Even back on Coruscant the ghosts of Taris linger. Even here in her home with her husband by her side, Padme cannot escape her failure. Peace died on that world, and while she mourns its passing, in the Senate a very different sort of atmosphere settles.
"You should really turn that thing off," Anakin tells her as he circles around behind the couch, slides up next to her, and sets a pair of drinks on the table. Crystal-clear, faint bubbles, a slice of citrus—Chommel sparkling wine. He is trying to get her to do more than just turn off the holo.
Padme frets and shakes her head. "I can't just pretend things aren't happening," she murmurs as she watches the live vid.
On the holo, Senator Halle Burtoni of Kamino slams down her fist on the lectern in her press office. "Three years of total war, and has it ever been more evident?" she bellows before the cameras, her face twisting into a scowl. To Padme she looks like a serpent. Lurking. Waiting. Ready to strike at the first opportunity. Ready to strike now. "Those who preach peace. Those who preach negotiation. Those who even think that the Separatists are capable of civilized behavior—are they blind? This is what happens when we extend peace! This is what happens when we reach across the table! Those animals slap our hand away. The only language they know is violence, and if they will show us nothing but their barbarism, then we must show them justice! The clones, the soldiers, the officers—those are our heroes! We must dedicate all we have to the war. Our hearts. Our lives. And, in case my fellow senators cannot understand it, our finances, too. We can do nothing less if we wish to survive, if we wish to build a future for our children and their children!"
Anakin clicks off the holo. "This is just masochism if I've ever seen it," he murmurs. He raises his glass. "Come on, Padme. Let it go. They'll talk and bluster. They always do. We're still here."
"It's not that simple," she says. Reluctantly she takes the other glass—perhaps just a sip. Just something to calm her nerves. "Burtoni and all the other hawks in the senate, they'll use this. They'll turn what happened at Taris to just another reason to keep throwing away credits and lives and worlds to the war. This couldn't have gone better for them." She sighs and presses her hand to her forehead. "It's almost as if they got us all to go out there. Just to further their own ends back here. Just to prolong the war."
"Well, did they?" asks Anakin. When Padme shoots him a look he shrugs. "You never told me why you ended up on Taris."
"Is it hard to imagine why? Look at what's happened," says Padme. "Just today three more neutral systems threw in with Taris and went over to the Confederacy. With Mandalore being so unstable, Taris was the only other real option for a world to lead the neutral systems. I couldn't just stand by. But now it's gone, and here we are." When she sees Anakin's disbelieving eyes she groans out of frustration. "All right, fine! Chancellor Palpatine showed me what was going on on Taris after Senator Robb's death. I saw you were in trouble, and I wasn't going to just let that go on without doing something about it. So I decided to come to your rescue, and Bail and R2 tagged along. You're welcome. And why are you laughing?"
Anakin claps his hands. "That plan worked out real good."
"Well, sorry!"
With a grin and a shake of his head, Anakin throws back his drink and mutters, "Should really blame the Council for this mess."
"Why are we blaming the Jedi Council for Taris siding with the Separatists?"
"They're the ones who threw Obi-Wan, Ahsoka, and I out there in the first place. I wanted to go investigate a Sith artifact I found on Empress Teta, but no. Overruled. They ended up sending some Jedi Knight I don't even know to go look into what I found. Bet that'll work out great, too."
Padme chuckles. Already her drink is half-empty, somehow. "How many Jedi do you not know, exactly?"
"Eh, most of 'em, I figure."
"And is that what you're supposed to do?"
Anakin snorts and shakes his head. "Look, I don't care about the Order right now. I only want to know one person right now, and—" he puts his arm around Padme's shoulders— "I want to know her very well."
She laughs. Almost a giggle. Goodness. The glass is empty. "Another clumsy come-on."
"Don't they work?"
"Sometimes."
"Good thing I'm persistent, then."
She laughs as he pulls her up from the couch, puts his hands around her waist, and draws her close. "The whole world is going to see us, Ani."
"Then let's put on a show for them."
"I thought you only wanted to know me?"
"Yes. And the rest of the world will know that."
He leans in. Padme leans in. And their kiss is everything she wants right now: No war, no politics, no blaster shots and angry words. No speeders rushing past the apartment, no fleets in orbit rushing to the battlefield. Just him. His firm hands. His assurance. His confidence. As if he is the world entire, right here, a galaxy in just a few square meters. Skin and softness and the sweet wine on his lips. Arms that can lift her up and spirit her away from every ill.
When they pull back, Padme smiles. "I think a private showing might be best," she whispers.
