Author's Note: This is, and Dark Fire are old stories I wrote before I had seen Episode II so there are some errors - like Anakin and Padmé meeting and stuff like that, but what the hey. I should also let you know that I never completed Blood Bond, but I'm working hard on the last chapters so it should be all up in a week. If you enjoy the story - or thought it sucked - please let me know :)
XXX
They came at him in clicking, clattering swarms. Prancing and scuttling on insectile legs. He sheared through their chitinous-metallic carapaces, sparks flying, the light saber thrumming in his hands. Yet as fast as he cut them down, more enforcer droids surged forth to take the places of the fallen. Energy pulse-darts stung his body, numbing him, slowing his reactions.
Desperate now, he pushed out with the Force but barely budged the nearest droid. Another reared up behind him. He sensed it, spun, slashed. It collapsed in a jittering, smoking heap. His surge of triumph was short- lived as sharp pincers fastened onto him, yanked him backward into a dark and confining shell. No amount of kicking and struggling could persuade it to open.
"I think that's enough for now," he heard his master's voice say.
The enforcer froze, then slowly opened. He tumbled out onto the bare earth and stood, brushing dust from his clothes. "Vell, Master?"
"Disappointing," Darth Sidious said, turning away and tucking his hands into the wide sleeves of his flowing robe.
"Ohh, thees ees very wasteful," Nali Dhorr said. The green-skinned sub- viceroy of the now-defunct Trade Federation scowled as she surveyed the field of broken droids. "Very, very wasteful."
"What would you have me do with them?" the Sith Lord asked irritably. "It's this or construction work, and frankly, I don't trust them for construction work either."
"Disappointink, Master?" He hurried over to them, smoothing back the strands of wiry white hair that had escaped from his waist-length ponytail. "How might I improve?"
"They are war droids!" Nali protested. "Designed for battle!"
"At which they proved miserable. They failed me on Naboo, they've failed me in every effort since then. Why, the entire Galaxy knows that to stop the droid army, all you must do is destroy their central command center. Until you devise a better way of controlling them, Dama Dhorr, they are useless to me."
"We can bettah conceal de command center --"
"That is what you said on Gethtooine," he snapped. "And still, the Jedi found it. No. I will not base my strategies on machines any longer. Living soldiers cannot be all put out of commission at once by a single well- placed laser burst."
"Master?"
"What is it?" He turned and peered at his apprentice from the shadows cast by his cowl.
"Please, I vish to be vorthy!"
Sidious sighed. "Dama Dhorr, if you'll excuse us?"
She huffed haughtily and left, followed by her droid guards.
The apprentice knelt before his master. "How may I serve you better?" He felt the touch of a hand on his bowed head.
"Darth Tepes, I cannot find fault with your dedication and enthusiasm."
"Yet I fail you, Master ... vy? Vat can I do?"
"I fear the Force is not sufficiently strong in you. The training demands more of you than you can give. Unfortunately, you were the best candidate at the time."
"At the time?" he echoed in consternation. "You cannot mean to ... replace me?"
"If a suitable replacement can be found, I may have to. As a matter of fact, I do have my eye on one young fellow ... headstrong and stubborn, but I sense that he might be corruptible."
"But Master! I haff served you faithfully --"
"Yes, Tepes, I know. I do appreciate it. But you must understand my position. I am working to overthrow a galactic republic. The Jedi seek to undermine my every move. I cannot let myself be burdened with less-powerful allies out of sentimentality."
"Let me prove myself to you!"
"I have no doubts regarding the sincerity of your devotion. You are a diligent pupil, but the fact remains -- the Force is not strong enough in you to allow you to progress further in your training."
A crestfallen moan escaped him.
"Tepes, Tepes. I wouldn't dismiss you from my service entirely. You are dedicated and have a knack for torture that is unrivaled. I'm certain I will not lack projects for you."
"Master, please! Another chance!"
Sidious shook his head sorrowfully. "My boy, you cannot change how strongly the Force flows in your veins."
