Chapter 17
The Force fuels around the palace though many will not sense it due to not being neither Jedi nor Sith or a Force Wielder. That is the consequence of being in the presence of Darth Vader; being in front of the now man himself can still leave that effect as much as it was able to do when he was more machine than man.
In spite of everyone's beliefs about how Vader is fighting under the Republic, the former Sith does not crave that intention. He would never fight for such an unprincipled Republic that would eventually become a tyrannical Empire that maintains no compassion and under the boot of a madman.
No, he is not fighting for the Republic who is leading by corruption and many power-houngry Senators. Instead, he is fighting for the noble people on Naboo which is a strange sensation, though part of him hopes to pay back after wronging them in another timeline and demanding the death of one of their favorite Queens in a dark time.
Each Gungan and guard here goes into battle, knowing full well of the risk of their deaths so he cannot find it within himself to feel horrible for them. The only section of this battle that leaves him somewhat upset is that children is perishing in the battle and having their life be threaten. It sickens him immensely and reminds Vader of long-lost memories of the Clone Wars where he would witness countless children rush into battle and lose their lives because of the higher-ups of the Republic incapable of maintaining a fair balance of control and leadership between the Inner Rim and Outer Rim.
Vader draws back a fist, levitating five droids into the air before crushing them. Swiftly, he dispatches the other battle droids, hacking away at them albeit choosing to leave the hallways full of battle droids where he knows his wife of another time would be walking down shortly.
Underneath his hood, the face of Anakin Skywalker is impassive and cold as Vader's face always has been except a few times give or take when he sensed Kenobi on the first Death Star and at the time he craved the death of his former Jedi Master, but this is just a fatiguing battle that only draws not even a section of his power. One thing he would admit about being under the service of the Empire is that whenever he engaged in battle there was always a chance where the Rebel Alliance would have been able to pull through a victory, and while none of the Rebels were able to outmatch Vader in terms of leading military, some of those dangerous Rebels did take down fair amounts of stormtroopers. At least the Rebels posed a challenge after each battle.
With simple amounts of flurries, platoons after platoons of battle droids collapse onto the ground.
He must ensure Sabé is able to reach the Throne Room as the timeline is changing massively and there is a slim chance that the guards and handmaidens alongside the fake Queen can fail which means he must be at the Throne Room at the time.
After his lightsaber pierces through the final Super Battle Droid, Vader deactivates his lightsaber, clips it to his belt, reaching out with his senses for his wife from another time, detecting her presence near, her fierce front maintaining even in the face of life and death.
The thing is, in spite of all the risks, Padmé Naberrie must confront Nute Gunray to put a climax to this battle.
Whomever the Force decides to win is thinning on the line.
Padmé Naberrie along with her handmaidens and Captain Panaka and his soldiers follow the passageways that lead out of the main hangar through the city and back to the palace. It is a running battle fought building by building, corridor by corridor, against the battle droids who been left behind to garrison Theed. They encounter the droids both singly and in entire squads, and there is nothing for it each time but to fight their way clear without becoming entangled in a full-fledged engagement.
As a consequence, they avoids a direct route in favor of one less likely to necessitate contact with the droids. At first, they have no choice but to make straight for the palace, fleeing the battle in the main hangar, hoping that speed and surprise would carry them through. When that fail, Panaka begins to take a more cautious approach. They use underground tunnels, hidden passageways, and connecting skywalks that avoided the patrols scouring the streets and plazas. When they are discover, they fight their way clear as quickly as possible and goes to the ground, all the while continuing steadily on.
In the end, they reach the palace much more quickly than Padmé have dared to hope, entering from a skywalk bridging to a watchtower, then making their way along the palace halls toward the throne room.
They are in the midst of this endeavor when an entire patrol of battle droids round a corner of the passage ahead of them and opens fire. Padmé and her followers presses back into the alcoves and doorways of the hall, firing their own weapons in response, searching for a way out. More battle droids are appearing, and alarms are sounding throughout the palace.
"Captain!" Padmé shouts at Panaka above the din of weapons fire. "We don't have time for this!"
Panaka's sweat-streak face glances about hurriedly. "Let's try outside!" he shouts back.
Turning his blaster on a tall window, he blows out the frame and transparisteel. While her handmaidens and the bulk of the Naboo soldiers provide covering fire, the Queen and Panaka, together with half a dozen guards, breaks from cover and climb swiftly out the shattered window.
But now Padmé and her defenders find themselves trap on a broad ledge six stories above a thundering waterfall and catchment that feed into a series of connecting ponds dotting the palace grounds. Press against the stone wall, the Queen cast about furiously for an escape route. Panaka shouts at his men to use their ascension guns, motioning toward a ledge four stories farther up on the building. The Naboo pulls the grapple-line units from their belts, fit them to the barrels of their blasters, point them skyward, and fire. Slender cables uncoils like striking snakes, the steel-clawed ends embedding themselves in the stone.
Swiftly Padmé and the other Naboo activates the ascension mechanism and tows up the wall.
From behind, in the hallway where her handmaidens and the rest of the Naboo soldiers still hold the battle droids at bay, the firing grew more intense. Padmé ignores the sounds, forcing herself to continue ahead.
When they are on the ledge above, they cast away the cables, and Panaka uses his blaster on a window to open a way back into the building. Transparisteel and permacrete shards lay everywhere as they climb through once more, finding themselves in yet another hallway. They are close to the throne room now; it lay only another story up and several corridors back. Padmé feels fierce exultation. She will have the Neimoidian Viceroy as her prisoner yet!
But the thought is no sooner completed than a pair of destroyer droids wheels around one end of the hallway, swiftly transforming into battle mode. Mere seconds later, a second pair appear at the other end, weapons hold at the ready.
In a hollow, mechanical monotone, the foremost of the droids orders them to throw down their weapons.
Padmé hesitates. There is no possibility for an escape unless they goes back out the window, and if they did that, they will be trapped on the ledge and rendered helpless. They can try to fight their way free, but while they stand a reasonable chance against battle droids, they are seriously overmatched by their more powerful cousins.
In the wake of this chilling assessment, an inspired thought occurs to her, a solution that might give them the victory they sought in spite of their situation. She straightens, holds out her arms in surrender, and tosses aside her blaster.
"Throw down your weapons," she orders Captain Panaka and his soldiers. "They win this round."
Panaka blanches. "But, Your Majesty, we can't-"
"Captain," Padmé interrupts, her eyes locking with his. "I said to throw down your weapons."
Panaka gives her a look that suggests he clearly thinks she had lost her mind. Then he drops his blaster to the floor and motions for his men to do the same.
The destroyer droids step forward to take them prisoner. But before they reach the Naboo, Padmé is able to complete a quick transmission on her comlink, along with spotting a silhouette of a certain hooded figure that she knows well.
"Have faith, Captain," she urges a bewildered Panaka, her voice cool and collected as she slips the comlink out of sight again.
Anakin Skywalker, meanwhile, is caught up in the midst of a dogfight between Naboo and Federation starfighters. Still struggling to get off autopilot, he avoids engagement with the enemy mostly because his craft is flying in an erratic, evasive manner that take it out of combat range every time it get too close for comfort. Fighters are exploding all around him, some so close he can see the pieces as they flew past his canopy.
"Whoo, boy, this is tense!" he breathes as he tries switch after switch on the control panel, the fighter dipping and yawing in response to his unwelcome interference with its operation. But he is learning the control panel, too, his trial-and-error exploration yielding knowledge of what various switches, buttons, and levers did. The downside to all this is that the firing triggers to the laser guns had locked, and try as he might, he can not find a way to break them free.