"Your wish is my command," Anakin says with a grin. He takes her head, bows—oof, she hopes he practices that before he meets any more dignitaries—and leads her inside their apartment's hall, the two giggling like schoolchildren in the Naboo Lake Country, mellow evening light alone their guest, peering in for one night where they might forget they are politician and Jedi Knight, leaders and heroes. For one night they might set the starlight back into distant space and know only this, only this most precious of links, hand-to-hand, lips-to-lips, skin-to-skin. Only what they can always come back home to find.
A throne room. A high court. A refuge. A galactic wonder. A mystery. There are many words for the Jedi Council Chamber, many descriptions for a place so few have ever seen—and all are inadequate. To Obi-Wan, it is far simpler: Home. Home and heart. Where a galaxy in turmoil, where a Republic falling back on the battlefront day by day, where the Dark Side looming like a mythical monster over a last defiant city—where all of it is just another obstacle. Another foe. Another challenge for the Order and each and every Jedi to stand side by side and confront, together, united. Brothers and sisters like a proud and rushing river before a wildfire.
The quietude. The light. The cleanliness. There is a reverence here that can fill even the heaviest of hearts with hope.
Only three of them join together here tonight as the sunset wanes along the Coruscant skyline, Obi-Wan joined by Master Windu and Master Yoda. So many of the others on the Council out on the front lines or entrenched deep under cover, adding an inch here, a pound of muscle there, to stave off the Separatist fury and keep the light shining just a little longer. Maybe not on Taris—but it is one system, one planet, one day. There will be others. There will be more.
"Concerning, this defeat is. For now, lost to the Separatists, Taris is. And how many others?" Yoda muses from his seat. His face is equal parts pained and serene, the fall of Taris and its billions of souls to the Confederacy wracking him with grief on one hand, and the vastness of the galaxy and the Unifying Force in total calm on the other. The universe and the individual being bound in harmony. Grief and hope. Defeat and persistence. "But to this loss, react without consideration, we cannot. With foresight, our plans must be made."
Master Windu nods in the seat beside him. "Taris's fall is a blow, and it brings the Separatists and Dooku one step closer to the Core Worlds. But if nothing else, we have confirmation that the Taths are working with the Confederacy, and we can instruct all Republic initiatives to lock them out of channels of finance and society. If nothing else, them picking a side gives us clarity regarding one of the more powerful noble families in the galaxy," he says. Then his eyes rise to meet Obi-Wan's gaze. "Frankly, I'm more concerned about what you said Skywalker claimed to have found in the treasure vault in the Tath estate on Taris."
"I didn't get a look myself, Master," says Obi-Wan, standing before the two masters of the Order, "but Anakin claimed to have snuck in during our first night in the estate. He said it was a kyber crystal the size of a speeder."
"Assuming Skywalker is correct about that," Windu says, stressing the assuming with doubt tickling his words, "where would they have even found something like that? Kyber crystals are rare enough, but one of that size?"
"Perhaps the black market?" Obi-Wan offers. "Ahsoka did find communications regarding Tath shipping and purchasing contacts on Sleheyron. Routing business deals through Hutt Space would keep anyone in the Republic from knowing what was going on."
"Assuming those communications were legitimate."
"Assuming, yes."
Yoda strokes his whisker-wisened chin. "Dangerous, this path is. To a dark place, it leads."
"Master Yoda?" says Obi-Wan.
Windu glances at Yoda. "In the days of the Old Sith Wars, the Sith Empire powered superweapons with kyber crystals of massive size," he says. "That was thousands of years in the past, but if Dooku—or whoever the Sith Lord is behind this war—is on that same track, we could be facing a weapon of a destructive magnitude far beyond anything we've ever seen. Beyond anything anyone's ever seen."
"And the Taths would simply be an arm to help build that weapon by funneling resources. Just another of the Dark Side's tools, really," finishes Obi-Wan. "So that artifact Anakin found on Empress Teta—"
"Of greater value than we perhaps thought, it might have been," muses Yoda. "That exchange Skywalker recorded from the artifact: A plan, was it? A design? An order? Questions, I have. Answers, I have not."
Obi-Wan frets. Anakin did want so much to follow that lead, that string of Ludo Kressh and an ancient Sith power locked away in the darkness of history. The Council had thought it a vague thread at first, and even Obi-Wan had thought Anakin overly concerned about his finding, but now it seems he was right all along. And out there now, somewhere, looking for a trace of where that path might lead, is Sae Tristess and her Padawan. The same lively Sae he was close friends with when they were younglings. The same deadened Sae who sounded ready to give up on everything after Adi Gallia's death. As much as he wants to believe in his old friend, Obi-Wan wonders just how much of a chance Sae has. "Has there been any word from the Jedi we dispatched to Ossus?"
"No," Mace murmurs. "Sae was scheduled to meet a Republic informant on Belderone, but the intelligence cell on that planet has gone dark. We've heard nothing."
