Chapter Seventeen: The Secret History
The normally drab halls of the galactic capitol building now seemed to glow, washed out in a swirl of white hot rage.
Anakin Skywalker's vision blurred at the edges, focused entirely on the ornate woodgrain door of the Executive Committee Room. He felt disconnected from his footsteps as he stormed toward the door. He heard a shout behind him—an administrative aide calling out.
"He's in a meeting!"
He was only vaguely aware of the reply he tossed over his shoulder: "I don't care!"
Then his mechanical palm was pressed against the woodgrain, simulated sensations rushing up the metal arm. He shoved inward, and it briefly occurred to him that this was one of the few doors in the building one could actually throw open. The rest just slid. He threw it aside and stepped across the threshold, bracing himself for a staredown with the chancellor and his entire Executive Committee.
What he found instead should have been much less intimidating, but somehow wasn't. The room's massive conference table, meant to seat nearly two dozen people, was home to only two—plus a scattering of documents and a holoprojection of a nondescript cloaked individual. The door swung shut behind him—there was no undoing what he'd done, not anymore.
"Anakin!" A startled shout from Palpatine was accompanied by the chancellor reaching for the holoprojector and switching it off.
"Skywalker, what is wrong with you?" came another voice, this one underscored by the rustling of documents being hurriedly stuffed back into their folders. Anakin shifted his gaze from Palpatine to the room's other occupant. Though he'd never met the man himself, the face was unmistakable.
"You can't just barge in like that," Wilhuff Tarkin snapped at him, his glare threatening to strike Anakin dead on the spot. The angles of his face, already sharp, in his irritation looked like they could chop wood.
Ignoring the other man—Anakin had faced far too much for a vampire's mask to intimidate him—he turned back to face the chancellor. "Sir," he managed, pausing to gasp for breath. "We need to talk. About Kuat Drive Yards."
Palpatine's face fell. "Ah, you heard about that, did you?"
"Yeah," Anakin interrupted. "On the news." The next sentence he had to fight the urge to swallow back, as though by saying it he was making it real. "Typhoon Division was there undergoing repairs. Not all of them made it out."
"A catastrophe for the entire navy, yes," snapped Tarkin, his sour expression curdling still further. "Not just your friends."
Restraining himself from the sudden urge to punch Tarkin in the face with his mechanical hand, Anakin settled for throwing his arms open. "Why didn't anyone tell me?"
Before Palpatine could answer, the director shot back, "Believe it or not, Skywalker, your new position does not entitle you to up-to-the-minute military intelligence reports."
I could say the same for you, he almost snapped back, but then the significance of the director's words crashed down on him. "My new position?"
"Director Tarkin was made aware of the generalities of your new work as my Executor, Anakin," Palpatine said, holding out a hand in the young man's direction. The unspoken directive was clear, written all over his face and the gesture he was making: Calm down, son. "We determined it was pertinent to his investigation."
Anakin breathed in, then out again in a measured pattern, forcing himself to cool off. He needed to speak to Palpatine privately, to get rid of Tarkin—but yelling at him wouldn't accomplish that. Treat him like a mark, a voice in his head reminded him. Just like the old days. Use his words against him.
"Does the investigation entitle him to the specifics of Executor Vader's operations?" Anakin asked, injecting a false earnestness into his voice while fighting the urge to sneer at Tarkin.
"No," Palpatine said. "No, it doesn't." Then, turning in his chair to face Tarkin: "Director, would you give us the room?"
Tarkin said nothing, simply scooped up a pile of documents in a huff and brushed past Anakin on his way out of the room. As he passed, the young man could see his lip lift in the beginnings of a sneer.
As Anakin's gaze followed the director out the door, he caught a glimpse of text printed on one folder. Though most of the text was obscured by Tarkin's grip, a few words remained visible: Report on the Investigation into Jedi Involvement—
The door swung shut behind Tarkin, and Anakin turned to face the chancellor. Before he could open his mouth and ask about the documents Tarkin had been carrying, Palpatine spoke.
"So, Kuat Drive Yards."
