Chapter Twenty-Four: Time to Kill
Neon reflected against the ever-present rainfall. Eternal night brought on by permanent layers of smog loomed overhead. A disjointed orchestra of a dozen languages engaged in a call and response across a street slick with oil and water.
That was what most people saw when they came to Nar Shaddaa—but not Mace Windu.
He saw the fault lines, the fractures zigzagging up and down like spiderwebs, connecting this person to that location, one Hutt cartel to one hundred operatives. More importantly, he saw the weak points. When he'd lived here, applying pressure to them had been his speciality. His gift.
He stepped around a pile of trash that had clumped together on the sidewalk, shoving his hands into the pockets of his rain jacket. Through the fabric of one pocket, just past his fingertips, he could feel the cylinder of metal that had kept him alive no matter how dangerous the work became.
Further down the block, at the edge of a shrouded alley, he saw the telltale glint of a different sort of metal cylinder—one that had nearly killed him.
Two people—a Rodian armed to the teeth and a human dressed in rags—had brushed past each other at the alley's entrance. If you didn't know what to look for, it would have seemed like nothing—but Mace knew all too well. He saw the metal coins leave the human's hand, and the hex cylinder leave the Rodian's.
He tried to will his senses inward, to muffle his connection to the living beings around him—but it was too late. Euphoria radiated from the alley as the human jammed the cylinder into their nose, and Mace felt the phantom sensations of chilled hexacodone flooding his sinuses.
For a few seconds he was transfixed on the feeling, the world around him threatening to disappear. But it wasn't real—it was part memory, part distant sensation experienced through the Force. Still, it was enough to distract him from the two armored Twi'leks approaching him from behind, and the landspeeder with tinted windows pulling up alongside the curb.
One brushed past him, digging pointed fingers into Mace's coat pocket. It was a sloppy attempt at a lift, one the Jedi wouldn't normally have fallen for—but his focus was elsewhere. Namely, the blaster pistol poking into his ribcage. The other Twi'lek glared at him, pointed fangs bared in a twisted grin. The tip of the gun shifted slightly, pointing toward the landspeeder that had come to a stop beside them.
"Get in."
In the old days, on his first tour in Hutt Space, he would have tried to fight back. Broken the Twi'lek's arm, maybe even let himself get shot in the gut to make an escape. But the Force spoke serenity to him—a strange sense of calm, or even familiarity. He did as instructed, sliding into the back seat of the landspeeder through the waiting open door.
Mace held his tongue until the door was closed and the speeder started moving. He didn't look toward the person seated beside him before he spoke. He didn't have to—he knew her aura in the Force all too well.
"Was that really necessary, V?"
A chuckle escaped through the nose of the Weequay seated beside him—Mace finally turned to look at her. Several braids draped down over one side of her head, and though her outfit said "mercenary" more than "Jedi," a telltale lightsaber hilt sat fastened to her belt.
"That's Master Verrix to you," she said, offering Mace a grin and a nod. "And yes it was. Welcome back to Nar Shaddaa, Mace. Your arrival caused quite a stir."
At this Mace glanced sideways, squinting to peer through the tinted windows. Life outside seemed perfectly normal—for a Hutt Space world, at least. Armored enforcers collecting protection money from one business after the other, rows of parked speeder bikes coated in grime. If his arrival had caused a disruption, Mace didn't see it.
"I only landed two hours ago," he said, turning back toward Verrix. "I didn't think anyone noticed."
"There are watchful eyes on Nar Shaddaa, my friend, and you're not as subtle as you think. Everyone noticed. Hell, Gardulla already put out a bounty on you."
"She what?"
"Oh, don't act so surprised," Verrix said, a scowl crossing her face. "You iced one of her biggest distributors and skipped town."
"That was years ago!"
Verrix shrugged. "People still talk about it, and Hutt crime bosses know how to hold a grudge." She turned to glance out the window. "Anyway, that's what the curbside theatrics were for. We had to pick you up before someone else did. Now that you've been grabbed, the bounty hunters should back off. You're safe with us." A brief silence hung in the air, and she turned toward Mace again. "Unless, of course, we decide to turn you in. Collect the money for ourselves."
