Chapter Thirty-Four: And Then What?
Padmé was halfway to the door even as Obi-Wan slid his chair a few inches closer to the console. When the Jedi seemed to realize they'd each moved in different directions, he spun to face her and shot her a quizzical look.
"You're leaving? He's called the chancellor!" he said, gesturing to the console with an upward-facing palm.
"And we're not going to learn anything from eavesdropping on that conversation that we don't already know," she replied. Though she was a few feet away, the volume was loud enough for her to hear bits and pieces—sure enough, Tarkin was merely summarizing the discussion he'd just had with Dooku.
When he finished speaking, a hiss of gentle static sounded from the console. Where there should have been words—the sound of the chancellor speaking to Tarkin—there was nothing.
"Why can't we hear Palpatine?" Obi-Wan asked.
She rolled her eyes. Never underestimate the hand-holding you have to give Core people with basic tech. "You ever point a holocamera at a projection of something? It doesn't work." Gesturing toward the door, she continued. "Which is even more reason to leave. Come on, Kenobi—"
"Anakin Skywalker's name came up."
Padmé wasn't conscious of moving—one moment she was standing across the room. The next, she was nearly falling into the chair beside Obi-Wan, clamping a hand around the Jedi's arm to steady herself as she stared at Tarkin's sharp cheeks.
After a pause for Palpatine to speak, Tarkin continued. "I didn't bring him up. Dooku did. He assumed Skywalker was assisting us with our investigation. 'An asset of considerable importance,' is how I believe Dooku referred to him. In light of this, I must ask again: why isn't Skywalker permitted to help us?"
Obi-Wan leaned back in his chair—a long exhale escaped his lips. "You were right. Anakin isn't helping them investigate the Jedi," he said, the words coming out as one breath. He glanced over at Padmé, his eyes almost expectant—asking her to join him in relief. "Straight from Director Tarkin himself. That's good news."
Padmé looked back at the hologram of the director. "That's not what he said," she muttered, watching Tarkin's expression change in response to words they couldn't hear. "He's not permitted to help them. Palpatine won't let him."
"Is that better?" Obi-Wan asked.
Padmé shook her head. "I don't know."
She was lying, of course.
That her attempts to drown out her own worries about her husband's involvement had apparently been right brought her no comfort. Perhaps Palpatine didn't really trust Anakin—bad, he's in as much trouble as we are. Perhaps he was shielding Anakin from the investigation, from the obvious conflict of interest that came with being a former Jedi under the chancellor's employ—even worse; Anakin will owe him for it. She couldn't imagine exactly how Palpatine would leverage such a thing, but it wasn't good.
"I simply worry he is being wasted in his current role," Tarkin said. Even through the projected image, the director's growing irritation was obvious. "He'd be much more valuable to us here."
A humorless rush of air escaped Padmé's nose. "I'll give him that. 'Diplomatic errand boy' isn't really the best use of Anakin's talents."
"I am not asking for continued involvement." Tarkin was practically squirming now—as much as anyone of his stature and status could, anyway. Padmé had to admit a certain satisfaction in watching him beg to a room that appeared completely empty to anyone watching over holocam.
"Merely a single interview would be immensely valuable. He would not have to come here. I could travel back to Coruscant, I wouldn't disrupt his . . . work."
The last word seemed to curdle on Tarkin's tongue.
"It's strange," Obi-Wan muttered, stroking at his not-beard. "It's as if he thinks he has no case without Anakin."
"I say it with such disdain because it's work that no longer needs doing. There was a time and a place, yes, but that time has passed. We don't need Skywalker to play Executor Vader anymore. We need him here." Tarkin jabbed a pointed finger down onto the table, causing the hologram to ripple in a wave of static. "We need him to bring down the Jedi."
A gentle click resonated throughout the computer room—Padmé's gaze drifted to the source of the sound. It was Obi-Wan's hand, resting on a switch built into the holoprojector.
As he lifted his finger and rose to his feet, the projection of Tarkin winked out of existence.