The frustration he'd just buried beneath the surface came rushing back, shoving aside his curiosity about the documents Tarkin had been carrying. Anakin shook his head and began pacing from one end of the lengthy conference table to the other.
"It feels pointed, you know? Retaliatory. Vader attacks a shipyard, they attack a shipyard. What's next?" He paused and stared out the window that ran along one wall of the conference room. "Will they burn down a bank? Blow up a BlasTech factory?"
From the head of the table Palpatine chuckled, prompting Anakin to turn and shoot him a quizzical look. This isn't funny.
"My boy, you're drawing connections where there are none." He shook his head, intertwining his fingers and placing his elbows on the conference table. "The Confederacy is not a monolith anymore. Different groups hold the targets you've hit thus far, and therefore any counterattacks would need to come from different groups as well." He leaned back in his chair. "Besides, we know who attacked Kuat. There were pirate vessels there, the same ones that hit Coruscant. Maul and Valis did this, and they've no reason to retaliate for Sluis Van. This isn't vengeance, it's just war."
It was a perfectly reasonable answer. One that left Anakin remarkably dissatisfied.
Palpatine must have seen it in his face; he sighed. "I am, of course, very sorry for the loss of your friends."
The faces of a Twi'lek and a Bith flitted across Anakin's mind. "I . . . I'm just glad it wasn't worse, sir," he said, thinking of Karin and Cody and Reyes and all the other souls who were stationed aboard the Coelacanth. Who'd only just been recovering from the last catastrophe to strike them.
Palpatine reached out and took Anakin's flesh hand within his own, giving it a light squeeze. "I'm so sorry. This can't be an easy day for you, between this and the news about Amina."
`Anakin's eyes widened, and he yanked his hand away from the Chancellor's. "Amina? What about her?"
"Oh dear, I assumed you'd already heard," Palpatine said with a shake of his head—he looked a combination of embarrassed and ill. "Her squad commander said you often call to check in on her."
It was Anakin's turn to look embarrassed.
"She's alive, don't worry. But she is injured. Her troop transport crashed; most of the squad didn't make it. She's being pulled from field duty while she recovers."
She's safe, then, Anakin thought to himself. That's what you wanted, isn't it?
He threw himself into one of the chairs surrounding the conference table, running his flesh hand along his face. You need to calm down. You won't get anywhere flying off the handle. "I just . . . I wish I'd been there," he managed. "Maybe things would have gone differently."
At this, Palpatine sat up straight. "Interesting. I hadn't planned on using your talents defensively, I'll admit. We can't know where they'll attack next, and having you wait at one of our valuable holdings 'just in case' seems to me to be a waste of your time. But if you have ideas on how Kuat could have handled this better, I'm absolutely open to hearing them."
For a moment the young man felt anger flare up yet again inside him. He almost barked that he wasn't a focus group, especially not where Roland and Shiiva were concerned. But as Palpatine looked at him expectantly, Anakin realized he was, in his own way, being kind.
In the same situation, Obi-Wan would have advised Anakin about the dangers of lashing out and said some things about those we love transforming into the Force. Palpatine was asking him for a concrete way to fix things.
"Okay, sure," he said, nodding and blowing out a long exhalation. "We can go over it."
Palpatine leaned forward to the holoprojector controls mounted into the table and pressed a series of switches. First the window darkened, obscuring the Coruscant skyline outside. Then the lights dimmed. Finally, the projection of a nondescript hooded figure returned above the projector lens.
The chancellor thumbed a button in the table—for a brief moment, the image changed to that of a floating city; a castle among the clouds. Anakin's heart leapt into his throat—and before he could react the picture was gone, replaced by a projection of Kuat Drive Yards.
"There we go," Palpatine muttered to himself. Then, staring at Anakin through the projected image: "What would you have done differently?"
The two sat there, bathed in the blue light of the projector, as Anakin simply stared. The massive ring that encircled Kuat was home to hundreds of Star Destroyers, each tagged with a tiny Aurebesh label. The names of the docked vessels. Anakin's eyes were drawn to one in particular—Coelacanth.