He glances up from his search at a loud beep from R2-D2 to find a pair of Federation fighters approaching him head-on.
"Artoo, Artoo, get us off-!"
The astromech droid override the rest of what he is going to say with a series of frantic whistles.
"I've got control?" Anakin exclaims in shock.
He seizes the steering, flips on the power feeds, and jams the thruster bars left. To his surprise and everlasting gratitude, the fighter banks sharply in response, and they shot past the fighters and ride into a new swarm of combatants.
"Yes! I've got control!" Anakin is ecstatic. "You did it, Artoo!"
The astromech droid beeped at him through the intercom, a short, abrupt exchange.
Anakin's eyebrows shot up as he read the display. "Go back to Naboo? Forget it! Qui-Gon told me to stay in this cockpit, and that's what I'm gonna do! Now, hang on!"
His enthusiasm overrides his good sense, and he whips his fighter toward the center of the battle. All of his flying instincts kicks in, and he is back in the Podraces on Tatooine, a part of his ship, lock in on the intoxicating challenge of winning. Forgotten is his promise to look after Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, and Padmé; they are too far away for him to think about them now. All that matters is that he find his way into space, taken command of a starfighter, and be given a chance to live his dream.
An enemy fighter drifts into his sights ahead, warning. "Sit tight, Artoo. I'm gonna blast this guy."
He brings his ship into firing position behind the Trade Federation craft, remembering belatedly that the triggers to his laser guns are locked. Frantically, he searches for the release.
"Which one, Artoo?" he shouts into his helmet. "How do I fire this thing?"
R2-D2 beeps wildly.
"Which one? This one?"
He punches the button the astromech droid indicates, but instead of releasing the firing mechanism, it accelerates the fighter right past the enemy ship.
"Whoa!" Anakin gasps in dismay, noting with a grand of salt that now the Trade Federation fighter is on his tail, maneuvering into firing position against him, forcing him to yank hard on the steering, shooting past the massive Federation battleship, screaming out into the void in a series of evasive actions.
"That wasn't the release!" the boy screams into his intercom. "That was the overdrive!"
R2-D2 whistle a sheepish reply. The enemy fighter is behind them again and closing. Anakin banks his ship hard to the right and brings it back toward the blockade and the swarming fighters. Wrenching the stabilizers in opposite directions, he begins to spin his fighter like a top.
R2-D2 shrieks in despair.
"I know we're in trouble!" Anakin shrieks back. "Just hang on! The way out of this mess is the way we got into it!"
He streaks toward the control station, taking the enemy fighter with him. Laser blasts rip past him, barely missing. He wait for a second longer, until he is so close to the battleship that the emblem of the Trade Federation paint on the bridgework looms like a wall, then engages the reverse thrusters and banks right again.
His fighter nearly stalls, dropping away like a stone for a heart-wrenching moment before stabilizing. The enemy fighter, on the other hand, have no time to respond to the maneuver and rockets past him into the side of the battleship, exploding in a shower of fire and metal parts.
Reengaging the forward thrusters, Anakin wheels the ship about, searching for new enemies. Through his canopy, he sees a handful of Naboo starfighters engages in attacking the Trade Federation flagship.
Ric Olie's voice comes over the intercom. "Bravo Three! Go for the central bridge!"
"Copy, Bravo Leader," come the reply.
A squad of four fighters plummets toward the battleship, lasers firing, but the big ship's deflector shields turn the attack aside effortlessly. Two of the fighters are hit by cannon fire and explodes into ash. The remaining two break off the attack.
"Their shields are too strong!" one of the surviving pilots shouts angrily. "We'll never get through!"
Anakin, in the meantime, is under attack once more. Another Federation fighter finds him and is giving chase. The boy jams the thruster bars forward and speeds down the hull of the flagship, twisting and turning through its channels and around its tangle of protrusions, laser fire ricocheting past in a constant stream.
"I know this isn't Podracing!" Anakin snaps at R2-D2, as the astromech droid beeps reprovingly at him. But in his heart, it feels as if it is. A fierce glee rushes through him as he whips the Naboo fighter along the length of the battleship. The speed and the quickness of the battle feed into him in a rush of adrenaline. He would not have been anywhere else for the world!
But this time his luck run out. As he nears the ship's tail, a laser blast strikes his fighter a solid blow, knocking it into a stomach-lurching spin. R2-D2 screams anew, and Anakin fight desperately to regain control.
"Great gobs of bantha poodoo!" the boy hisses, fighting to stabilize his stricken craft.
He is hurtling directly toward the hull, and he pulls back on the thruster bars, cutting power and drifting into a long slide. He regains control too late to turn back and points the ship toward a giant opening at the battleship's center. Cannon fire whips all about him as the droids controlling the flagship's guns try to bring him down, but he is past them in a microsecond, rocketing into the battleship's cavernous main hangar. Reverse thrusters on full power, dodging transports, tanks, fighters, and stacks of supplies, he struggles to keep his fighter airborne as he looks for a place to land.
R2-D2 is beeping wildly. "I'm trying to stop!" Anakin shouts in reply. "Whoa! Whoa! I'm trying!"
The Naboo fighter strikes the decking and bounces, reverse thrusters powering up in an effort to brake the craft. A bulkhead looms ahead, blocking the way. Anakin brings the fighter down on the decking with a bone-jarring thud and holds it there, skidding down the rampway in a screech of metal. The fighter slows and do a half-turn and comes to an unsteady halt. The power drive stalls and then fails completely.
R2-D2 whistle in relief.
"All right, all right!" Anakin gasps, nodding to himself. "We're down. Let's get the engines started again and get out of here!"
He ducks down to adjust the feeders to the fuel lines, checking the control panel indicators worriedly. "Lights are all red, Artoo. Everything's overheated."
He is working on the coolants when R2-D2 beep suddenly in warning. The boy pops his head over the edge of the cockpit and looks out into the hangar.
"Oh, oh," he mutters softly.
Dozens of battle droids are approaching across the hangar floor, weapons raised menacingly. Their only escape route is blocked.
Nute Gunray stands with Rune Haako and four members of the Trade Federation Occupation Council as Captain Panaka, one of the Queen's handmaidens, and the six Naboo soldiers who fought to protect them are marched into the Theed palace throne room by a squad of ten battle droids. The viceroy recognizes Panaka at once, but he is unclear as to the identity of the handmaiden who accompanies him. He is looking for the Queen, and while this handmaiden bears a certain resemblance to her...
He catches himself in surprise. It is the Queen, without her makeup and ornate robes, stripped of her symbols of office. She looks even younger than she did in ceremonial garb, but her eyes and that cool gaze are unmistakable.
He glances at Rune Haako and sees the same confusion mirrored in his associate's face.
"Your Highness," he greets as she is led up to him.
"Viceroy," she replies, confirming his conclusion as to her identity.
That settled, he swiftly assumes the pose of a captor confronting his captive. "Your little insurrection is at an end, Your Highness. The rabble army you sent against us south of the city has been crushed. The Jedi are being dealt with elsewhere. And you are my captive."
"Am I?" she asks quietly.
The way she speaks the words is unnerving. There is something challenging in the way she says them as if she is daring him to disagree. Even Panaka turns to look at her.
"Yes, you are." He presses ahead, wondering suddenly if he misses something. His face lift. "It is time for you to put an end to the pointless debate you instigated in the Republic Senate. Sign the treaty now."
There is a commotion outside the doorway leading into the throne room, the sound of blasters and the shattering of metal, and all at once Queen Amidala is standing in the gateway beyond, a clutch of battle droids collapse on the floor and a handful of Naboo soldiers warding their Queen against the appearance of more.
