Chapter Ten: A Grand Design
For the first time since he debarked the Coelacanth two years ago, Anakin Skywalker stands on a military starship.
Not the same military—this ship is not from the Defense Force, commissioned by one world out of many and then loaned to the Republic's use. No, this is a spearhead of the Grand Army. A vessel built for one purpose.
To win the war.
"The Arbiter," Palpatine had told him the day before, as they stood outside the ship and admired her. Big enough to house the Spice Dancer in its hangar, hull plating matte black, all curves until it terminated in a sharp prow. "The first of her kind, I am told. Commissioned as a prototype for the Grand Army earlier this year."
It was anonymity given shape, a long low blade that would disappear among the ebony of space, visible only through the stars it blotted out. A hole, a void, until it opened fire.
Now, standing inside her, looking over the sleek surfaces and spartan design—every angle, every button imbued with purpose—Anakin remembers the words that had come next and feels a shiver of anticipation run through him.
"Who commands her?" he'd asked.
Palpatine had looked at him as though he thought the answer was obvious. "Why, my dear boy, you do. It's always been meant for you."
Palpatine's known. All along, he's known that Anakin is meant for something greater than politics, than process, than organizing. He's meant to win wars.
All the chancellor was waiting for was for Anakin to ask.
Isard was right about one thing: the Confederacy as the galaxy knew it no longer exists. "And that," Palpatine told Anakin that night in his office, "means that there is no longer one route to victory. Our enemies have become a hydra—divide them and they simply multiply. Of course Maul must be dealt with, but that's not the match. His death will not be the easy victory the Jedi believe it to be—simply one of many gambits we must execute, and execute flawlessly. And that's why we need you, my boy."
And then, he laid out the endgame. The stratagem that will win the Clone Wars.
If one were to look at a map of the galaxy, they would see the Republic starting at the center and expanding outward. In the years prior to the Clone Wars, this expansion did not stop so much as dwindle. The extreme Mid Rim was the point where independent worlds became dominant, but even there Republic worlds still existed—and still beyond them, in the Outer Rim, a handful of member territories persisted.
The Confederacy changed all that.
In the four years of their expansion, they swallowed up any Republic worlds that lay beyond the Mid Rim's veil, with independent worlds either joining or surrendering. Then they chivvied their way into the Mid Rim—a slow process after the fiasco at Serenno robbed them of the Aurora system's hyperlane, but accomplished step by step, world by world, giving them the tunnel that they'd poured through into Coruscant space. The Republic's boundaries became definite, absolute, a ragged line that ranged nearly across its entire bottom.
But when Maul and Valis splintered their holdings—slaughtered the executive board and turned the Republic's one monster into innumerable fanged heads—they left that boundary weakened. Porous. Ready to break.
The Grand Army's job is to shatter it.
The Defense Force could not have done this—too many agendas at play, too many joint operations to coordinate and hold together in the name of a Republic that mattered less to soldiers than their homeworlds. But it's what the Grand Army was born for. A single shockwave, ready to push outward and crumble the wall of the many Confederate shards into sand.
Such a campaign will be ruinously costly—to finances, to personnel, to morale. It will drag on for years, taking territory back inch by inch. It will work, but slowly—and in the time it takes for the ghosts of one Confederacy to be dealt with, another may very well rise to take its place.
The Grand Army will win the war, but it needs to win it quickly.
And that is why Palpatine needs Anakin.
Where the fleet is a hammer, Anakin and the Arbiter will be a scalpel. Clean, swift cuts that on their own would be mere setbacks for their enemies, but, when joined with the body blows of the Republic's navy and army, will be turning points. Breakthroughs. Anakin will slash the tendons of each Confederate faction one by one, piece by piece, and when he's done his work, the Grand Army will finish off the maimed giants.
It will begin at Sluis Van.
"The shipyards there," Palpatine had told him, "represent our most immediate problem. The other splinter Confederate factions all have navies, of course, but they'll need to weigh each ship carefully. The Sluissi, on the other hand . . ."
He didn't need to finish the thought. Sluis Van was, save for Kuat Drive Yards, the largest hub for capital ship production in the galaxy. Though the Charybdis' manufacturers were not a matter of record, Anakin knew she was in all likelihood constructed there. So too, since the start of the war, has it churned out countless deathbox frigates, armored dreadnoughts, and worse. Far, far worse.
