A note from the authors: Hello, everyone! With this chapter, we've come to the halfway point of The Risen Sith. The final days of Anakin Skywalker and the birth of Darth Vader lie ahead—we're equal parts nervous and excited to write them. We'll be back after the holidays with the final acts of this trilogy. Until then, may the Force be with you!
Chapter Forty-Five: Alone in Darkness
Anakin's world moved in slow motion—suspended in liquid, distant and hollow.
He barely remembered how he'd arrived here. Hands still bound, flanked on either side by Red Guards who had escorted him like the captive he was, until they'd come to a stop at their final destination. Anakin's prison.
His home.
House arrest, then, he thought—confined to the interior of his apartment for gods-knew-how-long, an example to anyone else in Palpatine's administration who might get the idea to pull a stunt like he had.
The front door loomed over him, larger than it had ever felt before. Every thought that had raced through his mind in the preceding hours was discarded in an instant—he'd rehearsed conversations, weighed his options, imagined how the inevitable discussion with Palpatine might go. He realized now there wouldn't be one. His punishment was solitude. Silence. Isolation. His world reduced to a few small rooms full of memories he'd rather forget.
Then the cuffs snapped open, freeing his wrists, and his mind returned to the world.
"You're free to go," one of the Red Guards said, snatching the binders away and turning on a heel. The pair of guards moved in perfect unison, gliding across the floor and disappearing down the corridor—leaving Anakin alone at his own front door.
Liar, he thought, fighting the temptation to spit the words down the hall at the departed Red Guards. Yes, he was unbound—but he wasn't free. If he dared show his face at the Senate complex tomorrow, he'd be tossed in a real prison cell before he'd made it through the front door. The message was clear: Wait here.
For what, he didn't know—and at the moment, he couldn't bring himself to care. Placing a gloved metal palm against the apartment door, he pushed it inward.
He'd expected things to be exactly as he'd left them—still, lifeless, sterile. Instead, furniture had been turned over, kitchen cabinets thrown open—liquor bottles lay shattered on the counter, their contents dripping down onto the floor. His eyes immediately shot sideways, to the master bedroom—its door was ajar, and through the sliver of an opening he could see more chaos within.
In a moment he was across the room, throwing open the bedroom door. A string of curses flew from his mouth between clenched teeth as he surveyed the damage.
The very precise damage. Only one of the two wardrobes had been rifled through. Only one nightstand had been thrown open and tipped onto the floor. Only one side of the closet had been ransacked—half of the apartment was entirely untouched.
Your half of the apartment, he thought as realization dawned.
Padmé was here. She did this.
His eyes fell to the floor, and panic welled within him. At the foot of the bed, Padmé had torn up a portion of the flooring—and beneath it sat a small compartment. An empty compartment.
How long has that been there? the dark voice inside his head asked. What was she keeping there? What was so important that she had to come back here for it?
What has she been hiding from you?
From beyond the bedroom door, Anakin could just make out the sound of footsteps inside the apartment. His heart rate spiked—had the Red Guards returned, deciding to lug him away after all. Had Padmé returned to retrieve something else? He launched himself toward the door, throwing it open and rushing into the apartment's central chamber.
Chancellor Palpatine was standing over his dining table.
The shadows cast across the old man's face only amplified the weariness in his eyes. It looked as though he hadn't slept well. I can't imagine why, the voice hissed.
Palpatine sighed softly, shook his head. "Anakin. There's something we need to talk about."
Here we go, Anakin thought—and though he wanted with every screaming nerve impulse to flinch away, to run, found himself automatically moving toward the chancellor. There was no escaping this—he'd brought it on himself the moment he made those calls, diverted those Star Destroyers. All he could do now was hang his head and listen as Palpatine drummed him out of service.
His feet brought him to a halt at the opposite end of the dining table, and the chancellor gestured to a nearby chair. "You may want to sit down. This won't be easy to discuss."
Anakin shook his head—the movement was hasty, erratic. "I'm fine," he replied. Let's just get this over with.
Palpatine nodded. "Very well." He paused to exhale slowly through his nose. "It concerns Obi-Wan Kenobi."
With great effort, Anakin tempered the panic that shot up within him. He managed a single, silent nod, biting back the What? that had flown to his tongue.
"He was recently caught infiltrating a secure Republic facility."
". . . oh."
It was detached and deadened, a fraction of the feeling that swirled within. The confusion flooding his mind—Why isn't he mad at me? He's supposed to be mad at me—warred with a sudden burst of clarity and recollection. In an instant, Padmé's words came back to him.