Bad and getting worse. "Well, we can't do nothing," says Obi-Wan. "Taris collapses. General Grievous destroys Master Malicos's fleet at Teyr, and Malicos is missing in action, to boot. We're short on victories here. We need some leads. We need a foothold from which to push back."
Yoda shakes his head. "Look beyond your feelings you must, Obi-Wan. Temporary is failure. To a new path, this setback leads. And to the unlikeliest of hopes does the Force often lead us. Not empty-handed did you leave Taris."
"Master?" says Obi-Wan.
"Padawan Tano," continues Yoda, leaning forward, his eyes wide. "Capable of great insight, Skywalker's apprentice is. And of importance, the information she found may be."
"The supposed Tath contact on Sleheyron?" asks Obi-Wan, looking between Yoda and Windu. "Forgive my skepticism, Master Yoda, but the Taths were baiting us from the moment we stepped off of our ship."
Mace Windu glances away out of the vaulted windows. The growing evening casts shadows on his face that the artificial lights of the chamber now blinking on cannot wash away. "Nobody's perfect," he murmurs. Slowly he turns back to Obi-Wan and Yoda and adds, "Nothing is certain, but Sleheyron has seen major upheaval lately."
"How so? Is it not still a major Hutt world?"
"It is. It's simply changed hands—violently, like all those criminal enterprises do in Hutt Space. The Besadii Hutt clan ran Sleheyron for decades, mostly trading in slaves and other forms of forced labor and trafficking, but less than a year ago they were ousted from power on the world by the much smaller and weaker Anjiliac clan," he explains. "The Anjiliacs typically operate in the spice and stim underworld, so seizing a slavery hub like Sleheyron is far outside of their territory. Furthermore, their successful effort was led by Steno, the youngest child—and supposedly the incompetent child—of the clan's leader, Gorgosa the Hutt. To make matters worse—" Mace's face tightens— "something very strange has been happening in Hutt Space as of late."
"Strange how?"
"Strange as in, according to our intelligence over the past week or so, many of the Hutt families, and in particular the two largest clans, the Besadii and the Desilijic, seem to be acting in concert. As if someone has unified them into some cause. Or, more likely, forced them to unify. A strongman, maybe. A powerful Hutt can make ripples among the crime families."
"But waves, can the Dark Side make," finishes Yoda.
Obi-Wan frowns. "Do you think Dooku has taken an interest in the Hutts?"
"Maybe. We have no way of knowing for sure. But the treaty you forged with Jabba when you and Skywalker rescued his son Rotta may not be valid any longer," says Mace, looking grave. "And if Dooku has bent the Hutts to his will—and if the Anjiliac Hutts are working as his chosen allies to do so, like the Taths—the Republic is in a very dangerous situation."
"Worth investigating, it is," Yoda says. "Perhaps connections between all of these points, in Hutt Space we will find. And, perhaps, at the Dark Side, the center of it is."
As if her headache couldn't get worse.
Neelotas looks a corpse. Sae's barely heard him speak more than a dozen words since they left Ossus. Tamri, meanwhile, keeps shooting leery side-eye glances at her as if expecting Sae to go berserk at any moment. To top it off, the Into Evening's Call's hyperdrive has been banging so loudly for the past half-day that Sae imagines it's only an hour or two until the ship just blows up in hyperspace. That, at least, would make her headache go away.
But no, things can get worse. This conversation, to be sure, is certainly not going to the way Sae wanted.
Above the holotransceiver pad in the private comms closet aboard the Evening, the holographic image of a slender and concerned-looking woman in Jedi dress shimmers. "I'm not going to ask why you want to get to Korriban," the woman asks, "but I would recommend you not go telling everyone in the Jedi Temple that when you return to Coruscant."
"Yeah, that's why I'm not going to Coruscant. I'm trying to get to Korriban. Just like I said," Sae grumbles. She sighs, exasperated. The Jedi Knight on the other end of the holo-call, Cere Junda, is more of an acquaintance than a friend, but at least she's good at keeping things private. Sae imagines that the moment she reports back to the Jedi Council and tells them that old Odan-Urr's holocron is pointing to the legendary Sith homeworld, they will pull her off of this mission faster than she can squeak out a protest. She can't just give up on this assignment like this. Dragging Tamri through Ossus. The deaths on Belderone. It can't be for nothing. It all can't be for nothing. She has to keep going. Forward. Always forward.
That list of excuses, those reasons why—it keeps getting longer the further she goes. But she has to keep going. It is like that invisible hand of the Force she felt in the temple on Ossus has followed her into hyperspace and is tugging her along even now, guiding her—keep going, keep going. Come to me.
She can't come away empty-handed. She cannot keep failing everyone.
"Look, Cere," Sae says. "You're a Seeker. You go all over the galaxy looking for Force-sensitive kids. You're telling me you don't know any hyperlanes to Korriban?"