Sluis Van Shipyards were the architects of the Lancer prototype. One of only two that were ever made.
Anakin closed his eyes as Palpatine talked and saw the images of white-hot fire raining down upon floating city platforms. Felt the perfect certainty that had come over him—that this was right, what he was meant for, to get things done—evaporating in a single moment.
A firm, familiar weight on his shoulder. Palpatine's hand. And his voice: "Son? Are you all right?"
He swallowed. "Sir, I—why do you need me for this? We've got lots of capable soldiers that could run this sort of mission—"
Palplatine shook his head quickly. "This mission—and it is only the first—is an incredible risk. It is not something I could possibly prevail upon Congress to approve. And I will be honest with you, my boy—were it in anyone else's hands, I doubt it would succeed. That is why, when I say it was meant for you, I mean it." He chuckled gently and withdrew his hand from Anakin's shoulder. "I had planned to ask you at a more convenient hour of the day, of course, but you are ever unorthodox."
And then he felt another shame flowing through him—he'd shouted at Palpatine, berated him, vented all his frustrations when they had nothing to do with the chancellor, only with himself and his stupid inability to decide what he wanted. "Sir, I'm so sorry—"
"Anakin." A note of sternness in his voice, one that commanded attention. "I know better than anyone the burdens you carry. Do not apologize to me."
Nodding, Anakin considered, then said, "So this is off the books."
"It's an executive command. One overseen directly by me. You will be under my constant orders, my supervision. In fact," and here Palpatine chuckled again, "this way you will be far more responsibly managed than you would be otherwise. You know Congress."
He'd tried to chuckle back but couldn't make himself feel it. "Sir, the last time I oversaw a combat mission it ended with thousands of people dead."
"Oh Anakin." Palpatine's voice was tired, but not on his own behalf. Somehow, Anakin could tell that the weariness in the chancellor's voice was for him. "I won't patronize you and say that you are entirely free of blame. But you had no guiding hand. May I confide something to you?"
The question took Anakin aback. But it made sense, didn't it? The whole galaxy took their troubles to Palpatine to manage—was it really so strange that he would turn to a friend for his own unburdening, even one so young as Anakin? "Of course."
"When you told me that General Kenobi was the one who left you alone there—who turned over his command without any formal battle plan—I was . . . well, I was furious." His voice was as tranquil as it usually was, but Anakin saw Palpatine's throat work quickly at this admission, as if recalling some of that fury. "You were put in charge of a situation spiraling out of anyone's control and expected to perform flawlessly. That you were put in that position . . ."
A spike of unease coursing through him, Anakin quickly replied, "Obi-Wan trusted me. I let him down."
"My dear boy, I trust you as well. But I will not allow my trust in you to become an excuse to foist responsibility upon you."
The next day, Palpatine had looked out at the hangar. White-armored troops had stood in perfect rows. Crew members scrambled from one end of the Arbiter to the other, supplying her, fueling her, making her ready. The staging area's sounds filled the air—the steady chug-thump of walker legs moving up and down, the sparks of plasma torches welding new connections, erratic whistles and chirps from astromech droids. And human speech—orders barked up and down the hangar.
"The chain of command is a beautiful thing, Anakin," Palpatine had said. "Every person here has a purpose, as much as every piece of equipment. And they fulfill that purpose in the knowledge that their superiors fulfill theirs. Soldiers do their duty, but they don't really move themselves. They are moved by those above them, and so on."
He'd turned to meet Anakin's gaze once more. "It's as I told you last night. A perfect circle of accountability. When you embark on these missions, you will execute my will, just as I execute the will of the office entrusted to me. I promise you, I will never give you cause to overstep, never place you in a situation where you must muddle through without order. You will always have a guiding hand."
Anakin had found himself wondering what Palpatine might have been had he lived another life—had been a teacher. Or even a Jedi. Obi-Wan had always done the best he knew how, but he liked ambiguities. Abstractions. Shades of color that Anakin, try as he might, couldn't always see.
Palpatine's words were simple. Plain. Perfect. Somehow when he spoke, everything just . . . made sense.
