Supreme Chancellor Palpatine sat in a lush and comfortable chair with his eyes closed, pondering the state of the galaxy. He was the most powerful person in the Republic, yet that did not say as much as Palpatine would have wished. When he inherited the position of Supreme Chancellor from Valorum, he had thought he could fix the Republic's problems and regain lost power. None of that happened. All Palpatine inherited was the leadership to an aging, ineffectual government in a power struggle. There were so many others whose power rivaled that of Palpatine's. It was a result of the widespread corruption that infected the Senate and the Republic as a whole. It was a plague upon the galaxy, but it could be beneficial to Palpatine. He had big plans, and when they had all been accomplished, this pathetic power void would be gone, filled by none other than Palpatine.
Yet there were so many key players in the struggle, that Palpatine by himself was unable to make all of his plans come to fruition. That was where people like Anakin Skywalker came in. It wasn't often that Palpatine came by people who would do mercenary work free of charge, and it was rarer still to find people that could be sculpted in Palpatine's image. Anakin was both of these, and that was why he would play an important role in Palpatine's bid for absolute power. That was also why Palpatine had to check to make sure that young Skywalker stayed subservient. It wouldn't do if the apprentice became the master, and Anakin had the power necessary to do so. He had so much raw power. If it were refined and if he were able to tap into all of it, he would be unstoppable. Palpatine would have to keep Anakin's power in check, but the most important thing was stopping the growth of dangerous ideas.
The door to Palpatine's chambers then hissed open and the Supreme Chancellor opened his eyes to see Anakin cross the room. Palpatine smiled faintly and proceeded to question the Jedi-in-training.
"So, was my information correct?" he asked. Anakin had confronted Palpatine earlier, and had said he needed to talk with Nute Gunray. Palpatine knew what he really wanted to do, yet he gave the data to Anakin anyway.
"For the most part." Anakin replied. "The location was correct, but the codes to the door were not."
"I'll have to talk with my sources about that then. Just out of curiosity, whatever did you need to discuss with Nute Gunray so badly?"
"Oh, it was…personal matters."
"So I won't find him decapitated in his own office?" Palpatine then asked, and Anakin appeared rather shocked. "Don't worry, my friend. There were some suspicions that it was the work of a Jedi, but I quickly suggested that it was Count Dooku instead. Everyone knew of their affiliation and believed that Dooku killed him for his failures, and he had quite a few of them." Using one of the Jedi's infamous mind tricks had helped as well. To make sure no one ever knew of Palpatine's command of the Force he had used a Jedi who had fallen prey to the dark side.
Not that there was a dark side of the Force. Palpatine knew the true nature of the Force. There was no light side or dark side, only the Force. It was merely how the user chose to utilize its awesome power that mattered. The Jedi Council was foolish in their teachings. The idea of a light and dark side of the Force was merely an illusion of the Jedi, used to make them feel morally superior and to constantly keep them from seeking the true peak of their power. This meant that so long as Anakin remained amongst the ranks of the Jedi he would never reach his true potential. That was good for Palpatine, but at the same time Anakin's usefulness was limited by the Jedi Council. For Palpatine, it was a trade-off. Increase Ankain's usefulness and give him more power, or restrain his power and decrease his usefulness. As things were, Palpatine needed Anakin to stay with the Jedi. When his plans were further along, however, it would be time to "corrupt" Skywalker.
When Palpatine had finished that line of thought, he realized that Anakin was leaving.
"Do send my regards to Amidala and the Jedi Council." he said to the swiftly retreating form of Anakin, "And offer my condolences to the former as well."
Senator Amidala "Padme" Skywalker glanced around at the sterile settings of the hospital room she was in before looking at the equally sterile bandages wrapped around her left leg. Despite her urges to just get up and leave this place of uniform white, the medical droid had specifically told her to just lie down and allow her leg to heal. At times she thought of lifting the bandages to see how the wound was healing, but then she remembered the rather grotesque image of it before the bandages had gone on.