Obi-Wan is in trouble. He needs your help. I need your help.
You're the only one who can save him.
Is this what she had meant? She'd known his old teacher had gotten himself arrested, and she had come to him to beg for—
For what? For Anakin to call in a favor and get Obi-Wan off the hook for his crimes—
"During his escape," Palpatine continued, "he attacked several officers and soldiers of the Grand Army."
"Escape?" Anakin asked without thinking.
Palpatine nodded. "He is currently at large. A fugitive, wanted for high crimes against the Republic."
A wave of feelings washed over Anakin. First came the relief—then, the utter shame and disgust. You shouldn't feel better about him getting away. He's committed treason!
You're not much better, the dark voice added. Just wait—once he's done talking about Obi-Wan, you're next.
Though there was no anger in Palpatine's face—there was sorrow, and understanding, and resignation. "I'm sorry, Anakin, I know this is difficult to hear. But I thought it best you hear it from me rather than on this evening's news."
Anakin shook his head. Spoke through clenched teeth. "It's all right sir, I—"
"There's more," Palpatine interrupted, reaching out a hand in Anakin's direction. "Your wife was with him."
In an instant, everything clicked into place. Anakin's thoughts raced as his eyes darted about the apartment, surveying the chaos that Padmé had sown.
Obi-Wan wasn't the only person who was in trouble. She'd said so—she was in trouble too.
She'd come with him to San Sestina, hoping to turn him to their side—hoping to convince him to help them evade the law. And when it hadn't worked, she'd turned and ran. Come back here to gather her things.
Left with him.
"During her escape," Palpatine continued, speaking even as the whirlwind continued in Anakin's mind, "she killed multiple facility staff." He hung his head. "Not just soldiers. Technicians and engineers . . ." The chancellor trailed off before straightening up and staring intently at Anakin. "This is a grave situation, my boy. I know you're close to both of them, but considering the things they've done . . . I'm afraid I cannot help them."
Don't.
The tendrils of rage had returned, licking at the corners of Anakin's vision as his eyes swept across the surrounding mess. As the realization sank in: Padmé and Obi-Wan had betrayed the Republic. Betrayed Palpatine. Betrayed him.
Even worse, they'd done so together. As a team. A unit.
Partners.
"This facility," Anakin hissed, his jaw so tight he could barely open it to speak. He directed his words not at Palpatine, but at the dining table below him. "Was it Tarkin's? The Jedi investigation?"
Raising his eyes, he glared at the chancellor.
Palpatine nodded slowly. "It was."
"I want to help."
Anakin watched as Palpatine reacted to his words—the old man turned away slightly, gazing at a distant wall. Behind the chancellor's eyes there was a frustration, an annoyance that Anakin had expected to see long before now.
Desperation welled within him. "I used to be a Jedi!" he said, the words laced with an almost pathetic urgency. "If they've done something wrong"—oh, they have, the dark voice hissed—"I can help you find it. I can—"
Palpatine's head whipped back to face Anakin, his glare enough to stop the young man's speech cold. Slowly, he shook his head from one side to the other, his eyes fluttering closed. "If we're going to go down that road, Anakin," the chancellor replied, gritting his teeth in an apparent attempt to suppress his own frustrations, "we need to talk about San Sestina."
Skywalker, you idiot.
The dark voice taunted him as Palpatine's words hung in the air. He wasn't even going to bring it up. You led him right to it, you fool.
Anakin squeezed his eyes shut, willing the voice to go away—and forcing himself to keep quiet. He had talked himself right into this. Opening his mouth was unlikely to get him out of it now.
"Everyone involved in our investigation against the Jedi must be above reproach. Your actions must be unimpeachable," Palpatine continued, filling the silence Anakin had allowed to linger. "We cannot have the public questioning the validity of the investigation's findings—and your relationship with Obi-Wan Kenobi and Padmé complicates this enough already. If you are to be a part of what we're doing, I cannot have you stepping any further out of line."
Guilt tore at Anakin's gut. There were still things about San Sestina that the chancellor didn't know—and he feared they may be enough to push Palpatine over the edge.
Now is not the time for secrets, Anakin's thoughts pushed back against his own desire to keep quiet. Tell him!
"Above reproach?" Anakin echoed in a defeated monotone, his gaze slanting downward at the tabletop. "It . . . may be too late for that, sir." He forced his eyes upward again. "Padmé was there. With me, on San Sestina. She sought me out, said she wanted to help. I had her"—his mechanical fist squeezed shut—"but she ran. She got away."