Slapping Mace on the knee, Verrix cracked a smile. "I'm joking, of course. Well . . . kind of." Bending forward, the Weequay reached down and snatched a rusty metal object from beneath her seat. When it came into the dingy light streaming through the speeder window, Mace realized what it was—a pair of binders.
"You showing up here presents us with an opportunity. We slap these on you, and Gardulla lets us walk right through her front door. It's a chance to get closer than we've gotten in years, and it's a chance we won't get again." Verrix snapped the binders open and extended them toward Mace. "What do you say? Want to take down Gardulla the Hutt?"
As he stared at the binders in Verrix's hand, the speeder was flooded with light. Mace turned to glance out the window. They'd just driven into Nar Shaddaa's premiere gambling district—the strip of hotels and theatres and casinos run by Gardulla the Hutt. Flashing lights beckoned patrons inside each business. Caged Twi'lek dancers hung suspended in the air. Gardulla was known to brag that the light put off from the district could be seen from space—but all Mace could think about was what sat deep beneath them.
The casinos are all a front. She has labs underneath 'em churning out product.
The distributor he'd killed, the one Gardulla wanted revenge for, had given him this critical bit of information—one he'd never had a chance to act on. Until now. An opportunity to leave the politics of the Republic behind, to untangle himself from a galactic war, and finally take down the hex ring that had ruined so many lives in Hutt Space—and nearly ruined his own.
As the speeder glided past another casino, he turned back toward Verrix and shook his head. The words came slowly, each leaving his mouth with great difficulty. He was throwing away his last chance at a fresh start, his one opportunity to stay in Hutt Space and never go back to the Core—but he couldn't bring himself to stay silent. "I can't. We've got a bigger problem. It's Palpatine."
Mace felt Verrix's aura shift—though the only outward sign her mood had changed was the slightest shake of her head. "I see how it is. The Temple spends the whole war sidelining us, telling us to stay out of matters we can't understand. Matters of the Republic. And after all that, now they come to ask for help." She threw an open hand in Mace's direction. "They even send you to do it, as if that'll soften the blow. It's insulting."
"I'm not here for the Temple," Mace said, reaching up into the lining of his raincoat—though Verrix's enforcers had pickpocketed his lightsaber, they'd missed the folded sheet of flimsiplast tucked safely away beside his chest. "I'm here for me." Extracting the flimsiplast document, he unfurled it and passed it across the landspeeder to Verrix.
Mace watched his old friend as she ran her thumb across the raised silver seal at the top of the document—the official emblem of the Galactic Senate. "Where did you get this?" she asked, her eyes transfixed on the paper.
"It's legit," Mace said. "That's all you need to know."
As Verrix read the Senate document, Mace once again turned to gaze out the speeder window. The roadway before them snaked upward, away from the seedy surface streets and toward the raised entrance of Gardulla's largest gambling house. The grand concourse was constantly packed with cars—the Hutt's establishments never closed and were always busy, brightly lit no matter the time of day. It was all too easy to lose yourself inside—that was, Mace supposed, the entire point. Bumper to bumper traffic before them prompted their speeder to slow to a crawl—though in the distance he could just make out the front door of the casino.
Verrix finally broke the silence. "I don't get what the problem is." At this, Mace turned to look at her. She held the document in one hand, her eyes narrowed at the sheet of flimsi in a confused stare. "So Palpatine's got a one-man private army. A little executive overreach is hardly new territory for the chancellor. Hell, didn't we have Obi-Wan Kenobi doing something like this in the last administration?"
"It's not about what he's doing, it's about how he's doing it," Mace said, jabbing a finger at the paper. "Look at what the report says this Vader did. The interrogations, facing down Kamino's clone security battalion, destroying the entire city—all on his own. How does someone do that?"