"Viceroy!" she calls out to him, already beginning to move away. "Your occupation here has ended!"
For a moment Nute Gunray is stunned he can not make himself move. A second Queen? But this is the real one, dressed in her robes of office, wearing her white face paint, speaking to him in that imperious voice he comes to recognize so well.
He wheels toward the battle droids holding Panaka and the false Queen at bay. "You six! After her!" He gestures in the direction of the disappearing Amidala. "Bring her to me! The real one, this time - not some decoy!"
The droids he indicates rush from the room in pursuit of the Queen and her guards, leaving the Neimoidians and the four remaining droids with their Naboo captives.
Gunray wheels on the handmaiden. "Your Queen will not get away with this!" he snaps, enrage at being deceived.
The handmaiden seems to lose all her bravado, turning away from him with her head lowered in defeat, moving slowly toward the Queen's throne and slumping dejectedly into it. Nute Gunray dismisses her almost at once, turning his attention to the other Naboo, anxious to have them taken away to the camps.
But in the next instant, the handmaiden is back on her feet, any sign of dejection or weariness banishes, a blaster in either hand, pull from a hidden compartment in the arm of the throne. Tossing one of the blasters to Captain Panaka, she begins firing the second into the depleted squad of battle droids. The droids are catch completely by surprise, their attention fixes on the Naboo guards, and the handmaiden and Panaka dispatch them in a flurry of shots that leave the throne room ringing with the sound of weapons fire.
Suddenly, a crimson beam is flying at the droids inside of the throne room, and for a moment, Gunray thought it is that the ambiguous hooded figure who is the Sith, here to amend his mistake.
"Now you will all die," Nute Gunray declares victoriously. "And your Queen would be forced to sign the treaty."
He suspects a look of horror, fear, and anguish as there is no way a mere Queen and bunch of guards would be able to best a Sith Lord. Instead, a smug smirk is on the woman's face.
The reason why is quickly confirmed as it becomes a shock silent, the lightsaber immediately dispatching several droids, cutting furiously through metal after metal before returning to a figure in the shadows, the lightsaber whooshing off with a snap-hiss. In the shadows, there is a silhouette of the form, lightsaber hilt grasps tightly in a shadow's grip, ostensibly disappearing though it is crystal clear that the shadow is still there.
"Like the Queen said," Darth Vader announces, crushing the two droids standing guards, "your occupation here has ended. Your forces have been overwhelmed, and you are impossibly outnumbered."
"This changes nothing!" Gunray growls.
Shouting instructions to the Naboo, the handmaiden - if that's who she really is because by now Nute Gunray is beginning to think otherwise - moves to the throne room doors, triggering the locks. The doors swing shut, the bolts engage, and the girl smashes the locking mechanism with the butt of her weapon.
She turns then to the Neimoidians, who are huddled together in confusion at the center of the room, eyes darting this way and that in a futile search for help. All the battle droids lay shatter on the floor, and the Naboo seizes their blasters.
The handmaiden walks up to Gunray.
"Let's start again, Viceroy," she says coolly.
"Your Highness," he replies, tight-lipped, realizing the truth too late.
She nods. "This is the end of your occupation."
He stands his ground. "Don't be absurd. There are too few of you. It won't be long before hundreds of destroyer droids break in here to rescue us."
Even before he finishes, there is the sound of heavy wheels in the anteway, then of metal bodies unfolding. The Viceroy permit himself a satisfied smile. "You see, Your Highness? Rescue is already at hand."
Darth Vader comes further in the light, and surprisingly, droidekas are hovering behind and beside him, and Gunray didn't know how he didn't see that earlier, and although they appear to still be activated and operating, something is permitting them from firing at the occupants in the room and to free their Viceroy.
The former Dark Lord crushes them simultaneously before he throws them in front of the shock Nute Gunray, defeat slowly overhauling the Viceroy as the realization kicks in that the Queen and her entourage won this battle.
"Your reinforcements have been disabled, Viceroy," the figure taunts. He seizes him with his gloved hand, not killing him but intimidating him and restraining him. "You have lost. You will agree to the bargains of the Queen. You will confess your crimes to the Senate or," he leans in, whispering to the point where others in the room can barely register what's he saying, "I will kill you. Am I understood?"
For the first time, Nute Gunray is genuinely terrified. Jedi are conjectured to be apparently peacekeepers and ones who would defend all life instead of threatening or claiming them. The way of the Jedi is supposedly the way of wisdom and patience, backed by swift and decisive action when necessary. Yet, now, he is seeing one who is the opposite of everything that had been claimed by those across the galaxy. And if he is a Sith, why would he be helping the Naboo? Darth Sidious had reasoned that the Sith is on the side of the Trade Federation, but unless he had been betrayed; that means this is one who must be one who is rebelling from the Jedi and Sith.
He didn't have long to dwell as the Queen's impassive face is in his sight next, her stern face not lessening, not even slightly.
The Queen's hard look didn't cease. "We will negotiate a new treaty, Viceroy. And you will sign it."
And suddenly, a new treaty sounds smarter.
When Anakin Skywalker gets a look at the number of battle droids surrounding his starfighter, he ducks back out of sight again at once. If it have been at all possible, he would have vanished into the ship's fuselage and willed them both right through the hangar floor to a safer haven.
"This is not good," he tells himself softly.
Sweat beads on his forehead as he tries to decide what to do. He is just a boy, but he has experience with being in tight places and a cool head when it comes to dealing with trouble.
'Find a way out of this!' he admonishes himself.
A quick glance at the main and sublevel control panels reveals that all the indicator lights are still red. No help there.
"Artoo," he whispers. "The systems are still overheated. Can you do something?"
Footsteps approach and a metallic droid voice demand, "Where is your pilot?"
R2-D2 beep bravely in reply.
"You are the pilot?"
The astromech droid whistles affirmatively.
There is a confused pause.
"Show me your identification," the battle droid commands, reverting to rate.
Anakin hears the sound of switches clicking and circuits kicking in. R2-D2 is still trying to save them. Good old Artoo. The astromech droid beeps softly at Anakin, and the boy sees the systems lights change abruptly from red to green.
"Yes, Artoo!" he hisses in relief. "We're up and running!"
He throws the ignition switches, and the fighter's engines roar to life. Swiftly, he leaps from hiding and takes his place in the pilot's seat, hands reaching for the steering.
The droid commander sees him now and brings up its weapon. "Leave the cockpit immediately or we will disable your craft!"
"Not if I can help it!" the boy throws back, reaching for the deflectors. "Shields up!"
Hauling back on the steering, he released the antigrav lifts. The starfighter rise from the hangar floor, throwing off the droid commander, sending him sprawling in a crumpled heap. The droids under his command begin firing their blasters, the laser beams ricocheting off the fighter's deflectors, angling away in a tangle of bright streamers.
R2-D2 beep wildly.
"The gun locks are off!" Anakin exclaims with a joyful shout. "Now we'll show them!"
He punches in the firing buttons and holds them down, rotating the fighter clockwise above the hangar floor. Laser beams rocket in a pinwheel pattern, scything into the unprotected battle droids, disabling them before they can even think to flee. Anakin is howling with glee, caught up in the exhilaration of finding himself back in control. Lasers firing, he sweeps the hangar floor clean of droids, watching those still distant rush for cover, watching ships and supplies fly apart as the deadly beams cut through them.