"Vat if I could?" He looked up into that lined, weathered face. "Vat if I could change that? Vould I then be acceptable?"
"Possibly," Sidious said, eyes narrowing. "How would you propose to accomplish such a thing?"
"Give me leave to try!" he pleaded.
His mind-barriers, the product of many grueling hours of mental exercises, might as well have been non-existent as the Sith Lord probed his thoughts. He sensed his master's initial scornful scepticism, and then as Sidious delved deeper, reading for himself how it might be done, that scepticism turned to thoughtfulness.
"This could also be a rather novel solution to the Jedi problem," Sidious mused, stroking his chin. "Thus far, I've had to hold off taking any direct action against them. A Jedi is often more troublesome dead than alive. But this... this is very intriguing, Tepes. You have my permission to proceed."
"Thank you, Master!" He prostrated himself at Sidious' feet and pressed the hem of the Sith Lord's robe to his forehead. "I vill not fail you!"
"See that you don't." He tempered it with a smile, but the words were still chilling. "See that you don't."
XXX
She had grown accustomed to the day, but the night would always be her time. Beneath a sky as dark as the plait of hair hanging down her back, the woman in black approached the stone tower. She moved with the silence of a cloud, despite the carpet of dry autumnal leaves underfoot.
Her emerald eyes were keenly alert to the forest around her. Small animals went about their nocturnal business. Find food and try not to become food, the law of the wild. None of them bothered with her; she was ten times the size of the largest hunter and quite a bit more dangerous.
The tower rose well above the treetops. It stood at the end of a twelve- foot wall that stretched for miles through the woods and across the countryside. It was the last remnant of an old defense, between lands that had known peace for the better part of a millennium.
Peace.
The word itself was still strange to her. As strange as words like home ... family ... or love.
Two lights shone from the tower's oval windows. One was near the top, a warm and steady beacon she'd followed from the village. She'd made that journey on foot, for there were no suitable landing sites this far out.
Sylvar was an agrarian/orchard planet, known galaxy-wide for its bounty of fruit, nuts, and grains. Something was always in season on Sylvar. The harvest never ended.
A thousand years ago, warring factions had threatened to destroy this world. Now it was a place of simple harmony, consisting mainly of widely- scattered villages and traveling bands of workers from a hundred different cultures.
The only other people who lived on Sylvar were a handful of artisans trying to avoid distractions, some retired military types seeking a quiet refuge from the bustle of Republic life, and those wishing privacy and isolation. Such as the inhabitants of the tower.
The other light was on the ground floor. It flickered and flared inconstantly, irregular spurts of green-white accompanied by grumbling in many alien tongues. Sabeeth went up to the low window. Her reflexes warned her to pull her head to the side as a tool came flying out.
"Daz abak arr!"
She boosted herself lithely into the window and crouched on the curved sill. "You curse like a spice miner, Skywalker."
Anakin jumped, and whirled on her with a pair of metal shears in his hand. Then he recognized her, relaxing with a grin. "Sabeeth! I didn't sense you at all!."
"Am I getting better or are you getting sloppy?" She gestured around the room, which was strewn with clothes, droid parts, and bits of unidentifiable electronics. "Sloppier," she amended.
"This isn't so bad," he said. "You should have seen the junkyard where I used to work! I sensed you this morning, I could have sworn that you would come before noon."
She hopped down from her perch and shrugged. She had planned to do so, but her nerves had failed her and she'd found herself wandering the deep forest waiting for the night to come. Frightened to meet him, frightened to find only rejection in his eyes.
The youth studied her, he could sense her inner turmoil but said nothing, instead he talked about his latest project, giving the woman a chance to find her Focus again. "I'm working on my lightsaber. Master Obi-Wan says I have to. But it's tougher than I thought." Scorch marks on the worktable and blisters on his fingers proved his point.
"So the young genius has his limits, hmm?" she teased, giving him an thankful glance.
"I'd like to see you try."
"That's an art reserved for Jedi. I'm lucky the Council let me keep the lightsaber I have. I think comfort themselves with the thought that one day it'll break and then I'll be out of luck."
