Laser after laser reamed against those wings, wings that seemed to split the sky in before and after their arrival.
Padmé's headwrap had ripped itself off in the storm, fluttering behind her as she fired. A fighter careened to their right, and they tumbled left, barely finding their footing before the impact. The ship laser cannons were solid green streaks of fire on their every side. He could no longer see Padmé. It was all sand, standing in pillars fifty feet high, rising and falling around them like sound waves.
Another ship's engine joined the shrieking, low and steady. More explosions, the kattata kattata of a gunship's cannons. When the sand rested for a moment, Rex uncovered his face. The 501st saluted him with a dash of a wing, and then were gone.
"We don't have long," Padmé said. Fighters were already regrouping. "They have to have a weakness."
They both used precious seconds watching the space where Anakin Skywalker had just been.
"Did you see that?" Ahsoka called from the gunner position. "They're clear for now. I can't say for how long."
Anakin hit his communicator, trying to keep his breathing even. Padmé was here. And Rex. "Nice work down there. Stay on my wing, the command ship is dead ahead. Easy, pull up. We're headed for the hangar."
The Destroyer's hangar was lit, a blindingly bright square in a dark sky. Obi-Wan pulled at his seatbelt in the copilot's chair. "Anakin, have you notice the shields are still up?"
"Oh, sorry Master." Anakin gave a winning smile. "Snips?"
The shield generators went up in flames with little resistance. They both could feel her glee through the Force.
Shield doors dropped away, the deck rising to greet them with enthusiasm.
"Good luck boys," Anakin said into the headset.
"You too, General. Don't worry about us."
At the last second, the four 501st transports veered off, their guns blazing once their cover had been blown. Anakin sucks in a deep breath, moving his breaks on his wheelchair tighter in preparation. Ahsoka appeared behind him.
"Here we go," she said, bracing herself.
Blast doors began their crushing collision course, hammering towards each other in a ladder formation.
Everything unlocked from gravity or not bored down flew towards them, joining the atmosphere in a symphony of sharp edges blunt trauma. Anakin forced the ship onto a tight roll, pinwheeling until they matched the closing slot the doors created, sideways, and upside down.
"Get ready to jump!" Anakin let his breaks fall slack. Pushing the ship harder, harder, until every creak of the hull he felt like his own ribcage. "Go!"
The blast doors slammed shut just as Obi-Wan rammed their window outward, and the three of them leapt arm in arm with the Force ahead of the ship's ensuing detonation. More of those fighters, all in rows of seven, were eaten up in seconds. Three squadrons at least, unable to give chase.
The heat on their backs, they let their momentum carry them across the slick deck and into the lift just being powered up by a gray-uniformed officer. He looked at them, mouth open in disgust and shock, before Ahsoka slammed the lift doors closed just before the red, reaching fire could step inside as well.
"Please, let's be civil," Obi-Wan said, gesturing to the panel of buttons. "Going up or down, friend?"
The officer continued to gape.
"Well, we're not entirely sure where to go either. You see, we're looking for Darth Sidious. He is aboard your ship, is he not?" Obi-Wan continued. "You would like to tell us where he is."
The officer blinked.
"I would like to tell you where he is. The Emperor has a throne room, at the highest level in this Destroyer."
"You've been more than helpful," Obi-Wan cheered, patting the man on the back. "You will give us your communication device. Oh, and you were going out on this level, weren't you?"
"I was going out on this level." The doors opened to reveal an hallway, gray floors, black walls. The officer handed them his comm link, and walked away.
Obi-Wan tossed the link to Anakin, who pulled a small copper wire from his mecho arm, popped the covering, and crossed a few responders. The channels opened up to roaming; a hundred voices talking over one another in their commanding of a fleet this size. They closed their eyes, each pulling apart a different thread of the tapestry of communication, following it.
"I heard ion cannons were dropping out of commission like bantha fleas." Obi-Wan smirked. "That would be the 501st."
"The ships are fully operational. They're waiting," Anakin said, pulling away from his conversation as well. "On someone's command, they'll fire."
"No doubt Palpatine's." Obi-Wan's hand instinctively reached for his saber.
Ahsoka opened her eyes. They were far away. "These Sithspawn are going to deploy the fleet. There's enough of them to obliterate the whole Mid Rim at once."