The landspeeder inched forward among the packed traffic, dipping beneath an arch of flashing lightbulbs—Verrix squinted as a wave of illumination passed across her face. "Simple: he wasn't alone. The report's lying, attributing the actions of an entire squad to one man."
Mace shook his head. "If it were a public report I'd agree with you, but it's not. That's an internal Senate document. Why lie?" He glanced downard at his feet as the interior of the car was brightened by another arch of lights. "Though in a sense he's not alone. He knows the ways of the Force."
"Mace, that's quite the leap—"
"I had the same thought you did: this sounds an awful lot like what Kenobi used to do. So I paid a visit to the Jedi Temple and asked a council of Masters if this Vader was one of ours. A Jedi Knight deep undercover." He paused a moment to let Verrix's unspoken question linger between them. "They said no."
Verrix opened her mouth, but before she could speak a voice piped up from the front of the car—the driver, a young human who had until now been entirely silent. "Master Verrix, we're getting close to the entrance. If we're going to head inside you should put the binders on Windu."
Sure enough, their landspeeder was only a few vehicles away from the front of the line—Mace watched as a crew of security guards and a valet driver greeted the occupants of the frontmost speeder, then turned to see that Verrix had held an open palm toward the driver.
"Just a minute." Then, to Mace: "So Vader's not an undercover Jedi. What is he?"
"To answer that we have to look back at Palpatine. You know I believe he's controlling both sides of the war?"
She nodded.
"High up in the Confederacy's fighting forces we have someone who knows the Force: Darth Maul. Now, taken in isolation that doesn't mean much. Palpatine could just be using the Sith for his own gain. But when you add in Vader . . ."
"Master, we haven't got time for this!" It was the driver again—they'd inched closer to the front of the valet line, with only one speeder between them and the casino entrance. Mace peered through the front viewport as passengers dressed in formal wear stepped out of the vehicle, and a uniformed valet driver slid into the pilot's seat.
Verrix said nothing to the young Jedi driver and kept her eyes locked on Mace, leaning closer to his side of the vehicle. "Keep talking."
He held out two open palms, raising and lowering them like an imbalanced scale. "Now we have two people who know the Force, one ranked highly in each side's army. Two dark apprentices vying for approval, proving their worth in a galactic power struggle to their master."
The speeder inched forward again, coming to a stop at the casino's valet stand. A valet driver, a uniformed Ishi Tib, bounded down the stairs toward the Jedi's vehicle.
Mace ignored the approaching valet, keeping his eyes locked on the Jedi Master seated beside him. "I think Chancellor Palpatine is a Sith Lord."
"Verrix!" the human Jedi shouted from the front seat.
The Weequay stared at Mace for a moment, then at the binders in her hand, before finally turning to glance out the window at Gardulla's casino. As the valet driver reached a hand toward the landspeeder, Verrix squeezed her eyes shut and shouted.
"Drive!"
Mace's stomach lurched as the landspeeder shot forward, throwing him and Verrix backwards in their seats. The sound of blaster fire slamming against the back of the vehicle reverberated throughout the enclosed cabin, and Mace instinctively reached for a lightsaber that wasn't there. Then he felt a hand on his wrist—it was Verrix, shaking her head and mouthing "just hang on."
The Force shouted a similar warning only moments before the speeder lurched downward—a glance out the window revealed why. Their driver had sent them careening off the raised platform that housed the casino. Shockwaves ran up Mace's spine as the car slammed into the street below before skidding around a corner and coming to a screeching halt in a shrouded alley.
"We weren't followed," the driver said between deep breaths.
"For now," Verrix replied, clenching her teeth. "Nobody peels away from Gardulla's place like that without her wanting to know why. They'll be sending someone after us." Leaning forward, the Weequay placed a hand on the back of the driver's seat. "Call ahead to the Enclave. Tell them to get a squad of Knights topside that's ready to scrap this speeder."
"Of course, Master."
Slumping back in her seat, Verrix turned to Mace. "Let's pretend for a minute that I believe what you told me—"
"You do believe me," Mace interrupted, "or you wouldn't have done that back there."