"First off, the ships undergoing repairs shouldn't have been exposed like that—we could learn something from Sluis Van, a groundside dock would be a pain but it would be a safer place for ships that can't defend themselves. But since we can't change that . . . turbolaser emplacements on the orbital ring would help. Rated gunners on them, not corporate security. And if we can spare them, leaving a whole division of the fleet at the main hyperspace entrance point would be good. Valis brought in a dozen ships, if we'd had a dozen of our own there and at the ready we could have cut them off before they even got to the planet."
Palpatine nodded, but he was frowning thoughtfully. "For every action, there is its opposite, as they say. Balance in everything. If we remove a dozen ships from the main offensive line, we sacrifice one of our pressure points against the Confederacy."
"Maybe half a dozen, then. Or we take a page out of Valis's book, hire independent contractors. They're not all bad, if you pay 'em enough they'll work for you as easily as the bad guys."
"A practical solution. Though it is also currently against Kuat's planetary law to bring contracted militia into their orbit."
It wasn't said as a rebuttal—Palpatine had put it almost wistfully, as though he wished more than anything that he could implement the suggestion. But Anakin gave a bitter half-laugh. His suspicion had been correct—Palpatine had already thought of all this. So had the navy and the shipyard, most likely. All this was was an attempt to make him feel useful.
His eyes wandered upward, from the table back to the projected faces of the battle's casualties—trailing up to Shiiva and Roland. He stared at the flickering image of the shipyard and shook his head. "Forget it. Turn it off. It wouldn't have mattered if I was there. A battle that big? One person can't make a difference."
Palpatine did as requested; as the holographic shipyard fizzled away, Anakin couldn't help but see the ghostly image of the floating city that had preceded it. One person can't save them.
"Oh, I wouldn't say that," the chancellor offered, leaning toward Anakin. "I'd think you of all people would know better."
The young man sighed. "Sir, I appreciate your trying to cheer me up, but—"
"No, I'm serious, my boy! After all, your Jedi war stories teach a very different lesson."
Anakin barked a humorless laugh and leaned backwards in his chair, allowing it to spin slightly. "The Jedi don't have war stories, sir. 'Guardians of peace and justice,' remember? It doesn't fit their image."
As his chair continued to spin on its axis, Palpatine came back into view—a look of genuine surprise was painted on the man's face.
"They never told you? History speaks of a great war between the Jedi and the Sith, several centuries ago."
Anakin put a foot down on the floor, stopping the chair from rotating any further. He sat up straight, eyes wide. "I never—" he said, trailing off before speaking again. "Does the Republic have record of this?"
"In a manner of speaking. We found record of it." Palpatine stopped, then leaned in before continuing. When he spoke, his voice was much lower. "You've heard of the expedition to Korriban?"
Anakin nodded. "The lost expedition to Korriban. I didn't realize they'd recovered any historical writings."
"Well, they didn't exactly," Palpatine said with a shrug. "Before they disappeared, most of their findings were merely transmitted via a holonet connection. But they did manage to send a single unmanned probe back. Contained within the probe was, among other things, a set of journals allegedly penned by an ancient Sith.
"Most of the later contents are just grandiose philosophizing about the nature of the Force. Far beyond my interest or understanding. But the early pages of the journal contain a rather fascinating account of this war."
Without realizing, Anakin had slid so far forward in his seat that he was nearly off the edge of it. He planted both elbows on the table and drew a deep breath, looking intensely at the chancellor.
"I'd like to hear it."
Palpatine eased the door to the Executive Office shut, then brushed past Anakin, headed for the bookshelf that sat against one wall. Anakin took deliberate, measured steps in the other direction, until he found himself before a trio of bronze statues. Slightly larger than life, no doubt representative of some myth from the chancellor's homeworld, the three men seemed to leer down at Anakin as he shuffled across the crimson carpet. Had they always looked like this?