She wanted to protest—to shout at him that they needed to keep eavesdropping, to leap toward the toggle switch and summon the hologram once again, to ask what the hell he thought he was doing—but Obi-Wan spoke before she got the chance.
"Let's go."
The words were flat, hollow, so devoid of life that they seemed to fall to the floor of the computer room with a silent thud. It was as if Obi-Wan's mouth was uttering words his mind hadn't come up with.
When Padmé repeated them, they carried significantly more energy.
"Let's go?!" she snapped, leaping out of her chair to match his standing posture. "You're the one who wanted to wait around, and now you're itching to leave?"
"We saw what Tarkin had to say to Palpatine," Obi-Wan said briskly, his shoulders rising in a halfhearted shrug. "It changes nothing."
Her eyes grew wide, the fire of welling tears burning behind them. Padmé's mind wandered to the secret meetings deep within the palace on Alderaan—to each and every thing they'd learned about Executor Vader. The razed outposts. The fallen shipyards. The covert strikes against high-value Confederate targets.
"How can you say that?" she asked, her voice cracking. "You have no idea what he's done."
Obi-Wan shook his head. "I know enough. We were already aware that Anakin was close to the chancellor, likely doing more work for him than meets the eye. I don't see how knowing his codename makes any difference."
The calmness nibbled at her nerves, but she could have taken it. It was the nonchalance that made bile rise in her throat—all her fears of Anakin being Palpatine's arm, his tool, dismissed with a sweep of the hand as a trifle.
And it was the fact that Kenobi clearly didn't believe himself that pushed her over the edge.
"Oh. I see how it is. You're not really looking for answers."
That got his attention. "Excuse me?"
Padmé drew herself up to her full height, pointing her finger at the Jedi with as much hostility as she could muster. "You don't want the truth about any of this, not really. You're stalling, keeping the chase going as long as you can, because once we find out what they know about the Jedi Order, you actually have to deal with it. You have to go back to the Temple and make a gods-damned decision about something. Face the consequences of what you found. And once you face what Anakin's been lying to me about for months, you'll have to figure out what to do there, too."
And I'm sure you'll do just as well there as you've done with figuring out what to do about me. With my "condition."
Obi-Wan simply stood there, looking as though she'd just socked him under the jaw.
He could keep from dealing with Tarkin if he wanted to. Unfortunately for him, Padmé could force his hand on the matter of Executor Vader.
"You don't know everything," she continued—her voice shook as she wrestled with the words. Even as she spoke them, the weight of their true meaning pressed down on her shoulders. "He sank another city."
The Jedi released his breath in a sharp gust, like something had knocked it out of him. "What?"
"Kamino," Padmé said with a nod. "Vader attacked it. Plunged the entire capital city into the ocean. Clones, scientists, civilians"—she choked on the word—"all gone. Wiped out thanks to Executor Vader. Thanks to Anakin."
Her husband's name lingered for several moments. Obi-Wan stared back down at the holoprojector, as if wishing he could summon Tarkin's ghost back, ask it himself what was going on. The air had curdled, gone thick and stale verging toward suffocating—
Then, in an instant, it all shattered.
A blaring klaxon rang throughout the room, red lights blooming in accompaniment. Behind Obi-Wan, along the computer room's bank of terminals, Padmé could just make out a button blinking in rapid rhythm. The text etched into it read "General Alarm."
She shoved past Obi-Wan and bolted over to the button, her eyes darting from one terminal display to another as her hands hovered uselessly above their controls. "How do we stop it?" she said to no one in particular.
A voice wrapped in comm static cut through the klaxon. "Attention, Snowblind. I've found a body in one of the upper outposts. We have a trooper down. Blaster wounds to the torso. Hostiles are active within the base. Alert status is red; repeat: all sections on alert."
Padmé felt a hand clamp around her arm—it was Obi-Wan, the blank defeat in his eyes giving way to panic. "We don't stop it. We run."