Then something moves at the end of a long corridor, no more than a shadow, and deep inside, his instincts kick into high gear, shrieking at him in a frenzy of need. He doesn't know if what he is seeing is a weapon or a machine or something else, and it doesn't matter. He is back in the Podraces, locked in battle with Sebulba, and he can see what no one else can, what is hidden from all others. He reacts without thinking, responding to a voice that spoke to him alone, that whispers always of the future while warding him in the present.
Acting of its own accord, faster than thought, his hand leaves the laser firing buttons and throws a double-hinged switch to the right. Instantly, a pair of torpedoes speed down the corridor in the direction of the shadow. The torpedoes whip past the battle droids, supply stacks, transports, and everything else, and disappears through a broad vent.
The boy groans. "Darn! Missed everything!"
Giving the matter no further thought, he swings the fighter about swiftly and throws the thruster bars forward. The power drive kicks in with a ferocious roar, and the starfighter shot across the hangar deck, scattered droids in every direction, and catapults back out into space, cannon fire from the battleship chasing after it in a stream of deadly white fire.
"Whoa, this is way better than Podracing!" Anakin Skywalker shouts at R2-D2, grinning broadly as he zigzagges his Naboo fighter back and forth to throw the gunners off.
The astromech droid is beeping and chirping as if he fries all his circuits, but the boy refuses to listen, rolling and banking the starfighter wildly, angling back toward Naboo and away from the control station.
Then a shocking voice comes over the intercom from another of the fighters. "Bravo Leader, what's happening to the control ship?"
In the next instant, a flash of pulsing light sweeps past him. He glances over his shoulder and sees the battleship he escaped wracked by a series of explosions. Huge chunks tear away from the core, hurtling into space.
"It's blowing up from the inside!" the voice on the intercom exclaims.
"Wasn't us, Bravo Two," Ric Olie replies quickly. "We never hit it."
The battleship continues to break apart, the explosions tearing through it, shattering it, engulfing it, and finally consuming it all together in a brilliant ball of light.
Debris flies past the canopy of Anakin's fighter, and the light of the explosions faded to black.
"Look!" Bravo Two breaks the sudden silence anew. "That's one of ours! Gutta the main hold! Must've been him!"
Anakin cringes. He hopes he might get back to the planet unseen, avoid having to explain to Qui-Gon what he is doing up here. There is no chance of that now.
R2-D2 beeps reprovingly at him. "I know, I know," he mutters wearily, and wonders just how much trouble he have gotten himself into this time.
Blaster shots hammer into the door of the throne room in the palace at Theed. Captain Panaka and the Naboo soldiers spread out to either side in a defensive stance, preparing a crossfire for the droids. Nute Gunray wants to move out of range, but the Queen is still facing him, her blaster level at his midsection, and he did not care to risk provoking her into hasty action. So he stands there with the others of the Trade Council, frozen in place.
Then abruptly, everything goes still. All sound of weapons fire and droid movement beyond the batter throne room doors ceases.
Captain Panaka looks at the Queen, his dark face uncertain. "What's going on?" he asks worriedly.
Amidala, her weapon point at Nute Gunray, shakes her head. "Try communications. Activate the viewscreens."
Her head of security moves quickly to do so. All eyes are on him as he slowly brings the outer screens into focus.
It is then they each notice Darth Vader is holding something in his hands. It is not his lightsaber - for that is connected to his belt - but rather a small controller wielded in his hands before he drops the controller and smashes it.
"What did you do?" Captain Panaka inquires.
"Why, Captain, I have acquired full control of the Trade Federation's army before the battle," Vader replies, synthesizer full of amusement and smugness.
"You acquired it before the battle?!" Panaka shot up. "Why didn't you deactivate the droid army?! We could have saved more lives!"
"Simply because I prefer a challenge," Vader replies nonchalantly. "Furthermore, the brute the Jedi fought would have slayed you all. At this rate, you each should be gratified as you were distracted and so was the beast. He would have mowed you down to the last guard and handmaiden." Truthfully, Vader doesn't know if that is the truth, but it is certainly a great possibility.
Padmé shakes her head with a sigh. "Captain," Padmé states sternly but softly, successfully calming him down.
The glare sends Vader's way by the captain and most of the guards followed by - the now restrained Gunray who is vowing vengeance for how he is treated with such insubordination. Vader is not intimidated. Many of Sidious's inquisitors let alone admirals and the Jedi seconds before their deaths have far more menacing glares.
"You will pay for this. You should have stayed out of the equation. I will hunt you down along with Amidala. Both of your heads will be on my desk."
"You can try," Vader mocks. "You will fail."
In a Theed room in silence, Obi-Wan meditates to himself in silence, eyes clenched close as he trembles, recalling the violent natures of the dark side, the power that he felt, how he forsook all of his teachings. He will be exiled from the Jedi Order, have to be stopped before he eventually lashes out again, would fall and succumb to the dark side. He would be disgraced
Somehow, however, his thoughts are interrupted and constantly go to the former slave, Anakin Skywalker. Even without knowing exactly what he was doing, Anakin Skywalker flown a starfighter into the teeth of the Federation defense, penetrated their shields, landed in the belly of the Neimoidian flagship, torpedoes the ship's reactor, and set off a chain reaction of explosions that destroyed the control station. It is the destruction of the central transmitter that had caused the droid army to freeze in place, their communications effectively short-circuited. Anakin claims not to have attacked with any sort of plan in mind or fired his starfighter's torpedoes with any expectation of hitting the reactor, but after hearing the boy's tale and questioning him thoroughly, Obi-Wan believes Anakin is guided by something more than the thinking of ordinary men. That extraordinarily high midi-chlorian count gave the boy a connection to the Force that even Jedi Masters on the order of Yoda might never achieve. Qui-Gon, he knows now, is right. Anakin Skywalker is the Chosen One.
Unbeknownst to him, this is the making of a bond; the Force begins swirling around the Jedi Knight, connecting his essence to Anakin and forging a bond between them. It goes incredibly fast one would not be able to sense it, not even the Jedi Padawan himself.
Flashes of him engaging the dark warrior with all of his worse fears, hate, rage, and suffering. Flashes of him claiming the monster's power and exploiting it against others. Flashes of him clutching a crimson lightsaber and slaying innocent people. Flashes of him harboring dark robes and being a form lost in the power of the dark side with golden and crimson eyes. All brought to the light of his mind.
Obi-Wan collapses near the nearby wall and begins to sob, hoping that no one would hear him and come in to investigate, only to find a Jedi Padawan giving into his feelings instead of releasing his feelings to the Force.
It would just make him further a disgrace in the eyes of the Council.
In the other room, Qui-Gon Jinn stands, wondering what the Jedi Council would do next. If they do not accept Anakin among their ranks, he would have to leave the Order, leave his Padawan, so he can train the future of the Force. Right now, though, the Council is making a final assessment based on what transpired since their last session with the boy.
The door opens, and Yoda appears. He enters the room In a slow shuffle, leaning on his walking stick, his wizened face sleepy-eyed and contemplative.
"Master Yoda," Qui-Gon greets, keeping his hands wrap by his sleeve bowing deferentially.
The Jedi Master nods, advising solemnly. "Decided about the boy, the Council is, Qui-Gon."
"He is to be trained?"
The big ears cocks forward, and the lids to those sleepy eyes widen. "So impatient, you are. So sure of what has been decided?"
He bites his tongue and keeps his silence, waiting dutifully on the other for one of the rarest moments.
Yoda studies him carefully. "A great warrior and mentor, you are, Qui-Gon," he gargles softly, his strange voice sad. "But so much more you can be. More slowly, you must proceed, Qui-Gon."