A long, slow exhale emerged from between Palpatine's lips, and Anakin's heart fluttered along with it. This is it, he thought. He's really going to let you have it now.
"I'm glad you're all right."
What?
Though he'd said nothing aloud, Anakin's confusion must have been evident in his expression. "Judging by Padmé's actions at Director Tarkin's facility," Palpatine said, "she is clearly willing to go to great lengths to interfere with the investigation into the Jedi. I'm grateful she didn't do anything more drastic while she was with you."
She wouldn't have done anything "drastic."
. . . right?
"Of course you trusted her," Palpatine continued. "She's your wife. You didn't know who you were dealing with. And the public don't need to know either.
"As far as the citizens of the Republic are concerned, San Sestina was a successful military strike orchestrated by Executor Vader. A counterattack at the heart of the space pirate operation." Palpatine stepped back from the dining table and began to walk around it, moving closer to Anakin. "You've avenged Coruscant, my boy. They'll think of you as a hero! We needn't concern them with who was and was not there with you."
The chancellor came to a stop beside Anakin—as he ceased moving, his head hung slightly. "But, Anakin," he began, "I cannot—I will not—cover for you like this again.
"What you did has thrown our frontline into chaos. There are systems we have already lost. The only reason I am not at this moment facing an impeachment inquiry is that our efforts to rescue you were a success. If we had failed . . ."
He didn't need to finish. You would have thrown it all away, Anakin thought to himself.
"Your intentions were good, of course," Palpatine continued. When he raised his head, his eyes were hard. "But you of all people know that good intentions run amok lead to chaos.
"Executor Vader is there to be my hand. Measured. Ordered. Accountable. If you fail to accept that one more time . . . well. I will very much regret what follows after."
Anakin inhaled deeply, his whole body shaking with each breath. A flood of tears sat just behind his eyes, threatening to burst through, as he nodded dumbly. He felt his head start to swim, his knees grew weak—and then, in an instant, serenity overcame him. Stillness and calm, as Palpatine's hand came to rest upon his shoulder.
"For now, my boy, the battlefield is a place your talents are no longer most suited for. But I am grateful that you seek to restore my trust in you."
Yes, yes, Anakin thought, more than anything, but he forced himself to keep still.
"Henceforth, you shall be my right hand in carrying out the investigation against the Jedi. Where I cannot go, you will. What I cannot do, you shall. But, Anakin"—and here Palpatine's grip tightened just a little, the faintest amount of discomfort flaring in Anakin's shoulder—"you must do as I say. This office is the arm. You are the tool. Do I have your word?"
Letting out a shuddering exhalation, Anakin blinked hard, fighting back the tears before they could run down. "Yes . . . yes, sir."
Stepping back, Palpatine looked relieved. Though disappointment was still there behind his eyes, he nodded, and gave a fatherly smile. "Thank you for your willingness to help us, my boy. I know Director Tarkin will appreciate it. I appreciate it. I'm relieved that you're safe. I'm glad you're all right."
But I'm not.
As Anakin Skywalker stood beside the chancellor, his eyes and mind wandered across the shambles of his broken home. The couch where he and Padmé and Obi-Wan had sat that last night after Serenno, managing in spite of everything to ease into laughter over drinks and cards and tales of their adventures.
Now Obi-Wan was a fugitive on the run. He'd betrayed the Republic. He'd betrayed Anakin.
And Padmé? She'd lied to her husband. Run off with a traitor. Killed people to protect the Jedi Order.
The dark voice returned. At least she didn't do anything drastic while she was with you.
Yet.
And then, of course, there was the question that had wormed its way through his brain with increasing intensity on his trip homeward from the wreck of San Sestina.
What is Sidious?
What is it that Valis thought you could give to her?
"Sir," he began, looking upward at the ceiling to fight for coherence, "I—"
Then, Anakin felt the gentle squeeze of Palpatine's hand lower toward his arm, and none of it mattered anymore.
It was as if something within him had burst. Tears began to roll down his face; his body shook as he wept.
Then Chancellor Palpatine—the only friend he had left—pulled him closer into an embrace.
Anakin Skywalker was not all right. But in that moment, as Palpatine's arms wrapped around him, he could see a future where he would be.
The holoscreen the senatorial aides had hastily set up in the center of the office was a ruthlessly efficient mirror—Bail could see every crag on the face of his hours-ago self, the graying at his temples taking up more space than it had even a month ago, his hands repeatedly brushing at imaginary dust on his sleeves in a tic he hadn't even realized he possessed.