The Force cried out, a glimpse of this future, thousands of voices raised in terror, then were suddenly silenced.
The three of them felt a shiver reach for them. "Center yourselves," Obi-Wan instructed. "The future is always emotion."
"Except for when its not," Anakin muttered.
The lift rang out their arrival on the highest level of the command ship. Anakin rolled forward, followed closely by Obi-Wan and Ahsoka. They were met with a battalion full of identically dressed men, clad in red.
"Senatorial guard?" Anakin asked, genuinely curious. "Funny. I wondered where you all went when the Republic went to hells."
The three of them ignited their lightsabers in unison.
Sprays of green and blue pursued the guard in every direction, and Anakin sensed more than saw the red clad men hit back, their long capes flowing around in dizzying circles. He felt their determination surge around him, a wall of dark intentions fueling the silent, deadly guards. He had never had to face their whirling staffs and blackshield eyes before. But he had seen them in action, taking down anyone who dared threaten their Chancellor's life or success. Obi-Wan leapt, Makashi slashes working on the guard's long weapons as if they were training sabers, constantly in motion. Ahsoka's backwards grip shifted as she let out a feral yell, Jar'Kai technique allowing her to stab through one's defenses with one hand and lob of a head in surprise with the other.
A guard aimed for his left wheel. He let the stab go through the spokes, stopping it with his saber and slicing the stick in half before he heaved him against the wall, hearing the dull thud of shoulder blades and skull meeting plasteel. The Dark rose to greet the sound, offering him more strength, more endurance, at the expense of the Light.
"Masters, go!" Ahsoka said, taking down another guard with a low squat and a slice to the knees, right under their defenses. "I'll be right behind you!"
Obi-Wan and Anakin hesitated. "We said we'd go together!"
"And do our plans ever stay in tact this long?" The answer was an emphatic no. "Let me do this!"
She was right. Anakin pushed encouragement her way, all his pride in the fighter she was, his belief in her abilities, assurance they would meet again. They shoved off their attacker, and fled farther down the hall with a few Senate guards in chase, most of them occupied by Ahsoka's blurring attacks.
"Go!" They heard the young Togruta's voice one last time, as they disappeared into the maze that led to the Emperor's throne room.
The 501st was hollering over their shared communication lane as another cannon went down, its nose sinking low to point at the dunes, useless.
"'Nother shocker down," whooped Jesse. "You'd think they'd've seen what we're doing and started blowing this rock to bits."
"They're waiting for some sort of command," Appo said. Jesse could almost hear him smile. "What, think we could scramble it?"
Jesse turned to his brothers in the back. "Hey, how many of you specialized in hacking back in training?"
Chaser hit Limit on the head. "Limit here might be able to do some damage."
The young man went to the front of the ship, put on a pair of headphones, listening. His fingers flew over their dashboard, talking to their R2 unit who buzzed in the back, taking in enemy frequencies. As their ship came to another cannon, they flipped upside down, avoiding the onslaught of fighters and bombers, twisting as their hacker begged for more time.
"It's not as easy as it looks!" Jesse growled. But he weaved in and out of the nav decks, getting dangerously close to the gray hulking mass of a wing before yanking themselves away, watching their pursuers crash into their motherships.
They swerved again, this time taking a clip to their repulsers and spluttering for a few kilometers. "Not good," his copilot, Cid murmured, trying to make up for their unsteadiness with a couple of tricky transfers of auxiliary power. "Tell Dogma we could use some help over here!"
Jesse spoke into their headset. "Dogma! We're hit, not bad, but not good. It's going to take us a while to fix our gear, got the General's R2 unit back here working as fast as he can, but he's a little preoccupied."
"Move to the right so we can get a clear shot," came the reply.
"I'm not a Jedi," Jesse said through a clenched jaw, but moved as far as he could to the right, the fighters still hot on his tail. "Listen, Dogma, I'm running out of tricks!"
A fighter vaporizes behind them. Two more to go.
"They're all over us!" Appo's voice. "We can't protect the Senator and Rex on the ground and keep this attack up."
"We have to," Hawk said. "How's the kid doing the scrambling?"