Qui-Gon stands his ground. "I merely am by the assumption that I understand what the rest of the Jedi do not about the boy."
But Yoda shakes his head. "Be not so quick to judge. Not everything, is understanding. Not all at once, is it revealed. Years, it takes, to become one with the Force."
He moves over to a place where the fading light shine in through a window, soft and golden.
Yoda's gaze is distant when he speaks. "Decided, the Council has," he repeats. "Trained, the boy shall be."
The Jedi Master feels a surge of relief and joy flood through him, and a grateful smile escapes him.
Yoda sees the smile. "Pleased, you are? So certain this is right?" The wrinkled face tightens. "Clouded, this boy's future remains, Qui-Gon. A mistake to train him, it is."
"But the Council-"
"Yes, decided." The sleepy eyes lift. "Disagree with that decision, I must."
There is a long silence as the two faces each other. Qui-Gon did not know what to say. Clearly, the Council have decided against the advice of Yoda. That in itself is unusual. That the Jedi Master chose to make a point of it here emphasizes the extent of his concerns about Anakin Skywalker.
Qui-Gon speaks carefully. "I will take this boy as my Padawan, Master. I will train him in the best way I can. He is powerful in terms of the Force. I have little doubt there is no denying he is the Chosen One."
Qui-Gon understands the importance of attachments, which makes him unpopular among the rest of the Jedi Order. However, Qui-Gon is right about the value of love, and his approach would make him an ideal master for Anakin.
Yoda studies him a moment, then nods. "Your promise, then, remembers well, Master Jedi," he says softly. "Sufficient, it is, if you do."
Qui-Gon bows in acknowledgment, genuinely relieved that the Council would heed his warnings. "I will remember."
Qui-Gon stares at Yoda who nods.
Time to prepare for the celebration.
"You controlled the entire Droid Army and you didn't even stoo them?!" Padmé shouts, a exasperated expression across her face. "Vader, I'm not certain if I should outrage with you or laugh at the absurdity you have just committed!"
"In technicality, Skywalker is to be praised for the deactivation of the Droid Army as they originated from the Droid Control Ship. As far as they know, he is the one who stopped the entire army. Many will admired him. He would be talk about in history books. Children would wish to be like him. He should receive the honor." Vader replies, crossing his arms across his chest all the while feeling deep tints of amusement at what his wife is feeling as of now.
"You are willing to deny fame for someone else..." Yané states in shock.
"He is the one who piloted men and women into battle," Vader replies. "Whereas I played a vital role in the defeat of the Federation, Skywalker was the deciding factor."
Padmé nods slightly.
"To address your statement from earlier, Queen, I have neglected to mention that if Nute Gunray discovered me deactivating his army, he would have likely evacuated. At this rate, I stimulated onto his arrogant and incompetent ego, and also ameliorated your awareness and the battle in your veins, improving your instincts drastically." Vader responds, smirking ay their surprise through the Force.
"...You were testing us," Saché speaks in realization.
"You each are incredibly skilled in terms of marksmanships, but talent without training is nothing," Vader replies, answering without answering at all, folding both gloved hands over one another behind his cape.
She pinches the bridge of her nose before asking with irritation, "Can you at least answer with a proper explanation?"
"You each learned what's it like to be in the midst of a battle. This is the definition of being a warrior, to lead men and women into battle and mowing down any enemy that crosses your path while learning each time. Experience outranks everything. Now, you will be able to exploit your potential in future battles that are to come. Your instincts have been sharpened to the point where you may be able to combat and defeat Jedi with your bare hands. Unquestionably, you have witnessed death of friends and people you know, but now you will be able to perceive your senses as well as the Jedi." Vader's eyes alter gazes from Saché to Sabé. "Tell me, Sabé, what was it like to be in command the battle?"
Sabé closes her eyes, replying leisurely, remembering as much as she can from the battle. "Noise, confusion, smoke, adrenaline, reflexes - and training - all come together with an intensity that is difficult to describe to anyone who has not experienced this. Missing from the mix, until it is over, is reflection. It's scary too. You constantly are nervous that everyone and everything around you wants to kill you. Your hearing is either so sensitive that a second hand on a watch sounds like lightning, or so muffled that everything sounds like you are under water. You wonder what everyone back home is doing, you wonder if you will see them again."
"In that, you have learned what I have intended to teach you. You have called me a warlord and I gave you a taste of battle and being a warlord as one's tastes food." Vader retorts. "This is what the Jedi fails to understand, in forfeiting their warrior past, they have become shortsighted, inconvenient, and discourteous. War carries a terrible price few can return from, but war also have their refinements in not losing sight and to have stronger senses."
"At first I thought pacifism was the way," Padmé admits slowly, chewing her lower lip, something she does when she's anxious. "However, due to pure pacifism, I lost friends throughout the last week and we nearly lost our home." Her eyes lock onto Vader. "Why did you want to teach us this?"
"Simply because I have seen the potential within you all. It's an demanding lesson but you each see what I see. You learn that pacifism is not always the path." Vader responds. "I attempted to warn you but can sense there was no persuading you so I allowed events to occur. You each thought the Republic would aid you, and as terrible as the cost of learning this lesson, you now learned what's it like to live in the Outer Rim. You each have a taste of nearly losing your homeworld."
They should be angry with him about how he made them losing all who they love a lesson, but they cannot find it within themselves for some reason.
"Warriors aren't as terrible as the Jedi and other foundations make them out to be," Eirtaé replies, realizing her whole life along with countless others about warriors haven't been explained entirely. "Being called a warrior doesn't mean you are a horrible person. It means you are capable of going into battle and defending yourself. One is capable of being a warrior but remaining a good person just as long as lust for battle doesn't blind their judgment."
They will be quite useful allies to Vader in eliminating Sidious. For now, they are his only allies. He just requires to have a substantial amount of influence over them much like Palpatine had over him-wait? Is he practically manipulating them? Is he becoming like...
No! He will never exploit their loyalty to him, forcing them to commit atrocities, and have them be mere puppets that will be cast aside like garbage! He is not like Sidious! Not anymore nor will ever be like him!
Calming his thoughts with the light side of the Force, Vader sighs mentally until he feels those such thoughts no longer disturbing him. He cannot wait until he will be able to behead Palpatine's head from his shoulders.
"Precisely, and now you will intensify in strength," Vader affirms, eyes glistening, pleased they are now getting it and that he can persuade them one day to his side which will be beneficial in the long run since getting Padmé away from Palpatine's scopes since all he needs is the taxing challenge to acquire a greater influence on her. "The more you go into battle, the more your view alters to the galaxy. You each see the galaxy different now from your former view."
And thus, Padmé and the rest of the ladies are now swayed completely from their former versions Anakin Skywalker known. Their only comparable quality is their personality, but their pacifism has been limited drastically. Undoubtedly, Padmé will still loathe the creation of the clone army in 10 years' time and would still fight against it but she will take drastic actions against drastic measures.
"Are you all going to go retire soon?" he inquires. "You are still in your army clothes."
"We wish a word with Ani to thank him," Eirtaé replies this time with an amused grin now direct at Padmé. "We hope he is somewhere in the Theed Temple and that Jinn would send him here."
Vader is stunned. So they wanted-want to thank Skywalker? Why didn't they in the original timeline? Is it because Obi-Wan took him off Naboo immediately after the celebration, for he had lost his Master and crave not to be on such a planet any longer? Or perhaps they didn't receive the chance to do so because Kenobi was urgent to leave? He can't find it within himself to blame Kenobi. It's something anyone would have wanted to do after witnessing their father in all but title perish in the battle.