He very much hoped the anguish in his eyes was something the mirror showed only to him, not to the rest of the Republic. Certainly not to the Chancellor.
". . . have come before you today to say that I take the matter of treason extraordinarily seriously," his image said into a microphone, leaning over the podium as if worried that standing too tall would present an easier target. "When it concerns any citizen of our Republic, but especially when it concerns my friends. For that reason, I felt that what I say here needed to be said publicly.
"By engaging in espionage against the Grand Army and against duly appointed officials of the Republic's judicial branch, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Padmé Amidala have committed high treason against our government, our principles, and their home. While it saddens me that those whose support I have relied on and whose advice I have valued undertook these senseless actions, I cannot in good conscience let it pass silently.
"By royal decree of Breha Organa, cosigned by myself as senator from the Alderaan system, Obi-Wan Kenobi is hereby stripped of his military commendations and honorary rank as general within the Royal House of Alderaan. By my personal decree, Padmé Amidala's position as my head of security is hereby terminated. Should these fugitives be encountered by Alderaanian forces near or far, those forces shall do their duty as members of the Grand Army and bring them to justice."
Bile rose in his throat at hearing these words, much as it had as he had spoken them. Only a severe act of will had kept him from spitting at his own feet in an attempt to clear the rank taste from his mouth.
"In these times more than any other, it is vital that we as citizens of the Republic do our duty to maintain unity and peace. I intend to lead the charge here, and I hope that my constituents at home and my colleagues in the Senate will do the same." And then his doppelganger on the holoscreen had turned his back to the drone cams, ignoring the wave of questions surging forth from reporters' mouths, and headed for the nearest refuge he could find.
That refuge, it turned out, had been Garm Bel Iblis's senatorial office, where Bail, the senator from Corellia, and Mon Mothma were still holed up hours later. Mon had ordered some takeout, insisting they all needed to eat, but Bail's plate lay untouched before him. He didn't trust his stomach with anything solid.
"You did what you had to do, Bail," Mon said, placing her hand atop his own—the veins, Bail noticed, stood out more than they had when last he'd noticed them. All of us aging out of sheer paranoia.
"What I had to do," he echoed, his voice flat even to his own ears. "Not what I should have done."
Bel Iblis, who'd groused about the imposition and then promptly pulled some whiskey from under his desk, rose from his seat and punched at the holoscreen's dash, turning it off. "You had nothing to do with this, Organa"—he shot Bail a quick glare that very plainly said And if you did, you're not going to tell me anything about it, per our agreement—"and it was your responsibility to keep your name clean. Kenobi was a soldier, he understands that. And Amidala . . . well, in my estimation you're in dire need of a more reliable head of security regardless."
"I didn't even have the decency to say goodbye to them," Bail mumbled.
His rational brain poked its head out of the muck enough to remind him that this wasn't really true—he hadn't had the chance. Mere hours before the news had officially broken—before grainy holocam footage of fleeing Obi-Wan and Padmé alike had gone public in a report from Director Tarkin's own office—Bail had approved the transfer of funds from House Organa's pocketbook to whoever would be spiriting Obi-Wan and Padmé far, far away. The act itself had been a farewell, or as close to one as he was able to get—he couldn't simply meet the two of them in public.
Still, something in his mind kept telling him he could have done more to see them off. Last gifts before the separation. A warm farewell wave. Anything.
"Garm's right, Bail," Mon told him, sighing and turning back to halfheartedly pick at a mostly untouched plate of noodles in front of her. "Nothing you could have done would have helped them. Declaring your support for known traitors live on holonet? You know exactly what that would mean for you. For your friends. For Breha." Face crumpling as she bit down on food gone cold, she delicately swallowed and looked at the dead holoscreen, as if expecting it to spring to life of its own accord. "We just have to go on in their stead. Trust they're safe. Keep up the work."
Ah yes, the work. They'd lost Obi-Wan and Padmé, and in exchange they'd gained . . . well, the man whose office Bail was currently crashing in. Best to make use of that resource while they had it. Make it count.
Raising his gaze to meet Bel Iblis's, Bail managed to say, "Now that we have you with us, Garm, I'm going to be reaching back out to Lisbeth Holdo, Jan Dodonna, the other people who were on the fence. It would mean a great deal to me if you could contact them personally as well. Quietly."
Mustache rippling with a snort, the senator from Corellia nodded. "I would hardly have done it loudly, Senator Organa. Not with things as they are."