Limit held a loose wire in his mouth, hands deep inside the ship's control panel. "M'most there!"
Jesse nodded. "He's close."
The sound of metal against metal had his ship at every port window. "Appo's going down," Tandem said in horror, standing behind Jesse in the cockpit.
"Get out of here," came Appo's strained voice. Jesse blinked back foreign moisture in his eyes. "There's nothing more you can do for us."
"No," Jesse said. "No, we're coming for you."
"You've got a mission to complete."
"Vape the mission, Appo. You've got a ship full of our family."
The other side of the link went blank, and Jesse strained against the knot forming in his throat as the course those martyrs set was aiming for the directly for the command center of the nearby cruiser. On impact, the brute of a machine's nose pointed downward, making a lumbering, fiery decent into the sand below.
"That's one whole planet saved," breathed Chaser. "Always did have a knack for out-doing the rest of us."
"Let's make sure that sacrifice wasn't in vain."
They were quickly being surrounded, a typhoon of fighters close on them, their laser fire too close for comfort despite them performing every maneuver they knew. Unbidden, his speech to his brothers appeared in his mind, the one he had been practicing for his last words since he graduated.
"Limit, any time now," Jesse said, watching a close call in his scope and feeling the sweat roll down his spine.
"Got it!" Limit hit his make-shift scrambling device and they watched as communication towers shut down all around them, lowering their disc-like faces in defeat. Without commands buzzing in their ears, the fighters shifted restless, out of formation.
"Well done, kid!" Chaser slapped the guy on the back. "That'll mess with them for a while."
R2-D2 unplugged from his port, and whistled a tired congratulations to himself. Limit laughed, rubbed the little droid's round head.
"Now we just hope that General Skywalker's already gotten all the information they need, because they're not going to be reaching us any time soon," Jesse said, pulling them into a tight barrel roll and ducking under the belly of another Destroyer. "Hawk, good shot."
Two more ion cannons went offline. "Thanks, Jesse. I've lost my count, how many are you at?"
"Eleven down, two hundred something to go."
Just as he said it, he saw ships exit hyperspace behind him. And he saw...
"This is Plo Koon, with Vokara Che, and over one hundred Jedi. We are with you, former legion of the 501st."
Obi-Wan stopped. He could hear Anakin's wheel's skid to a halt next to him. "They wouldn't be idiotic enough to create a ship's layout so that their power core lies next to their ultimate leader. Right?"
"Probably not. Why?" Anakin's eyes trailed along the ceiling with new eyes, seeing the pipes trailing above them. Power supply. Anakin was almost disappointed. "Bad design."
"Good for us?" Obi-Wan asked hopefully.
Anakin allowed himself to smirk. "Very."
They continued through the unmarked corridors, moving fast. A fork in their path appeared; one followed the pipes of the power supply, the other rippled with cold, suppressing Dark. Red guards started toward them, faceless costumes filling the hallway.
"Obi-Wan," Anakin looked at him. "We need this back up. If I don't kill him, I need to know this ship will go down in flames. Even if I'm still on it."
Obi-Wan pulled him closer. "I love you, Anakin. I am proud to call you my brother."
Anakin gripped his shoulders. "We will see each other again."
"There is no death, only the Force."
Obi-Wan turned and ran, following the power supply, into the bowels of the level.
Anakin turned around. He ignited his lightsaber.
The guards enveloped him once more, and with no one at his side, he fought harder against the temptation to fall into his anger, tap into that forbidden power so close to him, ready at his command. Instead, he ducked beneath a strike, pivoted hard on his left wheel, and cried out as one of the electric bulbs on the end of a staff slammed into his chest. He reeled, wrapped his saber hilt around the staff, forced it away. Blade flourishing in a wide, blurred circle, back to first stance.
Then he was parrying once more, lunging and striking, snarling as he allowed the Dark to fuel his attack. Everything was aching, the Light was not enough. The Light would see fit to let him die, let Obi-Wan and Ahsoka die, this selfish ruler more than ready to sacrifice its servants as collateral damage.