"When the expedition disappeared, all records were sealed," Palpatine called from across the room—a quick glance revealed he was dragging a pointed finger along the spines of the shelved books, searching for a specific title. "Determined too dangerous to be of any value to the academic community. But when your opponents declare themselves to be a coalition of pirates and Sith"—he paused, poking at one book before plucking it off the shelf—"you take the necessary steps to educate yourself. And I do still have my connections with the University of Theed." He gestured with the bound book—a modern publication, by Anakin's estimation. It resembled an encyclopedia more than the dusty leather codex he'd been expecting, binding still tight and pages crisply white.
Palpatine peeled the book open, thumbing past several early pages before settling on one about a third of the way in. Even from a distance, Anakin could hear the sound of the man's finger sliding across the slightly glossy paper. "The commentary is rather dull, I'm afraid. But pieces are worth reading."
Anakin turned away from the chancellor, back toward the statues. The sensation of three great figures watching his every move made his stomach turn over. It felt akin to the times he'd smuggled liquor behind the shipping crates with his childhood friends, or that lone occasion where Padmé had slinked aboard the Dancer and extracted a vial of glitterstim from her belt.
This is wrong.
Palpatine cleared his throat, drawing the young man's attention back. Nothing more than an old man bent over a book. Instantly, Anakin felt silly—the only way the image could have been more innocuous would have been for the chancellor to put on reading glasses. "Ah, here we are.
"This is all taken from the supposed journals of a Sith Lord called Darth Plagueis.
"Over four hundred years ago, the orders of the Sith and Jedi were in the midst of total war. A conflict which spanned entire swaths of the Outer Rim. Plagueis writes of battlefields strewn with the armor of fallen Force warriors, their lightsabers littering the ground. It must have been a sight to behold."
Though the chancellor was moving, gliding across the floor as he skimmed the text, Anakin felt as though his feet were fixed to the carpet, turned to bronze like one of the statues. "I'm sure it was," he managed, his voice a rough whisper.
"The Sith were great in number then, and they had arrived at a pivotal point in the war: they were clawing at the borders of the Old Republic. Jedi territory. The moment they had been waiting for. A chance not to defend, but to truly attack. Only there was a problem.
"Their numbers were great, but the Jedi Order's numbers were greater. Plagueis, ever the studious one"—Palpatine paused, chuckling a bit at his own joke—"did a bit of arithmetic, so to speak, and made a sobering discovery.
"You see, each time the Sith and Jedi clashed on the battlefield, neither side escaped without great loss. The Dark Lords still considered this a victory. Their loss was a necessary sacrifice; the Jedi's loss was a universal good."
Anakin glanced from one side of the room to the other, from the door to the gaping window set behind the executive desk. There was no privacy, no secrecy. They were discussing this out in the open, and yet Palpatine spoke as calmly as though he were relaying old tales of his schooldays to his friend.
He has no idea, Anakin realized. No idea that the Jedi don't talk about these things. That they
(hide them)
never thought to mention them.
"Plagueis came to realize that at the rate things were going, there was no way for the Order of the Sith Lords to win this war. They would push into Republic territory and be snuffed out by the Jedi, who outnumbered them. Yes, the Jedi Order would be dealt a crushing blow, but the Sith would be no more. He brought this to the attention of the Dark Lords. Plagueis urged them to retreat and regroup."
A tense silence of anticipation lingered in the air. Anakin couldn't bring himself to ask the obvious question: Did they?
"They laughed him out of the room. Plagueis was but an acolyte at the time, a young student. He had no authority. The Sith, they told him, do not back down from a war. But Plagueis thought there was a bigger picture. The survival of his order was at stake. And so he returned to his quarters to develop a plan."
At this, Palpatine paused. He moved to his desk, setting the book down—its face open, pages exposed to wandering eyes. Though Anakin would have loved nothing more than to glide across the room and pore over the writing, he didn't get the chance. Palpatine's eyes had fallen on him.
"Tell me, Anakin. Did your Jedi ever teach the concept of balance in the Force, between light and dark?"
Anakin had to fight to find his words, just as he had to fight off the sense of embarrassment flushing upward into his face. He didn't want to sound ignorant and uninformed—but he couldn't lie to Palpatine either.