In Anakin's mind, there was a crystal-clear image: his mechanical hand swung downward to point, to deal out judgment to those on the other side of the war. But the arm the hand connected to wasn't his.
It was Palpatine's.
He'd blinked. Hard. Then looked at Palpatine and said, "I won't fail you, sir."
When the chancellor had smiled, there was such gratefulness, such relief there that Anakin could almost feel them. "Thank you, my boy. Truly. Your trust in me is . . . it means the world." He inhaled deeply, steadying himself. "We can consider this first mission a trial. If you carry it out and decide this is not the place for you, do what you want with my blessing. Go back to the Jedi. Join the Grand Army. But if you feel led . . ."
He let the pause signify all that could follow.
The chancellor had turned to depart—it was late, he'd said, and both of them should return to their homes and rest in preparation for what was to come. He took one step, two, and then Anakin had found the voice to say what he'd hesitated to say.
"Chancellor?"
Turning and raising a questioning brow, Palpatine asked, "Yes?"
"I know you've come to believe in the Jedi. I don't know whether . . . whether you believe in the Force."
Where he hoped for an answer, Palpatine simply stood there, silent, his expression inquiring. Waiting for Anakin to continue.
The young man cleared his throat. "Well, I suppose if you don't this will sound silly, but . . . it's real. I could touch it, once. When I left the Order, I left that behind too."
He'd shifted from foot to foot, searching for the way to put it, and finally just said it plainly. "I'll do my duty for you. But I can't use the Force to do it. I made a promise."
And oh, how close he'd come to breaking that promise in Obi-Wan's home just the night before. How he'd wanted to break down the walls he'd built suffocatingly close around himself and let the air in again.
But now he had another way to be of use. Another guiding hand. And he couldn't risk the hurt that he could cause if Palpatine's authority were displaced by one far greater.
The silliness of his statement caused his face to flush. He half expected Palpatine to laugh, or worse, treat him seriously while struggling to keep that amusement down.
But there was nothing so mortifying. Palpatine had simply nodded once, and turned away.
Now, in the present, Anakin sits in the pilot's seat of his ship, turning that conversation over and over in his mind. A perfect circle of accountability, executing the Republic's will. A guiding hand.
A chime issues from the control panel in front of him, startling him from his reverie. "Authorized entry by crew member," an automated voice informs him.
He'd showed up early this morning, far before the mission's scheduled departure time, so he could spend some time alone in the ship. Familiarize himself with its feel, its shape. Just think. But now his crew is arriving, and there's work to be done.
Time to do his duty.
As he rises from the pilot's seat, Anakin takes a reflexive glance at the copilot's station and feels a pang when Padmé isn't there—feels a deeper pang at the fact that he can't tell her anything about this. That he left a lying message on her comm after she departed the planet the morning after their fight without saying goodbye—left with Bail, for Alderaan. Traveling off-planet, he'd told her in that message, Chancellor has me overseeing some supply-line issues, excuses like that.
When she gets back, and he gets back, they'll fix things. He can worry about it later.
Right now, he has to meet his new soldiers.
So Anakin Skywalker shuts his mind to those he loves. Stills the fears that still course within him.
Goes to war.
Republic Archives: Defense Committee Memo - Suspicious Requisitions
[excerpt from a Senate Defense Committee memo by Senator Garm Bel Iblis of Corellia]
I must, on principle, question these requisitions which are shrouded in secrecy, covered in redactions and stamps of top classification. I am no supporter of bringing our defensive might under one umbrella; the idea of the Grand Army disturbs me to the core.
Nevertheless, even I cannot deny that it has certain advantages. To cite an example that perhaps hits too close to home, no longer can Alderaan send ships from its own planetary defense fleet to start a war in the Had system. Transparency between and among worlds of the Republic is critical to the success of this new, united force.
You must see, then, why I find these requisitions disturbing. Warships and warriors diverted to an unknown assignment? What possible use could a government office on Coruscant have for such a great number of firearms and cutting edge starfighters? Are we to permit this secrecy solely because it bears the chancellor's signature?
I urge my fellow members of the Defense Committee to deny this request from Chancellor Palpatine until he provides us with greater detail as to precisely why he is diverting these resources.
[archivist's note: Senator Bel Iblis was the only Defense Committee member to vote "no" on Supreme Chancellor Palpatine's requisition order]