A beginning inside the ending, then—and from Dodonna and Holdo and the rest might come other beginnings, and more from those. Some seeds have finally taken root enough that we can water them, Bail thought, looking out Bel Iblis's window at the darkening Coruscant sky.
Let's hope they make it long enough to harvest.
An obscured sun rose over the battlefields of Malachor, transforming the expanse before Qui-Gon into a slightly lighter grey. As she stood atop a mound of rubble—ancient war machines long since wrecked and rusted beyond use—her eyes swept across the horizon and the endless sea of statues populating it.
Has anyone before me ever reached the center? she wondered. Made it to the ziggurat?
Perhaps, in ages past, someone had tried. Steeled their will against the onslaught of ghostly screams and made a run for it, bolting for the ancient temple at the middle of the crowd cast in stone.
Or perhaps she was the first. Maybe those before her had seen the work it would take to reach the center . . . and simply left.
Gritting her teeth, she hopped off the stack of wreckage, a puff of dust and dirt accenting her landing. Amidst the sea of frozen Force warriors, a perfectly straight line cut a path back to where she'd first set down her ship.
How many days had it been? How many weeks? Each was the same. She'd rise before the sun—its light did little to help her quest—and begin shattering statues. Reaching out into the Force, freeing their souls from the prisons of stone. Little by little, she'd inch closer toward the structure at the center of the battlefield—and once dull light had turned to darkness, she would rest.
She'd managed to carve a path wide enough to walk through—wide enough that the screams from the statues no longer tore at her mind. If she kept at it, she knew, she'd eventually reach the center. One day at a time.
Though she didn't yet realize it, today would be different.
As Qui-Gon took a step in the direction of the ziggurat, her eyes were drawn away from her target. To her right, toward a pair of statues, their stone swords locked in an endless duel. Their faces tense with sorrow as each one stared into the other's eyes.
No, Qui-Gon thought as she gazed at the duelists. Not their faces.
Their face.
The two humans cast in stone shared the same cheekbones. The same nose. The same pained eyes. Sisters, Qui-Gon realized—perhaps even twins. One a Sith, the other a Jedi.
Frozen in aggression for four centuries.
She sensed the fire in their hearts, and the pain behind each gaze. The endless conflict—between and within.
Don't make me do this, she heard one statue scream.
I don't want to do this, the other shouted back.
Qui-Gon squeezed her eyes shut, and stepped off the path she'd carved for herself. She couldn't just leave them like this.
But the path is clear! You can't afford to slow down, not now, a voice whispered.
She ran her gaze along the pair—along the moldering stone that had held them perfectly all these years. Heard their echoing cries in her head.
Did only the souls who stood in her way deserve to be freed?
Another voice joined the chorus. Her own. You don't have to do this anymore.
Qui-Gon stepped between the sisters, placing a hand on each of their shoulders. The screams grew louder; the phantom hum of the long-dead lightsabers pulsed in her ears.
Be free.
The statues shattered in unison, light and darkness washing over Qui-Gon all at once.
. . . . . . . . .
When the obscured sun set over the battlefields of Malachor, and light grey turned to darkness, Qui-Gon Jinn was no closer to the ziggurat than she had been at sunrise. Instead, where dozens of statues had once stood, an empty circle expanded outward from where she laid her head.
Tonight, when she rested, she would hear no screams.
It may have been reduced to rubble, but San Sestina's port still stands aboard the Fractured Iris. There it is in perfect miniature, in living color, splayed across the cockpit viewport from port to starboard—chokepoints carefully marked, entrances tallied, the rolling waves of the coast splashing up against the docks in a momentarily fanciful break from the otherwise laser-sharp precision of the artist's efforts. The markers' trails are difficult to see against the blackness of space, but they're there nonetheless, captured on transparisteel for all two crew members to see.
Valis's perfect plan, plotted to the letter. A ghost of victory, haunting the bridge.
She hasn't been able to bring herself to erase it.
There were no secondary fuel reserves aboard when she and Maul took off, no food, no water—they're drifting now, conserving power. If they want to survive, they'll have to dock somewhere soon—scrounge rations, gather lifeblood for the ship, keep the oxygen pumping—but Valis hasn't been able to bring herself to care about that, either. She ran enough moisture through the recyclers to get them a week's worth of water, and then she ceased to do much of anything but stare out the viewport.
She finds herself wondering now and then if this is what Maul feels at every moment. This timelessness, hours and days running together in one unending blur. How long has it been, since Skywalker and his fleet took her last vestiges of hope and pulled them down around her ears? Three days? Four? A handful of hours?