"No," he began—then, realizing he could at least try to sound like he knew what he was talking about: "It was all about light overcoming the darkness." At least, that was how Obi-Wan had put it, and Anakin knew his master too well to think he ever would have said something unorthodox on the subject.
He'd been kept in the dark too. Or else kept himself there.
"Plagueis had a different idea," Palpatine said, sliding behind his desk and settling into his chair. He pulled the book along the desk's surface so it sat before him, then gazed down at it. "He believed the Force to be a conscious actor with a will of its own. Always striving for a balance of light and dark." He held up two open palms, shifting them up and down like a weighted scale. "Balance between Jedi and Sith. Not in number, but in power."
One hand dropped to the table as the other rose higher. "If the Jedi outnumbered the Sith, Plagueis believed"—the hands shifted to meet at an even level—"the Sith would be granted power to match the Jedi. And thus came his final plan.
"He presented the Dark Lords with a new idea: a grand battle, an opportunity to kill thousands of Jedi Knights. Every single Sith would gather on the planet Malachor. Irresistible bait; an opportunity to end the war in one swift stroke. Winner take all.
"Only it was a trap . . . for both sides. Plagueis was the only victor. He unleashed an ancient Sith weapon which decimated the entire battlefield, leaving him the sole survivor. Though the Jedi Order would live on in great numbers beyond that battle, the Sith would live on in him—the balance of power in the Force making him as strong as every Jedi Knight put together.
"To ensure the Sith would always be more powerful than the Jedi, he set forth with a new rule to guide them." Palpatine paused, glancing down at the page and running his finger along it—he was reading directly from the text now. "'The Sith shall number only two. No more, no less. One to embody power, the other to crave it: a master, and an apprentice.'"
Anakin tried to gasp—his breath caught in his throat. "Maul and Valis."
The chancellor sat up straight at first, then leaned back in his chair. A slight chuckle escaped his mouth as he offered Anakin a shrug. "Indeed. It seems at least some of this tale is rooted in truth. Or our warlord friend believes it to be."
He spread his hands, as if to signal that storytime had come to a close. "And so you see, my boy, sometimes one person can make all the difference. It all comes down to whether one has the power—and knows how to use it."
Anakin wasn't paying attention anymore.
His mind flitted back to the first time he'd confronted Maul—he'd drawn on his own power then, but the Zabrak hadn't died. And then again, on Serenno—three Jedi against them, and still the warlord and his apprentice had escaped. Had stayed untouched, this whole time. "If they're as powerful as this suggests—"
"Oh, come now. You know how these legends are, my boy." Palpatine closed the book and shoved it aside, waving a dismissive hand. "They begin as a kernel of reality, but over time they are distorted. Half truths and exaggerations are added; perhaps even outright falsehoods. The lesson is what's important, nothing more. I'm sure Darth Plagueis existed; he may have even been instrumental in a major battle of this war. But whatever caused the Sith to dwindle from an order of thousands to an order of two . . ."
He trailed off, turning in his chair to face the wall with the three bronze statues. "Well, something of that magnitude needs a good story to go with it, I suppose."
"The Sith are more powerful than we realized, sir," Anakin said—he was perched on the edge of his chair now, putting forth a great effort not to sound like he was begging. A wild fear had gripped him. "Send me after them. Make them Vader's next target."
Palpatine seemed like he was on the verge of rolling his eyes. "I don't consider that a prudent use of your time or talents, son."
"But we have to stop them—"
"No!"
The shout sucked the air out of the room, and Anakin slinked to the back of his seat even as Palpatine shot to his feet. The chancellor seemed to be the one looming over him now, palms planted on the great stone desk as he leaned forward.
"No," he repeated himself—quieter this time—before turning away to stare out the panoramic window upon the capital city. "There are more pressing matters to attend to. If I'd known you'd react this way . . ." Whatever reprimand he'd been on the verge of delivering faded away. "We have a clone problem."
"Here on Coruscant?" Anakin asked, inching up in his seat to peer around Palpatine into the view beyond. "I thought the Guard was working on that."