"Additionally, Padmé has a bone to pick with him about getting in a starfighter, demolishing a Droid Control Ship, and we wish front rows seats at such a display." Sabé adds with a knowing smirk.
Vader quirks his right eyebrow at the Queen. So she is overprotective of him, even as a teenager? Soul mates for certain.
"Don't believe I'm not thankful," Padmé declares, scowling. "It's just Jinn told him to stay in the blasted cockpit, and the next thing I hear is that he's leading an army of men against a kriffing Droid Control Ship! He literally was just freed from slavery and could have gotten hurt! What possessed him not to keep himself safe?!"
Vader takes no small amount of pleasure in this, along with a brief moment of curiosity. He remembers when Padmé flashed him a smirk and didn't appear to be angry with him in a starfighter. Then again, the handmaidens probably calmed her down and told her not to trivial herself on the negative, advice given to him by his own Master during his adolescent years and even as an adult. The two are more like each other, and he can imagine Sabé being put in many situations like he and his former Master from another timeline. Getting on the nerves of the older siblings is engaging after all.
"I believe you are just overprotective," Yané argues, teasingly grinning from ear to ear, "don't want your little boyfriend and future Knight in shining armor to get hurt."
"Ani isn't going to remain a child forever, Padmé," Sabé replies, winking at her Queen teasingly. "You will get your chance in many years time."
"You all know what time it is," Eirtaé responds with mirth, earning nods from her fellow handmaidens.
"Can you feel the love tonight?! The peace the evening brings! The world, for once, in perfect harmony! With all its living things! Can you feel the love tonight?! You needn't look too far!" The teenagers all sing in sing-songs voice loudly and annoyingly high-pitched.
"You all have no idea how close you are to bathroom duties after this, handmaidens," Padmé threatens, receiving pure laughter from her friends in return, and deciding to give Galactic Karma against Sabé by continuing in a teasing voice. "Weren't you blushing in the presence of Kenobi just several days ago, Sabé? Gushing at such a dazzling man."
Sabé blushes madly, earning an arched eyebrow by Vader and chuckles from her Queen and her fellow handmaidens. Is it possible that the handmaiden had a deep crush on Obi-Wan in the other timeline? If so, why hadn't he noticed it?
"Take it back."
"Never."
"You wait, Padmé, you're getting a wedgy later."
"Try me."
Why does the bantering of Padmé and Sabé leave him with a sense of longing? It reminds him much of Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi from another time. Even without understanding a Force Bond, Padmé and Sabé do have a bond, a bond stronger than the one between Padmé and Sola and even Padmé and Skywalker. He can sense it will never be undone, just like his bond with Obi-Wan, even deeply buried, was never truly destroyed until he eliminated him on the Death Star and that have been rebuilt.
"Lovebirds on all front," Saché states with a smirk.
Throughout their conversation when they begin to speak about something else, Vader's vision begins to contort. Sounds of ringing... along with the world shifting around him... he hears the sounds of blaster shots follow by flames...
Reality returns, and he gasps, facing the forms of seven handmaidens who are blissfully unaware of Vader's trivial emotions, that being evident by them now laughing at a joke of sorts that Rabé makes.
Vader is about to speak when suddenly he clutches his hooded head; something is wrong almost as if a rotating dagger is impaling through his head. A disturbance through the Force, and Vader pays close attention to it. The Force suddenly becomes charge in the palace, warning the Master of the Force there is something wrong.
He knows the safest and shielded place should be the palace itself with the guards, a few chosen Jedi by the Council that may or may not just been assigned here for his presence.
But something is not right.
Suddenly, a shockwave is send through the Force, a similar shockwave compare to the execution of Order 66 though less violent but still making him jolt back slightly as it have done to him briefly even after his turn. He isn't certain if the Jedi in the palace felt it, but given the Jedi's alarm, he knows they can as well. He can sense the Jedi are wishing to detect the threat instead of attempting to warn everyone in the palace and evacuate them likely believing they will discover it quickly.
The room falls into silence, and Vader clenches his hands up into fists.
And that is when the floor under him begins to crater, surprising each of them as they have never witnessed such an ability before.
"Run," he echoes lowly.
"Wha-" Yané is about to inquire him to ask what he is doing.
Vader seizes Padmé by placing his mechanical hand on her shoulder, tightly, his unwavering grip her to yelp. Undoubtedly she would have a bruise in the aftermath of this situation.
"Run!"
Truthfully, a part of him doesn't know how he has done it, how he manages to seize them all with the Force at exactly the same time with only his left hand, but he doesn't question his power. Theoretically, it can be protective fury that he formed over them due to the striking similarities they share of his daughter and not wishing to see those who share her appearance die, due to his wife and due to his sister bond with them, or something else entirely.
In reality, his prior concern should be evacuating Padmé out of the palace, not wanting to lose her a second time. But something inside of him doesn't want them to die.
Within his essence, he calls on deeply with the Force, outstretching his right hand and calling off not the light nor dark but the Force itself, electricity blasting against the doors, knocking the hinges off the doors and exploding down the halls, the glass on the doors scattering all over.
He hasn't run for quite some time, but he knows they have to escape less they will all die. Vader, by the Force, runs across the palace floors, ignoring the guards, Jedi, and other handmaidens.
They aren't certain if they have seen them, but Vader appears unconcerned with everything that is happening.
Vader continues to blast the doors away with his left hand. Luckily Jinn and Kenobi and his younger self are elsewhere, at the Theed Temple not far from here, so that means he wouldn't have to search frantically for them before whatever about to happen occurs.
'Sithspit, where is the blasted doors?!' Vader curses mentally, praying with the Force that in his stride he didn't go in the wrong direction, not wanting to lose people who he love once more.
At last, Vader sees the palace's main door stairs away.
'Seconds!'
Vader dashes down.
'A second!'
He pauses.
'Now!'
Explosions...
And the Force itself wavers...
Lifeforms fading...
Several young women is blasted out, the teenagers saved half a second too early with the flames pursuing them as they crash onto the ground safe distance away from the burning building...
...shrapnel and burning pillars collapsing completely upon Darth Vader...
"Vader!"
Flames consumes where he just stood, undoubtedly granting him a quick death.
How a relatively peace moment transform quickly into one full of death and destruction they will never know.
The handmaidens close their eyes or clench their hands up into fists, having to grimly accept this reality in spite of the pain in their hearts.
Unfortunately, the Queen of them does not.
Padmé attempts to run forward, ever the impulsive teenager she is. She cannot allow her many friends within the palace to perish after they have purposely thrown their life away time and time again for her.
"Padmé, no!" Sabé exclaims, grabbing the Queen and pulling her back, luckily in time as the flames emerge just as the handmaiden pulls the woman away. Padmé is stronger than Sabé but she will never hurt Sabé and they all know this.
"Sabé, let me go!" Padmé growls, attempting to push past the closest individual she has to her older sister but is unsuccessful.
"Padmé, Vader or Panaka could not survive that explosion let alone the rest of the guards!" Sabé replies sternly. "I'm not going to let you kill yourself!"
"All of our friends is inside! We can't abandon them!" Padmé shouts though she knows deep down Sabé is right.
"All of them are dead, Padmé!" Sabé shouts. "Come to your senses! What do you think they would do in your position?!"
Padmé's eyes widen, replying reluctantly. "They would do their duty."
Sabé nods, seeing she's getting her point across.
Padmé never feel this useless and valuable especially in her tenant as Queen of Naboo, thinking about her guards, her captain most of all. Captain Panaka was good! He was loyal, became Padmé's gun in many situations, he questioned orders which led to successful results, and often considered the quickest eyes on Naboo.