"Well ... when it does, I'll fix it for you."
She picked up the chewed-looking, gutted handle of the one he'd been working on.
"I'd better take good care of it until you figure out what you're doing."
"I'm getting the hang of it. Hey, I built a protocol droid when I was only nine." He was fifteen now, tall and handsome in a daredevil boyish way that made it easy to see how readily he could charm even a queen.
"From a kit, wasn't it?"
"Yeah, from a kit, so?" He laughed. "It worked. And so does the lightsaber. Sort of. It just needs some fine-tuning."
Sabeeth activated it. A five-foot beam of pale emerald shot from the end, punching a smoldering hole in the wall.
"Oh!" Anakin cried. "Careful!"
She switched it off and turned to him, arching one ebon brow. "It's rather ... extravagant, don't you think?"
"Uh ..." he stammered.
"Believe it or not, Ani, there is such a thing as too big to handle."
He scuffed one foot sheepishly. "I guess ... see, I just wanted ..."
Sabeeth stifled a bemused chuckle. "An impressive one?"
"Okay, okay, I get the point!"
She relented, though he was so fun to tease ... They had become quite close over the many months they'd talked over the com-link, both being thought by Obi-Wan Kenobi. The boy had almost become like a little brother and she couldn't resist to tease him every chance she got. She gave him an warm smile and handed the silvery haft back to him.
"I'm glad you've come," he said. "It's so quiet around here. There's nothing to do on Sylvar."
"Which is why you're here," she said, her resolve to leave off teasing not lasting more than a few seconds. "To concentrate more on your training, and less on the Queen of Naboo."
Anakin blushed and toyed with the long thin braid that lay over his shoulder. The rest of his sandy hair was too long and indifferently combed. "Miss one session ..."
"Didn't it also have something to do with Palpatine finding the two of you swimming with na --?" "Um ... maybe," he cut in, blushing even more brightly. "So, Sabeeth, how long are you staying?
Now she grew sombre. "Not for long, Ani. You know the Council doesn't approve, I just had to..."
"See him again", Anakin finished her sentence. "He misses you. The only time he seems really happy is when he's talking to you. He's saved all of your holo-messages and sometimes when he thinks I'm a sleep he plays them over and over."
"Are you spaying on your Master, Padawan?" Sabeeth said jokingly, but it sounded hollow. "I didn't want to leave, Ani. But the Council forbid me to enter the Temple grounds--"
"I know you don't care what they say!"
"But you do." She cast her eyes at the door. "And he does."
"It'd be easier if the Council would agree to let you be trained," he said. "Then they wouldn't be afraid of you, because they'd know you were bound by the same rules as the rest of us."
"Until I broke those rules. I ... admire what the Jedi have accomplished. I admire many of their goals and ideals. But there is much of what they teach that I cannot accept. That's why I left in the first place. I've ... never been one to be able to keep my opinions to myself..." She shook her head. "I'm not sure what I'm trying to say."
"You're not evil," he said with lower lip outthrust. "Maybe a little bit on the Dark Side, fine, but not evil. Not like the one who killed Master Qui-Gon."
"The Council doesn't see it that way."
"You don't care what they think, remember?"
"I don't care what they think of me. But what they think of Obi-Wan means a great deal to him."
"And he's already on shaky ground with them, and that my fault," Anakin said glumly. "Master Yoda always looks at me like I'm something slimy that oozed out of a rotten log on Degobah."
Sabeeth smiled. "I know what you mean."
"My future's clouded ... isn't everyone's?" He looked up at her appealingly. "They're judging me for things I haven't even done, things I might never do! It's not fair!"
"I know," she sighed, resting her hand on his shoulder. "And associating with me isn't doing you, or Obi-Wan, any good in their eyes."
"It does him good. You make him happy, Sabeeth. Even when you don't agree. I know he has longed to see you."
"Well, I'm here now. I should go and say hello."
"I guess I should adjust the lightsaber." He winked. "I'll probably be another hour or two at least."
To Be Continued in the Chapter 2