Palpatine shook his head. "Intelligence findings indicate Kamino is still creating them."
"Why?"
"Does it matter?" the chancellor asked, throwing the words over his shoulder as he glanced back at Anakin. "They could be building an army for themselves, or for a prospective buyer. The reason is rather irrelevant. As long as someone can raise a fighting force of that size, the Republic will never be safe."
Turning back to his desk, Palpatine scooped the book up with one hand. He strolled across the office and back toward the bookshelf wall, speaking as he walked. "Your next assignment will be on Kamino, Executor Vader." He bent down and slotted the book back in its place on the shelf, sliding it between its neighbors with a pointed, bony finger. "This is not an assignment of disruption or chaos; it is not Sluis Van or Muunilist." Rising to his full height, he turned back to face Anakin. "You are to totally eradicate all cloning operations."
Anakin could do nothing except nod. "Of course."
"Now, I try not to get too involved in the particulars of your work. You know this. Unfortunately there are some . . . wrinkles we must address. The reason you are to shut down the cloning facility yourself is because we cannot send in a follow-up attack. A fleet quickly and safely traversing the space outside Kamino—the so-called 'Rishi Maze'—is all but impossible. A pilot of your skill, however, should be able to navigate it brilliantly in a smaller craft."
"I'll handle it, sir."
Now Palpatine was at his side, a hand on Anakin's shoulder. "I know you will, Anakin."
But there was something in the words—in the way the chancellor's shoulders slumped. Skepticism.
"That's why I told you this story, my boy. One person can make a difference. This mission is entirely within your hands.
"All you have to do is ensure that you use your power the right way."
And with your mind on the wrong things, Anakin heard the unspoken coda echo in his head, I don't know that you can.
He wanted to protest, but getting defensive now, trying to save face, would only make things worse. Instead, he simply said, "I'll do my best, sir."
With a fatherly smile that didn't quite reach his tired eyes, Palpatine withdrew his hand. "I'll see to it that all relevant intelligence is forwarded to your office aboard the Arbiter. I'd like you to depart for Kamino by the end of the week."
With a long sigh, Palpatine moved toward the office door. "I suggest you take some time to prepare."
You shouldn't have interrupted him, Anakin thought to himself, grinding his mechanical hand's fingers together with a squeak. There'd been a point there, something the chancellor was building toward, and as soon as Maul and Valis had crossed Anakin's mind he'd run roughshod over it. He was still thinking about it too much—about what his old master had offered.
I think you are the person I know what stands the best chance.
He'd apologize to Palpatine later. After the next mission. For now, he was convinced the answers he wanted didn't lie in the chancellor's office anyway.
Palpatine had been reading from an old document, a report on archaeological findings. He didn't know any more than Anakin did—he'd said himself he'd simply read the report out of idel curiosity. The pair could have sat there for hours as Anakin grilled the chancellor with questions; it would have accomplished nothing. The truth lay elsewhere.
It was why he'd set course for the Classical District. The home of the Jedi Temple, and within it his best friend.
There was something different about this place. Perhaps it was the abundance of foot traffic, the stonework bridges that formed pedestrian walkways between every home and storefront. Ancient masonry, much of it original—and any that wasn't a meticulous replica of the period's architecture—invited residents and tourists alike on a journey into Coruscant's past. A time when stars were still visible from the surface.
More than that, Anakin noticed, was the sudden sensory overload. Colors were more vibrant, sounds and smells more apparent. As the people strolled along the sidewalks, their steps carried more energy, their faces betrayed more happiness than a typical Coruscant resident. Anakin passed a caf shop just as a young couple opened the door to enter—the smell of the drinks and the baked goods wafted out, intertwined with the smooth tones of a lone Bith musician seated atop the café's tiny stage.
It felt like another world in all the best ways—and yet, he was too distracted to truly enjoy it.
Anakin reached into his pocket again, obsessively checking his commlink for the umpteenth time since landing here. Obi-Wan had still not returned the call his old student had placed on the way over here—he'd expected as much, though he'd hoped for a different result. A call back would save him the trouble of a visit. Save him the awkwardness of asking the question that had distilled in his mind. It summed it all up. The story of the Jedi's history with the Sith; of their war. Of Tarkin's investigation—had Obi-Wan known more than he let on back in that apartment? Of the nature of the Force.