Another burning pillar descends, trembling the ground and staggering the women, reminding the Queen of her failures as she stares down. Padmé should have been pickier and have the palace checked from the ground up out of risk that the Trade Federation would attempt to bomb the palace. Now because of her arrogance, it is a miracle and especially due to Darth Vader that they have been able to survive.
Rabé tears out her blaster, just in case there are remaining battle droids who are waiting for them. Knowing the Federation, he may attempt to lure them into a trap. Padmé always wonders why she keeps a blaster at safe distance, her friend going so far as to sleep with it a few times, and received a cryptic answer each time, but she makes a mental reminder never to question such a motion again.
"Gunray," Eirtaé growls. "He did this."
"Gunray is in captivity, Eirtaé," Padmé retorts, staring down mournfully at this harsh reality of the world crashing down upon them once more. "This may be an outside party. Someone who is a sympathetizer of the Trade Federation in the Senate."
"We need a fire team!" Yané shouts into a comlink on her wrist, hoping that they would get here and be able to save at least one individual despite how enormous the flames are. "A fire team immediately at the palace!"
The Queen and handmaidens sit down, petrified for minutes as they stare at the flames, failure, sadness, and anger rising inside of them as they feel like they had failed. So many people are inside, perishing in the unmerciful flames. Vader was misunderstood but they begin forming a liking to the man despite how suspicious and untrustworthy he can be. That might just be in his nature but at the end he is a hero.
The various emotions of the Queen's handmaidens and the Queen herself are soon of shock, awe, and a dim kind of entertainment when the fire explosion splits halfway in the middle, the blaze smothering out to the point where it is small ashes on the ground.
In the middle of where the flames are, a figure is looming to them, causing Rabé to aim her blaster into their direction though it is a surprising figure who is striding towards them, their hands not raised. To the ladies, it appears the flames are obeying a blind command from the monolith walking forward.
Darth Vader, by the Force, is somehow still alive, body not burned by the fire nor is his armor. The man did not have a single indication of being burned or harmed by the explosion.
Unbeknownst to the handmaidens, Padmé begins thinking back to what her little friend said to her on Tatooine; 'A strange man surrounded by flames... me leading an army.'
"He's still alive..." Yané murmurs in amazement, a sentiment each of them shares. How can someone survive such an explosion?
Surprisingly, the flames are not disintegrating Vader's body. They are in all directions and under him but it appears he is being contained at bay. The monolith that is their odd companion finish his meaningful if not intimidating stride before them, another explosion activating within the palace a second later.
"Was he... holding those flames back?" Saché inquires, eyes wide in shock.
Rabé's lips twitch up into a smile, albeit it's pained. "He's Vader. What cannot he do?"
"My apologies," Vader apologizes, bending his head slightly.
In spite of disliking Panaka, he has people who he acknowledged before that survived inside of the palace such as Ric Olie and Jerus Jannick, two good men along with many others who would still be alive had he never got involved.
Positively, he managed to save his younger version of his future wife and her sisters' figures. He knows that the Queen and handmaidens do not know yet of Panaka's deeds so they still consider him a friend, relying on him for protection and trusting him. They didn't time travel from the future with the valuable knowledge he possesses. To them, Panaka's a friend who they can trust to no end, which is why it is a personal blow to them.
Whereas others hating him before; for Force's Sake, Sabé and the other handmaidens hate him in the other timeline with the Amidalans Rebel Cell they led. His own daughter even hates his guts, but he cannot bear with the fact that he is hated by these girls for some reason. There is also Padmé there and her hating him would wound him to no end.
He is prepared to be repelled with angry scowls, prepared to be lash out at, looked at like a vague monster, and forced to leave, full of remorse at even screwing this time up in just hardly a week of being here. His future galaxy hates him so it appears that this timeline will follow the same. What's new?
Instead of the judgment he expected, he is surprised when Sabé reassures with a slight comforting smile at his direction that casts no judgment, something he's not use to.
"Not your fault."
Vader senses they hold no hostility to him which is surprising since even the Jedi - most who he had slain when was one with the Force - still hold much animosity towards him.
"But if I hadn't left them…" Vader mutters, his voice full of self-despair and remorse, his eyes glassy.
"Then you would have died," Eirtaé insists, almost shouting at this point. "Not even the insanely powerful can save everyone. if you tried to summon... whatever you did to everyone, it would have been too late and thus more would have died. You could have allowed us to die but you choose to save who you were able to, Vader."
"I should have detected it sooner," Vader replies, tightening his leathered hand up into a fist.
Even Yané and Saché, who distrusted him, feels horrible for this man in front of them, each women never seeing such a valuable side of Vader. In their eyes, the fact that he is showing more emotions than the Jedi would have proves he is a better being in their eyes than the Jedi ever would be; hell the Jedi are hardly even impacted with the occupation of Naboo, but Vader, despite not showing it frequently cares for sentienal lives more than he will like to admit.
"Vader, you are not responsible for this," Saché responds, smiling slightly, deciding to offer the older man as much comfort as she possibly can.
"Besides, how can we blame you?" Padmé adds, touching his shoulder reassuringly, a gesture that she hasn't done to him yet. "Like Eirtaé said, you can't save everyone, Vader. You saved who you could. You could have just left us to die and attempt to get yourself out as Nute Gunray may have - same for the Force-forsaken Jedi who may have claimed it was the will of the Force or that gibberish nonsense - but you didn't. You saved as many as you can, and while low, there could have been far more casualties."
'Just like Luke,' Vader thinks, realizing that his not yet to be born son gets his compassion trait from his mother. Luke, like Padmé, is kind and thoughtful like his mother. He's idealistic and a dreamer. His son alone managed to save the second evil man in the entire galaxy due to those genres he acquired from the mother, the mother the poor child hardly even knows.
Ultimately, Padmé Amidala and Luke Skywalker are better people than he would ever be. Same for the handmaidens. How people such Padmé can be born on this planet perfectly explains how compassionate and fierce but determined she is.
Each of the females can only watch as a myriad of emotions covered in what must be the human's face through his elderly eyes that have seen much. Loss. Rage. Guilt. Repentance.
And then, acknowledgement.
Vader's glassy eyes evaporate, meaning he isn't blaming himself anymore. The sorrowful gaze in his eyes slowly falls away as well but there is still sadness, but they place it off as mourning of most of the guards, pilots, and other handmaidens being dead.
"Vader... I require a favor," Padmé states, her eyes showing that she is not about to enjoy what she is going to do next, which earns an arched eyebrow from Vader's right eye. "I need you to push the palace off the cliff..."
"What?!" Sabé demands, turning her gaze on her friend with an appalled look Padmé would have considered comical at another time.
The other handmaidens have similar reactions.
"My lady-!" Rabé hisses.
"You can't-!" Eirtaé shouts.
"Maybe you should reconsider!" Saché yells.
"We can't just forsaken the palace, my lady," Yané replies soft-spoken as always.
Though they each deep down understand why Padmé wishes to do this.
"That fire will spread. Civilians will die. I will not hesitate to save our people a second time." Padmé replies surprisingly dismissively, planting both hands behind her back with a forced impassive stare, her Queen Amidala voice slipping through.
Vader nods before outstretching his hands towards the palace, pushing it off along with the rocks that maintained the building for decades, followed by a swift explosion, waves of flame detect in the air. He senses their mourning and emotions of failures, but he will not comment, given the pain he felt in his life.
There is still a slight fire where the palace once stood but it will not be as complicated as to sniff out the flames.