Red: gathering in puddles, making gray floors red making red cloaks brown. The path stretched out before him, and he tried to shake the tendrils of sticking, freezing Darkness from himself. It was only for then, only to stay alive, he promised himself, though it felt hollow. His muscles were left shaking when the Dark withdrew, his spine sending jolts of pain up his neck. It would all disappear, if he sunk back into that cold embrace. He would have the strength to do what he must, kill the Sith, bring balance to the Force.
A voice joined him in the empty corridor.
"Anakin Skywalker."
Palpatine's—Darth Sidious'—voice, one that made the Light slip farther out of his reach. Anakin gasped quietly as it's departure left a void in his chest. He could fill it, his mind hissed. Or maybe it was the Sith's voice once again.
"You know why I'm here," Anakin said, rolling toward the hulking door that would lead to the throne room.
"You have come to kill me."
Anakin raised his hands, calling on the Force to open what he could not lift himself. It would not open with what Light he had left in him.
So he let the Dark fill the void, let it overflow into his arms, back, neck, hands. The door opened at his command.
The throne room was layered, with steps leading to a chair with a tall back. Every tread on his wheels seemed to echo here, every beat of his heart, even the stretch of his lungs.
Palpatine wore a cloak that covered his face, one he thought he had known so well.
"You have burned," Anakin ground out. "Through so many innocent beings to get me here. And I want to know why."
"Ah." The Emperor's smile grew. "You have surrendered yourself to the Dark Side, let your anger feed you."
"Answer me, Palpatine."
"Years of manipulation brought these events to where they stand now. All the while, underneath the careful watch of the supposedly wise Order of the Jedi. And I... for just seconds... thought I had failed. The Separatist Alliance, under my guidance, had ruined my apprentice."
"I'm not your apprentice," Anakin spat. The Emperor held up a patient hand.
"So I destroyed them. And rebuilt stronger. And I saw you do the same."
Anakin watched as Palpatine stood, nearly floated down the stairs to circle him, hands clasped in front of him.
"But as you feel, you sense, you can be stronger. Surrender yourself to the Dark Side of the Force, and you will become its most powerful practitioner."
"I'm not here to gain power. I'm here to stop you from hurting anyone else."
The Emperor made another circle, tighter now, clucking his tongue. "You do not wish to walk again?"
Anakin faltered. "Not even the Dark can give me back what I've lost."
"Did you ever hear the Tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise?"
Anakin answered by staying silent.
"I thought not. It's not a story the Jedi would tell you. It's a Sith legend. Darth Plagueis was a Dark Lord of the Sith so powerful and so wise, he could use the Force to influence the midi-chlorians to create...life. He had such a knowledge of the Dark Side, he could even keep the ones he cared about...from dying."
Palpatine turned to face him. Anakin stumbled back. His eyes were yellow.
"I know your wife is here. She bears your children."
The Dark was suffocating the joy that tried to manifest. "It—how could you—I can't have—"
Palpatine took his face in one gnarled hand, gripping his chin in a vice.
"What will you do to her?" Anakin asked hoarsely.
"My boy, her destiny is entwined with your own. But you have felt this since you were small." He paused. "You will kill her. Or, you will save her by taking your place at my side."
Horror flooded him. "No."
"A Galactic Empire, ruled by me and my apprentice. The Dark Side can give you everything you've lost and more."
Blue streams of pure, unadulterated Dark flowed from Palpatine's hand, coursing through his jaw and down his spine. Anakin felt it light his nerves, the deadened ones at the base of his spine flaring not as they would in dysreflexia, but as they once did.
"What are you doing?" he shrieked. The hand didn't leave his face.
"How does it feel, Skywalker?"
Intoxicating. The nerves continued to crawl downward, spiraling awake until he could flex his shins, flick his knee caps and get a response, wiggle his toes.
Then the Emperor pulled back, and the clean cleaving of his halves crashed back down on him. He was left breathless, nausea roiling inside him.
"For two thousand years, the Sith have waited. They mourned your loss—can that be said about any of your precious Jedi? They have created a masterpiece for you, something that will have your self of past restored. Arise, Anakin Skywalker, and walk."
A panel unlocked with a hiss and a bout of steam, slowly revealing a black uniform, paneled chest and armored boots, and a mask. With tinted red lenses.