Why didn't you tell me?
He could see it now, at the end of the block—an unassuming facade, not out of place among the old world stylings of carved foundations and intricate glasswork windows. Aurebesh characters spelling out Classical District Museum of Natural History were affixed to the outer wall—and inside, all was dark.
Barely stopping to look both ways, Anakin darted across the street to the museum's entrance. Sure enough, a flimsiplast sign was taped to the door: Closed for maintenance.
"No," he whispered to himself, pressing his face against the window and shielding his eyes with one hand. "Come on, not today." He squinted against the outside sunlight in an attempt to see if anyone was in the lobby. Lifting up his flesh hand and resting his knuckles against the transparisteel, he drew back to knock on the window—then froze, thinking better of it.
He'd already drawn enough attention to himself as it was—he couldn't help but feel the eyes of a few passers by staring at him. Stepping back from the window and offering one of them an apologetic grin, Anakin shoved his hands in his jacket pockets and shuffled away down the sidewalk.
A moment later, he nearly stopped dead in his tracks. Had he felt the stares of the pedestrians on him as he was peering in the museum window? Surely not—it had to have been a gut instinct, nothing more. He'd long since cast aside the ability to sense other people like that.
Hadn't he?
Anakin started moving again—faster this time, to put some distance between himself and the Jedi Temple. Whatever energy radiated from beneath that museum, he needed to rid himself of it. In an attempt to shove it aside, he mulled over the questions he would have asked Obi-Wan—in part rehearsing the conversation in his head, and in part hoping other ways to answer those questions would dawn on him.
This mystery investigation into the Jedi, he thought, was something the chancellor would tell him more about when the time was right. He just had to catch him in a good mood. Maybe after Kamino, when I've got good news to bring him. He frowned. Then again, why hasn't he already told me? If there's something going on with the Jedi, shouldn't he be consulting the only former Jedi he knows?
The Jedi Order's war with the Sith was a trickier matter. Palpatine had shared with him the only record the Republic had. If he wanted to know more, he'd need to ask a Jedi—and they seemed to be in vanishingly short supply these days.
Is the dark side stronger?
Irrelevant, surely—he'd stripped away his connection to the Force altogether, so what did it matter if one side offered more power than the other? If "balance" was a thing that could be abused?
Still, the question gnawed at him. Again his mind flitted back to Maul and Valis—to the Jedi's failure to defeat them, to Obi-Wan's whispered admittance that he thought his old friend was the only one who could.
What if their dark is a match for any light thrown at it?
At that, he came to another stop. He couldn't decide whether to laugh or to smack himself. He'd overlooked such an obvious thing—his own experience on the matter. He'd done something many generations of Jedi never had. He'd faced Sith. He'd seen the light go up against the dark. He could answer this one himself.
He found himself in one of the Classical District's nature parks—an expanse of grass bisected by stone paths, shaded with trees that had once grown across the planet. Wandering until he came across a bench, he lowered himself onto it and began to think.
It's simple math, Skywalker. Think of the strongest display of light you've seen, and compare it to the strongest display of darkness.
Settling back into the bench, assuming a meditation pose he'd probably learned from Obi-Wan, he closed his eyes and exhaled.
And saw it.
Obi-Wan Kenobi, in a seated position on the floor of a warship bridge, an oasis of calm and peace as a hurricane of fire stormed around him. The Jedi had kept himself alive while a piece of burning wreckage had crashed onto a planet with nothing but the Force. Unscathed and unharmed, he'd walked away from an accident that had killed hundreds of other people.
Then the image in his mind shifted. A city cradled by clouds, falling apart as the unstoppable force of gravity yanked it downward into a pressurized abyss. In the center of it all, on the steps of the palace, was a supernova of dark Force energy. An old man, fueled by hatred for everything that caused his home to crumble—and a young one, fueled by sheer terror that his wife and friends would die that day and fury at the world and at himself.