Noise. The screech of the wailing alarm rang throughout the halls of Snowblind, the rise and fall of its sour note sending prickles up Padmé's arms. The rush of her own blood moved past her ears like the wind before a thunderstorm; her own heartbeat thumped within her chest like the rhythm of a Coruscant nightclub. Each panicked footfall on the polished corridor floor resonated up her legs, rattling her bones.
Pain. Her lungs burned, the frigid air of the facility stung her throat as she took deep gulps of air. Her stomach churned like a pot boiling over on the stove—was it morning sickness, or the horrible confirmation of what Anakin Skywalker had done?
Perhaps it was both. Perhaps it was neither. Perhaps it was just the sinking feeling that she was going to die here, trapped beneath the ice.
Panic. A jolt of adrenaline accompanied each blaster bolt whizzing past them. Though Snowblind had seemed lightly staffed during their infiltration, the general alarm had brought the guards out of the woodwork. It was as if they'd kicked a hornet's nest. From the moment they stepped into the corridor, they'd been shot at by someone—whether a trooper clad in plastoid, or an officer sporting a uniform that matched their stolen attire.
They won't kill you.
Obi-Wan's words echoed in her head as another blaster bolt smacked into the floor behind her. She hated herself for wishing it were true. Wishing that, in some twisted way, her husband's status as Palpatine's one-man army would grant her a shield from all this. Wishing she could just talk to him and make it all go away.
Maybe you can.
"Watch out!"
The sound of Obi-Wan's voice startled her more than the sight he was warning her about—three Republic officers, approaching not from behind but from in front, cutting off their route down the hall.
Her hand fell to her holstered blaster, but before she had it drawn, a crackle of electricity rocketed down the corridor. Curving like a boomerang, the flying stun baton swept across all three officers—they crumpled to the floor like buildings in an earthquake—before arcing back and landing in Obi-Wan's open hand.
Padmé's eyes widened as she turned to look at her Jedi friend, a dazed grin tugging at the corners of her mouth despite everything. "You'll have to teach me that one sometime."
He didn't smile back, instead whirling around to face the other end of the hall. "Behind us!"
Turning to face the same direction, Padmé drew. A cluster of white-armored troopers was sprinting towards them, weapons at the ready. Raising her pistol, she squeezed the trigger.
The bolt flew wide, missing all the approaching soldiers and instead striking a control panel on the wall. For a moment, nothing happened.
Then a shower of sparks sprayed from the panel, and a set of blast doors slammed shut, bisecting the corridor. With a nod of satisfaction, Padmé holstered her gun and turned to face Obi-Wan.
The Jedi, unimpressed by the maneuver, seemed frozen in place. After a moment, he closed his eyes and exhaled. "Let's go. I don't think we're going to make it back to the surface. Not on foot. We should head for one of their hangars—"
"Hey," Padmé said, reaching out to clamp a hand around Obi-Wan's wrist. "Is something wrong?"
A slow sigh escaped his lips. "I don't think now is the best time—"
As if to underscore his point, sparks began emanating from the center of the blast door. At the same time, an identical door at the opposite end of the hallway began to move, its durasteel panels closing in from all sides.
They both broke into a run.
Padmé couldn't help but scold herself even as she fought to drive her legs as fast as possible. She'd thought it so smart, shooting the control panel to trap the troopers—not even considering that she could be helping them trap her.
The gap left in the blast door was shrinking by the second, threatening to seal them both in the corridor. If Kenobi had his lightsaber, they might have stood a chance—but as it was, the Jedi armed with a stun weapon and her with only a sidearm, they were all but dead if that blast door closed. A wide open hallway—no choke points, no cover. It was a nightmare. Just a little further . . .
When she was only steps away from the blast door, her feet fell out from under her.
At first she thought she had tripped—an unfortunate stroke of bad luck, one that would have been almost funny if the circumstances were different. But then it dawned on her—there was something else going on.
An invisible hand had shoved her forward, and a guiding wind seemed to be carrying her through the ever-shrinking opening in the blast doors. Too late, she realized what was responsible.
Who was responsible.