Maul himself she hasn't seen. She can hear him, belowdecks—screaming in impotent fury, slicing his lightsaber through bulkheads and ceiling over and over—but he hasn't joined her again on the bridge. When he does, she supposes, she'll have to take charge, to pull herself back into thinking—into making the plans, laying out the next move, keeping them going while her alleged master does nothing more than rage.
But for now, he's content to expend his anger elsewhere. And she must admit, after a long lifetime of crafting plans from whole cloth, she is down to her last cinder of ability to care.
When thirst's claws latch into her with unbearable savagery, when she becomes afraid of Maul turning his lightsaber's attentions from metal to flesh—then she'll move. But for now, she's content to sit here, staring through San Sestina to the stars beyond.
And then, when she has to, she'll think of something.
Verrix had never liked the Coruscant Temple. She'd only been there a handful of times, but each time she could feel the aura of reverence sticking to her scales in an oily sheen for days afterward. She preferred her home base utilitarian, functional; especially now, packed to the gills with Jedi from throughout the galaxy, the Temple felt like nothing so much as a massive church service. And the accommodations . . . she was going to have to get used to sleeping on one of hundreds of cots laid out on the courtyard grass, the dormitories far beyond their full capacity with all the travelers.
Still, at least she wasn't here only to wait her turn to pack and leave, like all the other Jedi from around the galaxy who had found themselves here. She had a purpose.
So too did the other Knights who stood with her, staring through the mesh of Mace Windu's cell, and they showed it. Depa Billaba, her stance always that of a fencer ready to drive her body into the straight line of a lunge; Cale Emmen, brawler's physique palpable even under his loose robes; Aayla Secura, her aquamarine hands hanging low over her belt like a gunslinger; and Mif Tosh, lightsaber not hanging from his belt but strapped to a bandolier across his chest, ready for ignition at a moment's notice.
Even before the recall order, Verrix had known she would join the four of them, Mace's crew. This had just given her the perfect excuse.
"We won't be able to visit you all at once like this very often," she told her imprisoned colleague, "or they'll grow suspicious. But a visit from your Nar Shaddaa friends every once in a while shouldn't raise any eyebrows."
Mace nodded. "We shouldn't need to meet all together often. But I had a friend come pay me a visit before she skipped town. She told me something I think you all should know."
He closed his eyes. A moment later, Verrix was seeing what he saw behind them—a long set of tunnels, all concrete and steel, winding somewhere underground. Along one wall was a door—when it opened, behind it lay not more industrial textures but royal blues and ostentatious tile.
When the Weequay Jedi opened her eyes, the other four Knights were nodding among themselves. They'd seen it too.
"She worked at the Senate for a long time," Mace told them. "This is our way in."
Aayla ran her fingers over the metal cylinder at her belt, lekku twitching. "So when do we go?"
"Not yet. Not til the time is right."
The Twi'lek rolled her eyes. "Shatterpoint?"
"Common sense," Depa replied, her voice calm but exactingly precise. "We can't pick just any day to go after him. We'll need the eyes around him distracted. We'll need to know exactly where he'll be. We'll need to have prepared our way precisely—checked for every eventuality."
"All that," Mace agreed. "But Aayla wasn't wrong. Palpatine was a wide-open shatterpoint until recently. But now . . ." He raised his eyes toward the padded ceiling, searching for the right analogy. "The crystal around him is hardening. Growing more solid, more impenetrable. We have to hit him at the precise time and place where there's a possibility he'll break, or we've wasted our chance."
Cale crossed his burly arms. "And what do we do til then?"
"What you have been. Contrive any excuse you can to stay here, at the Temple. Help out with preparing the arks, copy records for Jocasta Nu, volunteer for guard duty."
Mif Tosh bared his teeth in a snarling grin. "Not sure these Core Knights will like working with us. They're soft."
"Nevertheless," Verrix replied, the other Knights instinctively stiffening at the voice of a Master, "Mace is right. If we're shipped out on an ark, that's our chance gone. We have to stay, and we have to plan."
She didn't relish the idea more than any of the rest of them. But if there was one thing Nar Shaddaa had taught her, it was how to do things she didn't like if she had to.
"We'll come to see you one by one, irregularly," she told Mace. "You won't have much company, but that's the way you like it, I suppose."
Snorting, he replied, "They feel bad about keeping me here, I think. Send me visitors sometimes. If I have to be subjected to it, you might as well take turns on the roster."
"Well, until then." Verrix bowed in farewell, then gestured to the others. "Let's start making ourselves useful."