"Let's. Pretend." Verrix shot him a stern look. "What's the next step?"
Mace shrugged and glanced sideways out the window, watching as an oversized rat scurried behind a rust-coated trash bin covered in spray paint. "If a Sith Lord is running the Republic, dragging the galaxy down into a war with no end for god knows what purpose . . . I think we have to kill him."
Verrix's head bobbed in an almost imperceptible nod. "Have you shared this idea with anyone else?"
"There's a small group of people trying to oppose Palpatine on the legislative front," Mace answered. "Most of them weren't interested in a more direct approach. When I asked the Jedi Temple—"
"You didn't," Verrix interrupted. Mace kept his gaze locked outside the car, though through the Force he could sense a mix of embarrassed horror and strange pride radiating from the Weequay Jedi.
"I did." He turned to face her. "When I said I thought he was a Sith Lord, they said we couldn't afford to focus our attention on him like that. No sense chasing an unknown when we have two known Sith at large in Maul and Valis."
"And when you said you wanted to kill him?"
"They kicked me off Coruscant. Said I wasn't welcome back."
"I see." This time, the Weequay's nod was more pronounced. Leaning forward once again, she addressed the speeder driver. "Take us home."
Once they had slipped back into the dense Nar Shaddaa speeder traffic, Verrix seemed to tense up—she grew taller in her seat, interlocking her fingers beneath her chin. She seemed to be staring at nothing, gazing into the void—deep in thought, Mace knew. "What do you need from us?" the Weequay asked.
"A crew," Mace said. "We're only going to get one shot at this, and I don't want to waste it. I'm not going up against him alone. Let me talk to your people and see who's interested."
She nodded. "Anything else?"
"When the time is right I'll need passage back to Coruscant. If the Jedi catch me arriving—and they will catch me—I'll get hauled offworld somewhere. I need you to ship me and the crew back there. Say you caught us plotting something and that there needs to be disciplinary action. It'll get us to the Temple, at least. We'll have to sneak out from there to the Senate building—but I can handle that."
As the words left his mouth, the speeder turned sharply into a waiting garage door. The vehicle came to a stop, and darkness enveloped the three occupants as the door slammed shut behind them. Wordlessly, Verrix and the driver withdrew themselves from the parked vehicle—Mace followed suit, sliding across the back seat to exit behind Verrix.
A whirlwind of activity followed them. Work lamps snapped on, flooding the garage with light. A half dozen Jedi descended on the speeder with power tools, carving bits of metal off one at a time.
Amidst the cacophony, Verrix turned to stare at him. "You said I should ship you back to the Temple 'when the time is right.' How will you know?"
Mace blinked, and behind his eyes he saw a phantom image of the ballroom on Naboo. Of Palpatine—and the jagged strands that connected him to every other life form in the room. Their energy ebbed and flowed, strands becoming stronger and weaker as the chancellor moved about the room.
"Shatterpoint isn't just about knowing what to break," Mace said, his eyes still closed. "It's about knowing when to break it, and what else might break when you do." His eyelids fluttered open, and he stared back at Verrix. "I'll know."
Verrix nodded. Turning away from Mace, she reached toward a workbench in the garage—among the cluttered pile of tools, Mace could just make out a familiar silver cylinder.
The Jedi Master turned back toward him, offering him his lightsaber. "You'll be needing this." As he took it and returned it to his belt, Verrix gestured toward a door at the back of the garage. "Best head inside, I think. We've got a lot of work to do."
"I must say, my boy, you're looking very well. Not that that's unwelcome, of course, but coming after such a dangerous mission, I'll admit it's something of a surprise."
Anakin didn't feel well. His face felt drawn too tight against his cheekbones, as though the skin had gone thin; even days after leaving Kamino, the muscles in his legs still ached and wobbled faintly, the wounds he'd received still flared with pain. And right now, Palpatine's voice was a distant signal floating through an ocean of noise.
Touching his old power on Kamino had been clear, more than anything. The relations between objects made plain, each step of his plan snapping into place before he'd even had time to think of it. Coruscant, though . . .