As Padmé tumbled to the floor on the other side of the blast doors, they sealed shut—leaving Obi-Wan trapped on the other side.
"Kenobi!" she screamed, leaping to her feet and slamming a fist against the door. Her eyes darted from one side of the hall to another, searching frantically for the door's controls. They were nowhere to be found. Fruitlessly she banged her clenched fist against the durasteel hard enough to bruise her hand.
Then a voice rang out in her head. His voice. Plain as day, as if he were standing right beside her.
Leave.
The single word was punctuated by a series of pinging sounds—Padmé's stomach dropped when she realized what they were.
Blaster bolts rang out as they hit the other side of the door. The troopers were through.
Leave.
It was her own voice this time, echoing her Jedi friend's final instruction. There was nothing left for her here now. For once, she decided she would do as she was told.
Though her world was blurred by welling tears, Padmé turned and ran.
The door to Snowblind's hangar exploded inwards, and blaster bolts began to fly.
They came not from within the hangar—most of its occupants were not armed. They were engineers, mechanics, pilots—not trained for ground combat. They had probably expected the blast door trap to work. They had probably not expected her to reach the hangar. But Padmé had, and she was fueled by grief and rage—her aim precise, her movement swift. Some dove for cover behind storage crates or beneath the hulls of the few ships that dotted the hangar. Others never got the chance.
The shuttle technician was the first to fall. A trio of blaster bolts sank into his chest, leaving burn marks on the bright orange safety vest. The refueling line in his hands flailed about as it fell to the ground, followed shortly by the body of the man who had been holding it.
Next came a fighter pilot, halfway up the ladder to his cockpit. She knew she needed that ship—it was faster than the shuttle parked beside it, more nimble than the cargo freighters flanking the back corners of the hangar. So she took aim and squeezed the trigger.
He spun through the air as the blaster fire smacked into his midsection, his pirouette sending him careening off the ladder and tumbling to the icy hangar floor.
As the pilot's body hit the deck, Padmé took hold of the ladder with her free hand and scrambled up it until she came to stand on the hull of the starfighter.
Spinning around to assess the rest of the hangar—and what threats remained within—her eyes came to rest on the greatest one of all.
Standing at the base of the parked shuttle, eyes so fierce and face so sharp he could have killed her with a mere glance, was Director Tarkin himself. His gaze pinned her in place, as if memorizing every last detail of her face for later study.
Beside him, slightly further up the boarding ramp, was Snowblind's guest of honor—Count Dooku.
This was her chance, Padmé realized. She could end it all, right here and right now. Avenge what had just happened to Obi-Wan. Stop the investigation, save the rest of the Jedi Order.
She raised her blaster, steadied her hand as the weapon's sights trained on Tarkin. Took a deep breath—
Paused. Her gaze wandered past Tarkin, to the man standing behind him. Dooku was shaking his head, almost imperceptibly. Padmé could just make out his lips moving. Forming words. Words meant for her.
Don't.
Go.
She cursed under her breath, lowering the gun and stepping down into the starfighter cockpit. As she reached up with one hand to pull the transparisteel canopy shut, she could just make out the sound of blaster fire ringing uselessly against the ship's armored hull.
The real soldiers had caught up with her. It was time to go.
She shoved the throttle forward, and the fighter rocketed off its landing pad. As she crossed the threshold of the hangar's particle shielding, a harsh crosswind threatened to yank the vessel off course and send it careening into a cave wall. Gripping the controls as tightly as she could, Padmé fought to keep the fighter steady against the forces of the blizzard.
Though she knew any pursuers would have trouble catching up to her—she'd stolen the only fast ship in the hangar—Padmé kept the fighter moving at full speed as she wove through the curving passageway of the cave. As she flew, she felt the passage begin to tilt upwards. Toward the surface. Toward freedom. Daylight bloomed at the mouth of the cavern—Padmé's stolen fighter rocketed through the opening and into the waiting skies.