"Your friends do not have long, Anakin Skywalker. Your wife and unborn children stand little chance. These Star Destroyers are waiting for deployment; they'll start with turning Tatooine to dust, then move to every other world in the galaxy that will not kneel before me. Only you have the power to save them all. Refuse, hesitate for just moments, and their blood is on your hands."
The image of Padmé standing in the wreckage of Mos Eisley, of Rex at her side, of the 501st, of Ahsoka battling Senate Guards, Obi-Wan carefully choreographing a detonation in the power core. He saw each of their graying corpses—worse than any nightmare he had ever had. He could smell death on them, hear the moment their lungs collapsed, their hearts stopped pumping blood. Then the visions blurred, and the final words of a galaxy ran through his mind.
"What must I do?" Anakin rasped.
"Kneel."
Anakin did, collapsing out of his wheelchair and onto the ground. The work was quick, and he felt the pieces of the suit click into place all around him. The heavy boots, the thick chest plate. He took one last breath of fresh air before the helmet closed his world in red, shutting with the quietest of shushes. Another round of strength filled him, sickly sweet, tempting him to grasp for more. He did, and he could kneel on his own power with the suit's aid.
His wheelchair slid away, forgotten.
The Emperor cackled. "I should never have doubted my visions, of you standing at my side."
And Anakin stood, feeling the coursing cold of Dark flowing across his spine. His breaths clanked out, mechanical and aiding the evenness of his heart.
"Look at our galaxy, Anakin," The Emperor motioned, and a window appeared in the dark. Tatooine, broken and scarred, surrounded by the shadows of Destroyers and the scream of fighters. And...
Anakin felt all the breath leave his lungs.
The unmistakeable signature of Vokara Che. Of Plo Koon. Aayla Secura. Luminara Unduli. Quinlan Vos. Agen Kolar. Yoda. And more, more Jedi from Padawan to Master, their lightsabers beacons in the growing dark.
His transmission... when he had felt so clear in his intention, so bound in love and Light. Before everything he believed in was threatened.
They had heard.
The unmarked shuttles were quick to doge with Jedi's precision, firing torpedos at cannons, at navigation towers, and command bridges. Others still, he saw joining the fight in the sand, joining Padmé and Rex to fight of soldiers dropping from bombers in uncountable numbers. He saw ships burn, wings stripped from their sockets. He saw laser fire hit chests of Saesee Tiin, Agen Kolar, and a senior Padawan with a braid no longer than his finger. Padmé's hand was on the Padawan's forehead in seconds.
He thought of Obi-Wan. How he had promised to destroy the ship if he could not kill Palpatine himself.
There was hope.
"I will not be your puppet," Anakin said, his jaw clenched, foreign gloved hands working his drawn lightsaber into a defensive position. He only needed to stay alive to keep Palpatine from creating the signal to deploy the fleet, then wait for Obi-Wan's power core demise.
The Dark nodded its consent.
And Anakin thrust himself into the fight. Palpatine snarled, twisted to one side, avoiding his blow. Their sabers met, and the room turned a vicious purple, pulsing and spitting, raining sparks onto the slick floors below. Palpatine threw him into the far wall, and his suit clattered against him, his head spinning. The invisible hand the Emperor commanded seized him by the throat before he could recover. Choking, Anakin struggled, and found he could kick out. He used the last inches of his foot on the ground to launch himself backwards, flipping upside down, and twisted to wrench himself away.
He could hear the suit try and make up for his lack of breath, but Palpatine was upon him again, red blade flashing, and Anakin was forced to parry a downward strike. He stumbled back into the wall under the crushing power of the strike. The two lightsabers seared the air.
Anakin's weapon whirled, striking in a tight, controlled fire, a flurry of deadly accuracy constantly adjusting to his new limits that seemed unbound. They danced across the throne room, leaving a pattern of burn marks behind them in a wide swath.
The Emperor disengaged. His smile turned into a gnashing of teeth. "It is only a matter of time."
Then he raised his hand and impaled Anakin with the Force.
His back arched against his will, the pain consuming. He broiled inside his Sith-made cage, screaming in his voice, the mask projecting a hollow moan. His restored legs faltered. His lightsaber clattered out of his slackened finger to the ground.