Mace sat there in silence for a long time after they'd left, staring at nothing in particular. Tracing the edges of a crystal in his mind. Searching for the pinpoint weakness that would turn the whole thing to dust.
A single candle flickers in the Executive Office.
The walls and carpet, so bloody scarlet in the light of day, are dim now, colorless, save for the patch directly within the flame's reach. Ordinarily, the ambient light from outside would cast some faint illumination upon the rest, but the vast window has been fully polarized—nothing gets in, nothing gets out.
In this murk, its sole light guttering and swaying, the ancient artworks that line the walls have a troubling life to them. Their shadows dance, moving back and forth with the flame, seeming to writhe in their frames or loom upward from the floor. A darkly whispering puppet show, for an audience of none.
Or perhaps not quite none.
For, after a long stillness, one of the shadows begins to truly move.
The shadow rises from its desk, examines itself in the polished surface. The reflected face, half-obscured, cannot be grasped; it flits back and forth with the candle, always entering the light and always fading back into darkness.
Seeing this, the shadow smiles.
With slow, easy strides, it crosses toward the east wall of the office. Its footfalls are indiscernible, falling softly on the carpet; from the proper angle, it would seem to glide.
As the shadow nears the particular statue it has singled out, that statue wavers sharply in the candlelight, the silhouette of its clawed hands almost flinching with the illusion.
Though there is no one there to see it, the shadow smiles.
"So much power you gave me," the shadow whispers, running its hand along the cool obsidian stone—a stone that, were it to be analyzed, would not appear on the element charts of any scientific institution. "So much you entrusted to me. Blind fool."
As the shadow removes its hand, the statue seems to cower in the light of the shifting flame.
"Your trust . . . misplaced, it may have been. But very soon now, it will nonetheless bear fruit. Let that be a bit of comfort."
The final words are so quiet they almost don't exist at all. "And rest assured, I won't make your mistake."
Slowly, calmly, the shadow traces its path back to the chair behind the desk. Takes its place there.
Waits alone in darkness.
The railing overlooking the cargo hold creaked beneath Obi-Wan's weight. On this ship, everything creaked. The hulking freighter he now found himself aboard was somehow more patchwork than the Spice Dancer, and equally rusty.
Better, he supposed, for flying under the radar. The aesthetic equivalent of a Jedi mind trick—customs officers and would-be pirates alike would simply look the other way. Nothing to see here, he thought to himself, instinctively waving his hand at nothing in particular.
Beside him, the railing creaked again as another being leaned her weight against it. A sideways glance revealed one Padmé Amidala, mindlessly swiping her finger around the ridges of the wooden pendant that hung from her neck. With her free hand, she gestured down to the hold below.
"Our entire lives, crammed into a cargo hauler," Padmé said through clenched teeth.
Obi-Wan's heart sank as he gazed down at the contents of the hauler's hold. Crates sat lashed to the decking with ratchet straps, their contents indicated by aurebesh text stamped into the sides. In one corner sat a collection of vehicles—a couple of speeder bikes, as well as an odd contraption bearing actual wheels. Beside them, its shape plainly visible beneath a tied-down tarp, was the Dancer.
"I knew life would get interesting when I met you," Padmé continued, "but I never thought it would end up like this."
"Maybe it isn't supposed to," he said without thinking, the words coming out in a long exhale.
From beside him, he felt a jolt of alertness in the Force. He'd gotten her attention without meaning to, snapped her out of whatever lull she was in. "What do you mean?"
What if we aren't meant to do this? What if we aren't supposed to disappear?
He'd been so certain of it back at the Temple. So ready to accept that he needed to leave to protect the Order; that anything he could fix was out of reach, especially Anakin. But if he's reconnected to the Force, he'll need me.
Padmé wasn't a Jedi, but she must have seen it in his eyes. Her head shook back and forth slowly, deliberately. "Obi-Wan, you didn't see what I saw."
Before he could reply, she reached up again to brush against the necklace. "The Anakin I saw . . . he was confused, and angry. And dangerous." Her eyes squeezed shut before snapping open again. "I don't want him near my child. Which means I need to leave. And I'd very much like it if you came with me, so . . ."
He wanted to insist. But he remembered his promise, so recently made—remembered his duty to the Jedi, to her—and instead simply nodded.
As Padmé's posture relaxed in relief, Obi-Wan prayed he was doing the right thing.
The swoosh of an opening door prompted both of them to turn their heads as a new arrival strolled into the cargo deck. "Am I interrupting something?"