The silence that had gnawed at him for years was gone, and everything was rushing into him at once. It wasn't anything concrete—the mental chatter of the entire planet wasn't at his fingertips. It was an overwhelming awareness—of the redrobes standing outside, of the staffers above and below the executive office, of the steady flow of life into and out of this building. Every single piece of animated matter on this world, from sentient beings to the smallest microbe, had sent a tendril his way, twining around him, joining him to them in a ceaseless chain. If he closed his eyes, he knew, he'd be able to see it, a glowing latticework of threads.
The one exception—the one constant—sat before him. Palpatine, as calm, as closed, as solid as ever.
Belatedly, Anakin realized he was expected to reply to what his boss had said. Blinking once, hard—and seeing the white of the threads flash beneath his eyelids as he did—he cleared his throat and said, "I was glad to get the job done, sir."
"You most certainly did that," the chancellor replied, a proud parent's smile on his face. "Truly extraordinary. Complete and utter devastation. The centerpiece of the cloning operation laid waste."
Nodding, Anakin felt himself sway just slightly forward. Pulling himself back upright, he asked, "May I . . ."
Immediately, Palpatine himself stood, beckoning to the chair on Anakin's side of the desk. "Please, my boy. Are you hungry? Don't answer that, of course you are." Returning to his chair as the young man took a seat, the chancellor pressed a button on the desk. "Moore, have supper for two sent to my office, please. Nothing fancy."
Behind Palpatine, the sun was setting, its orange fire deepening into a red several shades removed from the hue that dominated the executive office. In consequence, Palpatine himself was a silhouette, one a bit reminiscent of the shadowy skyscrapers outside. It occurred to Anakin that this might have been a deliberate choice in how the chancellor had positioned his desk—at this time of day, his already inscrutable face grew even more hidden, a shadow deepend by the light surrounding it. A powerful negotiation tactic, when meeting with the opposition.
Even as the thought occurred to him, he startled himself by speaking aloud. "You were surprised?"
The figure before him cocked its head quizzically. "I beg your pardon, my boy?"
"I . . ." What had he been saying? The combination of the chair and the fading light seemed to have flipped a switch in his body; all of a sudden, he was feeling very tired. "You sounded surprised. That I pulled things off."
With an understanding chuckle, Palpatine shook his head. "I always told you that your insight into other people deserved greater credit, Anakin. You're a shrewd judge of character." When that didn't elicit a response, his shadow spread its hands as if confessing. "Yes, you're not entirely wrong."
Before Anakin could formulate a way to ask the next question in a way that wouldn't sound arrogant, a chime buzzed. Palpatine voiced assent, and behind the young man the office door slid open. Silently, a server droid trundled in, bearing two plates of roast vegetables and some kind of bird. The smell of oil and salt hit Anakin's nostrils, and suddenly he was ravenously hungry. It was as though he hadn't eaten for days—which, he realized, he probably hadn't. The ration packs he'd brought along hadn't exactly been the foremost thing on his mind on his journey home.
As the young man did his best to eat at a polite speed, Palpatine picked absently at his own plate, his attention aimed downward at the datapad he'd been perusing before Anakin entered. If he remembered that he'd been in the middle of telling his guest something, he gave no sign. Anakin kept himself busy with eating for half a minute, then a full minute, before letting his impatience get the better of him. "Why did you send me, sir? If you didn't think I could handle it."
The chancellor looked upward in surprise, as though only just recalling there was someone else in the room. "Anakin," he said, "I have total confidence in you to carry out what needs to be done. I'd hope after all this time you know that."
It was a mild rebuke, but underneath it, there was to Anakin's ears some genuine hurt. It was hard to tell, though—he was tired, and Palpatine's face was in shadow, and at every moment he was fighting the urge to close his eyes and let a planet-sized network of life wash over him. Even now, he thought—why even now, after I touched it again, can I not figure out what he's feeling?