He was drawn to the Emperor, sliding across the floor. "This is familiar," Palpatine crowed. "Though then I thought you nothing, now I understand it took your downfall from pride, from the Jedi's pedestal, to bring you here. You have embraced the Dark Side. You are Lost completely. There is no turning back to the Light. You know this, you feel this."
"No," he coughed. The lightning did not falter. "I feel..."
He felt his life force slip between his outstretched fingers. And a chime of the Force inside him.
Obi-Wan's voice. Ahsoka's voice. Padmé's voice. Qui Gon's voice. The voices that seemed to appear from no where, quickly filled his consciousness as they had filled the sky outside. They overwhelmed the Dark by their sheer number, by their insistence of his rising. They were a well of power from which to draw. He let the voices surround him, fill him, strengthen him.
I am one with the Force, and the Force is with me.
Light, blossoming behind his solar plexus, softly stirring his heart to beat once more.
Anakin turned over, placed a palm to the ground, pushed up. He stood, not in the power of the Dark but in the arms of the Light. He threw off the helmet, and the world went from red to an array of color.
The Emperor reached for his communicator. "Initiate deployment. Let the galaxy know that the war is over, that the Jedi have been defeated. That we stand on the threshold of a new beginning."
A beat of strained silence.
"I am truly sorry, your Excellency," came a terrified human voice from the other. "B-but I'm from sanitation."
Palpatine snarled. "What is the meaning of this?"
"Our frequencies have been scrambled, sir. All communication patterns are currently being rerouted."
Anakin was shaking now, the brace support and suit not enough to keep him standing. He closed his eyes, begging to Obi-Wan.
Let this ship go up in flames. Let me go with it.
"Still conscious, then?" Darth Sidious growled.
"I won't let you destroy the galaxy. Not even kriffing Tatooine." Anakin called his lightsaber to his hand, igniting it in one motion. "And we'll go down together if that's what it takes."
Their sabers locked in combat one final time.
Obi-Wan hit the escape pod eject, Ahsoka's body curled up in a healing trance.
Then he turned, racing to retrace his steps back through the corridor and to Anakin's signature. It had changed, gone nauseatingly Dark. He had felt the Light extinguished. He had fallen to his knees, grief overtaking him. For his brother was worse than dead.
Then Light rekindled.
Impossibly, improbably. Obi-Wan went back for Ahsoka, hearing Anakin's words ring through their bond.
"Never, Anakin. I will never leave you. Ever. If this is our new reality, you have my word, I will be right by your side no matter what," he had said that day in the Halls of Healing, their eyes meeting in the glow of a hand mirror. He would fulfill his promise to the end.
The doors remained forcefully shut, locked down by a Sith's intent. Obi-Wan shoved his lightsaber into the wall next to them, yanking a circle and pushing it inwards with a blast of the Force. His mind counted down for him.
Seventeen, sixteen, fifteen.
Darth Sidious stood over Anakin, who wore a black suit of armor up to his neck. Both of his legs were severed, his mechanical arm glitching out at the elbow. He was coughing out short gasps of air. He barely recognized Obi-Wan's presence. But Darth Sidious did.
The old man turned on him, his fingers contorting as lightning clambered over itself to reach him. His drawn lightsaber blocked its path.
Fourteen, thirteen, twelve.
Anakin's signature flared, and Obi-Wan realized he was hearing him count even as his mind swam, delirious with pain.
Obi-Wan gritted his teeth, feet losing ground. The lightning crawled closer to his hands, smarting his skin, clawing for his face.
"You cannot save him now, foolish Jedi," the Emperor shrieked. "I have foreseen it all."
"Yes, well, have you foreseen the usefulness of learning the ways of a resourceful mechanic?" Obi-Wan said.
He met Anakin's gaze for ten, nine, eight, seven. Gold seemed to even still be retreating from his irises, and he saw the crisp blue of a boy who was born on this planet now being torn apart. There was laughter in them, and love. His brother's single surviving hand reached out to him.
Then an impact from the Force pushed Obi-Wan backwards, his body hitting the window to the outside and smashing through it.
He was falling, breathless, toward the sand, the lighting fizzling to nothing around him.
The ship went supernova, and Obi-Wan watched as Anakin was consumed.
The End.
Epilogue coming soon.
-Gabe