In a rather desperate gambit Nute Gunray had attempted another assassination on Padme, and the attempt had nearly become success. Padme had been able to walk away from that incident, but only with Anakin's help. By the time Anakin had come and foiled the scheme it was too late for Padme to go unschathed, and the shot wound up hitting Padme in the leg. Padme's leg would heal perfectly, and no permanent damage had come to her, or anyone else, yet since then Anakin had seemed distant. He seemed as though he blamed himself for not having stopped the assassin in time, and while he did try to cover that up, he was so transparent in his attempt. He did visit Padme every day, if he was still actually on Coruscant, but that was all he did. He would walk across the room, make small talk, sit silently for half an hour, and then leave.
The door to Padme's room then opened, and Anakin strode in for his daily visit. As always he walked to the corner of the room furthest from Padme and began to speak.
"Palpatine says hello, and sorry about your leg. And I…I'm sorry about your leg as well."
"That makes three of us then." Padme said, trying to bring some cheer to the melancholy Anakin. "But…this isn't your fault, you know that, right?" she then asked, and Anakin just stood silently for a while.
"Maybe. But I could have prevented this as well. I should have known that Gunray would try again. I should have been able to stop him.
"Don't worry about Nute Gunray anymore though. He was found dead in his office today." Hearing this Padme shot up from her bed, ignoring the intense pain in her leg.
"Anakin, you…you didn't-"
"Kill him? No, you know me better than that Padme." Hearing this Padme was unswayed. She still remembered Anakin's confession of having killed an entire tribe of Tusken Raiders in retaliation for the death of his mother. Regardless, Anakin went on. "The general belief is that Dooku was the culprit. After a string of failures, one of which cost Dooku a large percentage of his fleet, as you remember, it would make sense. Dooku isn't exactly the forgive and forget type." That did make sense to Padme. Whenever Gunray was in charge of a Seperatist mission the Republic would make a collective sigh of relief. He always failed. Always. By now any contributions had to have been erased through his general military incompetence. As far as fiscal matters went he was quite clever, but military tactics were not his strong suit.
It was then that the pain in Padme's leg became unbearable, and she lied down again, not wanting to delay the recuperative process. When she had gotten comfortable again, she looked over to where Anakin had been standing and realized that he had left.
Anakin listened to the constant hum of his lightsabers, and he listened even more intently as the humming rose and fell in pitch as he moved them through the air. He created bright blue and green arcs as the swords sliced through the air. Ever since his battle with Dooku, he had trained almost unceasingly with his lightsaber, and he would also set aside time to practice using dual lightsabers, and he had become quite good at the practice, but not good enough to strike down the dark lord, and that was the only level of greatness he wanted. Nothing less would do.
He then heard the soft footsteps behind him, undoubtedly belonging to his mentor and master.
"What do you want. Master?" he asked, almost straining the last word. He had done so ever since the Dark Reaper Project. Something had changed in him, or maybe it was more that something within him had risen to the surface, but ever since he hadn't respected Obi-Wan any where near as much as he had before.
"The Council has assigned us to accompany a clone strike team."
"Again? Master, we've done at least five of those missions in the past month. Why are we given the same menial task all the time?"
"Anakin, no task is menial, or trivial, for anyone. Such thoughts…"
"Lead to the dark side. I know, I know. It's just, we're the only one getting these missions. Other teams are sent off to lead whole fleets into battle, yet here we are accompanying them, no greater than ordinary foot soldiers."
"Perhaps the Council doesn't want to overwhelm you. You have a lot on your mind right now, my young apprentice." Those last words hit Anakin hard. He hated it profoundly when Obi-Wan called him his young apprentice. It made him feel so tiny, hardly near the level of power he had attained. Anakin truly believed that he had surpassed Obi-Wan in every way, and that Obi-Wan was merely jealous of his power. That was why he always accepted these pathetic missions, and declined on the more exciting ones. If Anakin could just get a chance to prove himself to the Council, then maybe he could undergo the trials. But as long as Obi-Wan kept holding him back he would never actually be a Jedi, just a Padawan, walking in his master's shadow, despite having long outgrown that shadow.
"Whatever you say Master." Anakin said in reply to Obi-Wan, and he grudgingly followed his master towards their next mission.
Author's Note- Yes, I know, it took forever to get this latest update out, but what can I say? I did get reviews, but not as many as I had initially been going for. If I get five reviews, I'll go on, if not, it will just take longer to update. I wouldn't actually make this solely dependent on number of readers. I just need to know that there are actually people reading this, that's all.