The voice was human—though only just so. Beneath the tones of a man's voice lay another layer, the robotic hiss of a droid's vocoder. The two wove together as though the person speaking were doing so over a comm line—though Obi-Wan barely noticed as he gazed at the man. His appearance was far more distracting than his voice.
Half his head was metal. An entire hemisphere of his skull seemed to have been stolen from a droid. A bundle of interwoven wires served to approximate half his hair; a glowing optical sensor sat where one eye would have been—every time the man blinked, it powered down for the briefest moment.
This was the man who would help them disappear.
"No," Padmé replied, a brash confidence behind her voice. Obi-Wan could tell she was grateful for the interruption.
"Good," the disappearer said, his half-droid head bobbing down in a short nod. "There's something I wanted to talk to you about before we made our final approach. I'm, ah, a bit concerned about some of the cargo you're bringing with you. I don't typically recommend my clients bring hyperdrive-equipped ships—"
"The Dancer stays with us," Padmé interrupted, moving her weight to one foot as she crossed her arms.
The disappearer let out a long, static-laced sigh. "All right, look," he began, his optical sensor going dark as he closed his eyes for a moment, "I'm going to give you the same speech I've given everyone else I've ever done this for. What I provide is a one-time service. I find you a new home and help you vanish there. What happens after that is up to you."
He gestured down to the cargo hold below them, sweeping his hand to indicate the arrangement of crates. "There's enough crop starters in there to spin up a small farm, keep you fed as long as you need. You screw that up, kill them all off, and starve to death?" He turned to glare at Obi-Wan, cocking his head to one side. "That's on you.
"And if you get bored, or lonely, or sick of each other"—at this, he spun to glare at Padmé—"and fly your ship to the nearest inhabited system? Get yourselves caught? Well, that's on you too. Don't come find me and ask for a do-over, because you won't get one."
He jabbed a finger up at the mess of wires atop his head. "When we're done here, I'm popping the memory tape out of my noggin and tossing it in the incinerator. I won't remember where I took you, I won't remember your names. I'll remember just enough to know I've done business with you once, and once is all you get." A shrill electric screech accompanied a series of short coughs. "I'd really hate for your rich friend to have wasted his money bankrolling this excursion, wouldn't you?"
Padmé's eyes narrowed. "The transfer cleared. You already got your money, right? What do you care?"
At this, the disappearer cocked his head to one side and offered a lazy shrug. "If that's how you want to play it, fine. I guess I don't care."
Obi-Wan cleared his throat and took a step closer to the disappearer. "Then the Dancer stays with us." Turning to look at Padmé, he offered her a slow nod—one which she returned in kind.
"It's your funeral," the disappearer said with a shrug, turning on a heel to face the door he'd come through earlier. "You should come up front, strap in for landing. Get a look at your new home." Then he started forward, muttering something about this being the last time he let that fry-cook vouch for anyone.
The pair did as instructed, falling in line as he moved through the cargo hold door and onto the hauler ship's flight deck. It was as dingy as the rest of the vessel, with seats sporting torn padding and a viewport marred by scratches. Beyond the scuffed window, a globe hung among the stars. Swirls of grey clouds sat painted above a landscape of drab, muted tones; the green of the grass was barely distinct from the grey of the mountains and the brown of the dirt.
Our new home, Obi-Wan echoed to himself as he turned to glance at Padmé. Whatever tension had stirred up between them seemed gone, at least for now. Her aura in the Force was solemn, somber. Even as the disappearer took his seat in the pilot's chair and reached for the restraints, Padmé remained rooted in place. So did Obi-Wan.
As they stood side by side, their hands found each other. He was unsure of who had moved first, but supposed it didn't matter.
We're in this together, he thought—and though he knew she couldn't sense it, he somehow felt that she understood him anyway. She squeezed his hand tightly.
He squeezed back.
Together, they stared through the viewport, down at the lost world.
Their new home.
Republic Archives: Transmission Record - from Anakin Skywalker to MSV Spice Dancer attn. Obi-Wan Kenobi
[begin transmission]
I hate you.
I hate that you ran off with Padmé. I hate that you cut me off from the Force, and I hate that you showed me so little of it.
But the Core isn't safe for a Jedi anymore. It isn't safe for you.
If you're alive, and if you're really gone . . . stay gone. Don't come home.
[transmission delivery failed . . . user attempting redelivery]
[transmission delivery failed . . . user attempting redelivery]
[transmission delivery failed . . . user attempting redelivery]
[transmission delivery failed . . . delivery attempt terminated by user]