He'd lost his opportunity to respond; Palpatine continued, the miffed tone bleeding out of his voice. "I would never send you into a situation I don't think you could handle. I know what that's cost you in the past, and I promised you I would never put you in that position. But when I sent you to Kamino . . . I admit I had my qualms. You were our best option—our only option, with the fleet unable to push through the Rishi Maze. But this was without question the most difficult mission I've sent you on."
"So you did expect me to fail."
"I expected you to make it out unharmed. But I wondered . . ."
Something caught in the chancellor's throat, and Anakin stopped mid-bite to squint through the glare. Was Palpatine . . . choking up?
Inhaling deeply, the old man looked him in the eye. "I wondered if perhaps I'd asked too much of you."
Anakin hastily swallowed, opened his mouth to reassure the man across from him that wasn't the case at all—but already Palpatine was shaking his head, letting out an unsteady chuckle. He looked down at the desk, then back up—and in that instant became the leader of the Republic, of Anakin, once again. "But instead, you performed beautifully."
Flushing, the young man blinked, saw afterimages of trillions of threads radiating outward from himself. "I—thank you, sir."
Nodding, the chancellor smiled. "I do not know what Executor Vader did to give him the clarity needed to find a way. But find a way you did. Whatever it was within yourself you drew on, it made a difference."
Aloud, Anakin spouted some pious nonsense about how he'd only done his duty.
Inside, he remembered back to what it was he'd drawn on.
The way he'd seen his enemies' deaths before they happened, his actions mere fulfillment of prophecy.
The way the water had burst in all at once, its destructive power unleashed only because of what he'd done.
The perfect, crystal perfection of every step, every breath he'd taken from the moment he reconnected, each imbued with the same purpose.
Right now, Anakin felt terrible. He'd come down hard, and fast, and he didn't know whether a night's sleep would be enough to fix it—nor was he able to contemplate what he would do when he closed his eyes and was unable to shut his senses out.
But in the moment? As he'd acted?
It had been the best he'd ever felt.
The squeak of the feltpen against transparisteel cut through the silence on the bridge of the Fractured Iris. Beyond the dormant vessel's windows, the evening sun of San Sestina shone through Valis' hand drawn map of the galaxy, casting echoes of the inky reds and blues against her skin. She took a step back—another red X adorned the galaxy map.
Some of the markings were faded, set into the transparisteel—their ink had dried long ago. Sluis Van. Muunilist.
The latest marking was fresh—dribbles of ink snaked away from the pen stroke like blood. Kamino.
Valis stepped back from the map and threw the feltpen to the deck, cursing under her breath. As she exhaled, she felt a presence behind her—one steeped in the dark side of the Force—and heard the telltale hum of the warlord's lightsaber.
She didn't turn to acknowledge him. "I'd rather not do this right now."
"That is why we're doing it." The words were sharp, filtered through his teeth. "Draw your weapon."
Valis shook her head and spun on a heel. The Zabrak had activated a single blade of his staff, his body awkwardly posed in an imitation of a Jedi Knight's battle stance. With some hesitation, she lowered one hand to her belt. Unclipping her own lightsaber, she split the hilt in two and returned the smaller half to its resting place. Her blade sprung to life, its thin line of burnt orange slicing through the air like a knife scraping across a whetstone at the wrong angle. The sound made Valis's teeth tingle.
Angling the tip of her blade downward, Valis stepped sideways to circle around Maul. "I see little value in an exercise designed primarily to irritate—"
She was interrupted by an overhead slash from Maul—her arm recoiled in a hasty attempt to block the strike, sparks flying from the crossing sabers as they scraped against each other.
"Let yourself be angry." Maul punctuated his words with another flurry of attacks—with each deflected strike, Valis could feel the frustration building within her. She swatted each thrust of the saber aside with increasing intensity, until finally the dam broke.