After only a moment, she angled the fighter back toward the planet's surface. There was one more matter to take care of. A piece of evidence she couldn't afford to leave behind. At least not completely intact.
She skimmed the surface until it came into view—the cluster of buildings they'd first discovered upon landing. Parked at the center of the cluster was one of House Organa's royal shuttles. A wave of relief washed over Padmé when she realized it was undisturbed. The troopers of Snowblind hadn't found a way inside yet. She still had time to cover her tracks.
With a flick of her thumb, she armed the starfighter's torpedo tubes and took aim at the royal shuttle. A squeeze of the trigger sent a pair of missiles screaming toward the parked shuttle—on impact, they tore right through the hull plating and sent a fireball blooming into the air.
Padmé pulled back on the fighter's controls, angling the ship for an ascent toward space. A glance at the stolen ship's sensors revealed no pursuers on her tail—if she was quick, she could get into hyperspace without being followed.
And then what?
Those three words rolled around in her mind as a crashing wave of reality slammed into her—the events of the day threatening to pull her under.
Her husband had been running dangerous, deadly errands for the chancellor—willingly committing the very same atrocities that had driven him away from the Jedi Order and into Palpatine's waiting arms.
You made sure to tell Obi-Wan. To make him feel what it meant. And that might have been the last thing you ever said to him.
Obi-Wan was gone, either dead or captured. She hoped to the gods it was the latter—but there was no way to be sure. Perhaps Tarkin didn't need him anymore. He had Count Dooku, he was trying to get Anakin. Obi-Wan had given Tarkin a lot of trouble—maybe more than he was really worth.
One way or the other, she had to know. Either her friend was dead, or there was still a chance to save him. Snowblind was a useless lead now—it had been compromised. They'd evacuate the whole place, probably scuttle it from orbit. She needed to know where else to look, where to find out what had happened.
And then what? the voice in her head repeated. You're in no shape to rescue him yourself.
Tarkin had seen her. Stared her down mere moments before she'd made her escape. Her face would be all over the galaxy in a matter of hours—a wanted fugitive.
And don't forget your other problem, a voice niggled at the back of her head. The one that's been growing for a couple of months by now—
No. Not now. There was no time. The longer she waited, the more danger Obi-Wan was in. Even if Tarkin had taken him alive, he could decide at any moment that Obi-Wan had passed the point of usefulness. She had to act. Now.
She eased the activation lever for the hyperdrive forward, exhaling in time with the starlines that formed in the window. She was safely away now. They couldn't follow her anymore. Padmé slumped back into the pilot's chair—as much as the compact fighter cockpit would allow her to slump, anyway.
Hyperspace jumps were her favorite time to plan—free of distractions, free of anything else to do, and suitably last minute. Ditch the ship first. Swap it for something that doesn't scream "I've been stolen from a military base." Then . . .
Well, she didn't know. But she'd come up with something. If the situation were reversed, Obi-Wan wouldn't just leave her behind. He would come after her. So she was going after him.
Whatever it takes, she thought as she poked at the padding of the cockpit chair.
As exhaustion overtook her, and the swirl of hyperspace threatened to lull her to sleep. Padmé realized that she truly meant it.
Whatever it takes.
Republic Archives: Maximum Security Intruder Protocol
The Maximum Security Intruder Protocol is a wartime operational procedure guideline in use by the Grand Army of the Republic. First codified in the same Executive Order that established the Grand Army, and later ratified by a vote of the Galactic Senate, its text is as follows:
"In the interest of complete and total wartime security, the following protocol will be observed at facilities designated Maximum Security:
Any and all intruders, if deemed by Grand Army patrol officers to be armed invaders and enemy combatants, will be met with lethal force upon trespass into a maximum security Republic facility.
For the purposes of this protocol, invaders will be considered armed under the definitions outlined by 10 G.R.C § 114."
[archivist's note: A small coalition of senators attempted to vote down this and several other Intruder Protocols when the formation of the Grand Army was under debate in the Senate. Though several "nay" votes ended up on record, the protocol as presented still remains in codified law.]