Flashlights are on them in seconds. Vader senses that Padmé's guards circling them and quickly tending towards the ladies and he walks away without another word, going mainly unnoticed.
Right now he requires an uninterrupted meditation, less he will storm to Coruscant and slay all in his path to kill Darth Sidious before he is able to get the public completely on his side.
Instead of the celebration that occurred in the former timeline during the following days; celebrating that the Trade Federation has been liberated, Naboo freed from their terrorism, and the Queen saved, there is just absolute mourning as the corpses under white sheets and caskets are carried through the streets for people to show their respects for those so close to survival but ultimately dying at the end, and Padmé and the handmaidens cloud in black robes stare at each body being moved along respectfully, Vader walking to their side, crossing his arms across his chest as the women stare at the funerals under their hoods.
Kriff, why does this resembles his defeat after Mustafar, the death and funeral of Padmé, and the construction of the Death Star?
Except instead of the cold plastered face as there was on the face of Sidious and the satisfaction surrounding Sidious, there is just absolute terror, heartbreak, and solemn on their expressions.
While the ladies sobs as the bodies of many of their friends are carried on, he probes the Force, staring at the girls and finding out the truth that he has been suspecting since they arrived on Naboo. There is a bond between them. It can rely on their Force Sensitivity or it can be due to the Force choosing not to blindly trust him in not risking to turn back to the dark side. Vader thinks about severing it since this bond will position them in great danger in the future, but the Force nudges him as if warning him there will be consequences if he cuts it.
Vader knows this would be the darkest moments of their lives and permanently would scar them.
He will love the day when it will be time to obliterate Sidious's throat, for he knows his former Sith Master is behind this.
At least, this gives Darth Vader another reason to hate himself.
For Force's sake, it's only been a little more than a week and he already ruined the timeline.
Palpatine's election to the chancellorship dominates the HoloNet. It is far from a landslide victory, but he won by a wider margin than even the oddsmakers had predicted, due in part to the unexplained absence of several of his key opponents. With two Supreme Court judges and Vice-Chancellor Mas Amedda presiding, he take the oath of office atop the Senate Podium, after Valorum shakes his hand and disappears down the turbolift that led to the preparation room far below. In his address, he pledges to return the Republic to its former glory and to purge the Senate of corrupt practices. No one paid much attention, since every Supreme Chancellor for the past two hundred years had made the same promises.
Pundits, however, are quick to weigh in on what the election might mean for the immediate future. The fact that Naboo have managed to defeat the Trade Federation without the aid of mercenaries or Republic intervention have many beings wondering whether planets might follow Naboo in establishing their own militaries and challenging the power of the galactic consortiums. How might the events of Naboo shape the new Supreme Chancellor's policies toward the Corporate Alliance and other cartels?
Would legislation regarding the taxation of the free-trade zones and the legality of droid armies be reexamined? Would harsher enforcement lead eventually to the cartels' secession from the Republic? And might entire systems end up joining the exodus?
With so much attention being focused on the election, stories that might otherwise have been viewed as significant escapes notice. One such story is the unexpected death of reclusive Muun financier Hego Damask.
Hastily prepared obituaries contained the few facts about his life that are public knowledge but scarcely touches on the behind-the-scenes role he played in shaping the history of the Republic. Members of the InterGalactic Banking Clan are refusing to release any information about the funeral or about the disposition of Damask's substantial holdings on Muunilinst and dozens of other worlds. Off the record, beings remarks that the intricacies of the Muun's business concerns might take decades to unravel.
With the Battle of Naboo concluded, Palpatine has no time to bask in adulation or celebrate his win. His first order of business, indeed his first official duty, is to travel to his homeworld to wish Queen Amidala his sadness for their loss but celebrations for recruiting the Gungans.
It isn't until he arrived in Theed and learned of Darth Maul's defeat at the hands of the Jedi in a power-generator station that he understood in part the reason for the sense of loss and profound solitude he have experienced following the murder of Plagueis. Maul was killed without eliminating one Jedi or another which admittedly irritates Sidious but he have contingencies planned.
According to reports, the palace on Naboo have been bombed, and Sidious smirks; he isn't surprised Vader have managed to escape. Vader is his swore enemy. This is the war that Plagueis have foreseen - the war that is between Darth Vader and Darth Sidious. It is not avoidable.
That Plagueis's death and Maul's defeat occurred in relative simultaneity could only have been the will of the dark side of the Force, as is the fact that, until such time as he took and trained a new apprentice, Palpatine and Vader is now the galaxy's sole Sith Lords.
Disappointment also attends the fact that the droid army of the Trade Federation has been so easily vanquished by a handful of Naboo and an army of primitives. But Anakin Skywalker is the larger issue. No one can argue that he has shown remarkable courage and Force ability in destroying the Trade Federation's Droid Control Ship.
As Plagueis said: 'Already his actions begin to echo across the stars.'
The hooded figure walks over to the bed, staring down at the pale body of a Muun before it slowly morphs into nothing but robes and cloaks. So his suspicions have been confirmed. The insolent fool has betrayed him.
Does the traitorous fool really believe he has perished and that easily? He didn't even expect it to work objectively, but of course, Sidious has always been blinded by ambition.
This is who the insurgent of the Sith warned him about, all of the pieces coming together. Furthermore, his apprentice wanted to kill him in a drunken sleep instead of combating him in the respectful ways of the Sith to rise to power.
He is a sniveling and pathetic coward. Instead of fighting him like the ways of a true Sith would assert his dominance and the way of the Force, he chooses to betray him when he believed he was in a drunken state. He is superior to him when it came to lightsaber skills and combat, and he could move extremely quickly that he was just a blur to everyone else; he included. He fights like a calculated, cold, and merciless serial killer. He would only deliver a saber blow that maimed his victims, just so that after doing such he could watch the life slowly ebb from their motionless bodies. This was in an attempt to better understand the midi chlorians. He was far crueler and cunning than he ever was before seizing power for himself and taught him the ways of harnessing his emotions to fuel him in combat.
Admittedly, he was foolish enough to believe he could bring him over to his views when in reality he should have killed that foolish insolent idiot long ago.
That boy's time under his tutelage was spent learning Sith lore and tactics, and further spent politically as he clawed his way through the Senate. He could never match the tremendous skill and speed of his master and he knew this. So when he was appointed Chancellor of the Republic he decided on a cunning, but treacherous, way to eliminate him without facing him on equal ground.
He will lurk into the shadows, await Sidious's ascension to power, and then re-emerge when the time comes to claim what Sidious has taken from him.
He makes several words that vibrate through the dark side of the Force, one that can easily be perceived as a threat but it is not. It is a promise...
"Prepare, Darth Sidious, you will die..."
Arthur's note: Originally, the Phantom Menace was supposed to end precisely the same but then Sidious wanted to show up and I didn't want to make him appear incompetent like he is in the majority of the stories I have read involving time travel Vader besides one. He will not just walk around and whine like a child; he would attempt time and time again to kill Vader and pose a great challenge. I saw Sidious be utter idiotic and moped around while grimly accepting Vader's presence or other time travelers in so many stories or when Sidious is the main villain and I cringe each time. Neither Vader nor Sidious will be degraded in this story.
This chapter is to illuminate Vader's flaws and that he is not a Mary Sue. A Mary Sue would have marched down the halls and save everybody. Eirtaé's right: Vader is incredibly powerful but incredibly flawed who won't march down the timeline and do everything right. Padmé and the handmaidens were just at the right place at the right time. Otherwise they would have died too and would have if I didn't had plans for them. I like to exploit characters I build up to their fullest potential or find a use for them in the future.
May the Force be with you all always.