"Kuat didn't work!" she shouted, stabbing the tip of her saber toward Maul's midsection—rather than redirecting her blade with his own, the Zabrak contorted around the thrust. "We attacked the Drive Yards. You and me. With the very same pirate ships that struck Coruscant. Vader has to know this. And how does he decide to retaliate?" She stepped back and angled her saber toward the deck of the dormant vessel, turning to glare at the map on the window. "He hits a completely unrelated target. He chooses to destroy Kamino."
"Wrong."
Though she wasn't looking, Valis felt his movement in the Force. She whirled around to face him just in time to intercept his oncoming saber blade, her narrower weapon fizzing uneasily against the pressure.
"I've been him," Maul hissed, keeping his saber locked against Valis's. "He did not choose anything." With that he shoved his full weight into the interlocked sabers, pushing Valis backwards and nearly causing her to tumble over.
She reached a hand behind herself, stretching out with the Force to restore her balance. "Sidious is picking his targets for him." The words left her mouth as little more than an exhale. Rising to her full height, Valis twirled her saber in a showy flourish. "We won't get a chance to face Vader until Sidious believes he can win."
Maul, too, had disengaged from the sparring match and was staring at the painted map on the viewport. Beyond the transparisteel, San Sestina's sun continued to fall below the horizon. Orange evening light had become the pinks and purples of a sunset; the afterimage of the map cast against the deck had become stretched and warped.
"You've been monitoring his movements," the Zabrak said—he'd begun to pace in front of the map. "His number of new targets is dwindling. We could wait for him at a place he has yet to attack. Ambush him when he arrives."
Now it was her turn for a surprise strike. She dashed toward the pacing Maul when his back was turned—a flash of alertness radiated through the Force as the Zabrak whirled around to intercept her oncoming thrust. "No!" she snapped. "I don't want any guesswork. We should face him with complete certainty."
As the light outside diminished even further, their faces were both bathed in the crimson of their saber blades. Maul's eyes flitted toward the map. "Where might we do that?"
"He works for Palpatine," Valis said, stepping back and whirling her saber in another flourish. "It stands to reason that, from time to time, he may return to Coruscant."
A snarl played across Maul's face. "The one place we cannot go."
"We don't have to," Valis said, grinning as she stepped forward and made a feint with her saber blade. "We have people there. Clones who were left behind. Pirates who chose to stay. We can enlist one of them to send a message." She slashed with her saber, though Maul was quick to parry the strike. "One Palpatine will never see, but something Vader can't ignore. It will force him to act."
"A threat," Maul said with a nod. "A warning."
"Wrong." Rather than strike out toward Maul, Valis angled her saber to the deck and slashed beneath his feet. A glowing scar followed behind the tip of her blade, and rusty sparks sprayed upward at the Zabrak. He leapt backwards as the embers clung to his clothing, snarling in surprise. His saber safely out of the way, Valis brought her own blade to rest just beside Maul's tattooed neck and held it still.
The sun outside the window disappeared beneath the horizon, and the two were bathed in darkness and the glow of lightsabers.
"Not a threat," Valis said with a shake of her head. Her blade retracted into its hilt. "An invitation."
Jedi Archives: Temple Guard Orders - Watchtower Protocol
[document distributed to all members of the Jedi Temple Guard, issued by Temple Battlemaster and Guard Commander, Master Cin Drallig]
By the orders of a council of Jedi Masters, effective immediately, the Jedi Temple Guard is to activate Watchtower Protocol. Jedi Knight Mace Windu has been instructed not to return to Coruscant. It is our duty to ensure he doesn't.
Rotating shifts will begin in the guard barracks meditation chamber right away. If you sense Windu's arrival on Coruscant while you are on watch duty, alert me immediately. It is unlikely Windu will return to the Temple if he makes planetfall; we must act quickly if we are to intercept him upon arrival.
We will also monitor planetary communications and interplanetary transit arrivals/departures to the best of our ability. I do not expect Windu to return using his real name. He has used aliases such as "Tellest" and "Jaless Dassin" in the past. I will be reaching out to the Nar Shaddaa enclave in an attempt to obtain a more complete list.
More to come. May the Force keep us vigilant.
- Master Drallig