Dooku's darkness—our darkness, kept a city in the sky. Saved people that the Jedi failed to save.
Then came the shockwave. It radiated out from Anakin like a rush of water in every direction, painting the world around him in a blanket of darkness.
Shining against that darkness were strands of light connecting every living thing. Person to person, tree to tree, bird in the sky to squirrel darting along the ground.
Every living thing, Anakin noticed—except for him.
He was disconnected from the web of life and light that was the Force—and though this came as no surprise, he had never felt it as acutely as he felt it now. Tendrils of light extended from his body and drifted in the breeze, but there was nothing on the end of any one. Try as he might, each time he reached a shining strand toward another person, it shriveled away or shattered into a million shards.
Then he noticed the strands emerging from every person and extending down into the ground. Down toward the Temple, toward the tree at the center of its courtyard. He could see through the park below him, through the stacks of buildings that made up the Classical District, and into the Jedi Temple. It glowed with a solar energy, countless strands of light winding through it—some of them so very familiar. The people above didn't know it, but they were all connected by—and to—the ancient arboreal nexus of Force energy as much as the Jedi below were.
Anakin Skywalker, however, was as cut off as he could possibly be. The tendrils emerging from his body seemed to recoil from the tree of their own volition; no amount of effort could have connected him and the tree below.
He opened his mouth to scream, but no sound came out. Squeezing his eyes shut, Anakin made every effort to withdraw the tendrils of light back inside his body. It was the only way he could think to return the world to color, to block out this vision of his separation from the Force.
It was the first time in two years he'd felt its presence. It was like someone had ripped out the stitches of a wound that had only begun to heal.
He hoped to god he'd be able to sew it shut again.
Anakin had no idea how he'd managed to make his way back to his airspeeder, but he had—like a blacked-out drunk finding their way home. The haunting afterimages of what he'd witnessed in the park were still burned inside his eyelids; he was afraid to even blink, lest he see it all again.
As he eased his shaky body into the driver's seat of the airspeeder, realization dawned on him. There was, it seemed, one good thing to come of his introspection. Serenno. The place he put great effort into never thinking of had been exactly the place he needed to think of.
Obi-Wan had never told him about this stain on the Jedi's history, about their war with the Order of the Sith Lords—just as he'd not told him about the strength the dark side could bring on. Two people, though, had been honest about the nature of the Jedi. One had allowed him to openly speak about leaving; the other had himself left the Order too.
Contacting Dooku out of the blue seemed risky at best. He doubted the Count would be happy to hear from him—not that Anakin blamed him. But Dooku's former Jedi student was the next best thing. A recent scholar of Jedi history who had no problem facing the Order's flaws head on.
He swung the door of his airspeeder closed and reached a hand toward the vehicle's built-in holocomm. Unlike the feeling that had plagued his gut as he'd tried to call Obi-Wan, Anakin felt a sense of genuine elation as he dialed in the frequency. It had been far too long since he'd spoken to Qui-Gon Jinn.
Republic Archives: Report on the Investigation into Jedi Involvement in the War with the Confederacy of Independent Systems
[excerpt of a holonet news article discussing a document allegedly authored by the Office of Special Investigations]
Though the Office of Special Investigations report is currently incomplete, the draft of the summary obtained by the Coruscant Chronicle makes significant accusations about the state of the so-called "Clone Wars."
Treating the mythical Jedi Order as though their existence is fact, the report alleges that they were involved in the very genesis of the conflict with the Confederacy—and that the war's "biggest missteps," such as the now infamous Serenno Crisis, were "wholly and completely the fault of several Jedi." The report makes reference to several individuals who could offer more information to the OSI, though the anonymous source who provided a draft of the report to the Chronicle redacted those names before transmitting it.
The report's chief author, Wilhuff Tarkin of Eriadu, responded to the Chronicle's request for comment with the following message: "Though I cannot speak to the particulars of any supposed ongoing special investigations, I can assure the people of the Republic that any so-called allies who aided and abetted the enemy will be brought to swift justice."