Cere scoffs. "Oh, I know how to get there."
"Then tell me already! Gah!"
"Do you have any idea what you are going to do when you get there? Apart from that jumbled-together mess of a story you blurted out in ten seconds when you called me? You're not thinking at all. If you don't have a concrete plan, then I can tell you exactly what's going to happen on Korriban," says Cere. "That planet is teeming in the Dark Side, Sae. If you stay there too long—and that might be days, it might be weeks, it might just be hours—it's going to get into you. It's going to twist you. And you're not going to leave there the same person you were when you landed."
"I think I'll take my chances."
"You don't understand," says Cere. "You—look. Something about the tomb of a Sith Lord, right?"
"Yeah. Ludo Kressh. Pretty sure I can find a tomb on the Sith tomb world. Pretty sure a blurrg could."
Cere shakes her head and closes her eyes. "How about this. I have another idea."
"All ears."
"Look, my old master, Eno Cordova—he's a Jedi Seer, an eccentric, for sure, and I hadn't even heard from him in over a year and a half until just a month ago, after he came back from—"
Sae groans. "Cere, please, my head is killing me already. Can we just get to the point?"
"He might be able to help you. There's no one in the entire Order that I know if who knows odd and strange historical details about the galaxy. If there is something specific you need to find, I'll bet he can find it. And—" she trails off, her eyes drifting— "He's been…at odds…with the Council for the last few years. You clearly want your privacy. You won't have to worry about that with him. All you'll have to worry about is him talking your ear off about all sorts of crazy things."
"Great. Eccentric. I can deal with that," says Sae. She winces and presses her fingers to her temples. "Not right now, at least, but sooner or later. How do I contact him?"
"Oh, I doubt he'll want to just chat over the holo. Try in person. Last I heard—and that was a couple days ago—he was studying in the great library at the Kuat Galactic Institute for Historical Studies. I'm going to bet he's still there. Cordova was always thorough."
"How likely is that bet?"
Cere scowls. "Likely."
"All right, got it. Eno Cordova. University. Kuat," says Sae. Then a fresh lance spears her temple. Kuat. She knows what's waiting there. She knows for who it waits. And she knows, when she gets there, what she's going to have to confront. Oh, boy. "Thanks, Cere. I'll make it up to you eventually."
"Listen, Sae," begins Cere, but she stops short. Her brow furrows. Her lips firm up. Like she sees something in Sae that perturbs her. As if Korriban has already changed her before she's even set foot on the planet. As if something has changed her. "Just be careful, all right?"
When Sae steps out of the private room, the hyperdrive has settled down, mercifully, and all is quiet aboard the Evening. Gentle churning of gears and metalwork. Humming squares of pale overhead lighting. A chill in the stale air—it is always cold in space. Tamri snoozing on the couch beneath a hillock of blankets. How the girl sleeps through the hyperdrive racket mystifies Sae. Tamri's left arm pokes out of the blankets, and Sae takes a step closer to move the quilting. Then she stops. No. Don't. Leave it.
She heads for the cockpit, stops again, and looks back at her apprentice. Kuat. She has no idea where she's going to begin that conversation.
In the cramped cockpit, Neelotas leans back in his seat with his bare feet propped up on the console, eyes empty and watching the swirling azure of hyperspace whip by. He glances up just enough to acknowledge Sae before looking back, face vacant, stare vacuous. He says nothing as she sits down behind them. Quiet. Silence. Just the two with not a word to pass between them.
After a long hush, he clears his throat. "You goin' back to your temple?"
Sae shakes her head slowly. "Nah."
"Right," he says. Another hush. "Where you wanna go, then?"
"Kuat."
"Sure. I'll set coordinates when we pop out at Brentaal," he murmurs. Neither moves. Again the quiet. "What's on Kuat?"
"Huh?"
"Just shipyards and stuffy nobles far as I know. Whatcha doin' there?"
Sae waves her hand aimlessly. "Meeting people. I guess. Not stuffy nobles. You ever been there?"
"Nope. You?"
"Yeah. Once."
"Yeah? What for?"
Sae lets out her breath. "Just was…meeting people. Well, not meeting. Investigating. Checking them out. Didn't want them to know I was there."
"Like Jedi work?"
"Sort of. Not really. Not officially."
"Gotcha. Won't pry."
The silence settles once more. Sae cracks her finger knuckles for want of distraction. "Look, uh," she says, working out the words as she goes, "if you want to leave once we get to Kuat..."
"Whatcha mean?"
"You're a good pilot and outside of the clanky hyperdrive the ship's fine. But, uh…well, after what happened back on Ossus, if you want to ditch us and strike out on your own, I wouldn't blame you. Tam and I can find another ship. If you want." She bites her tongue. "Not pressing you or anything. Your decision."
Neelotas shrugs. "Nah."
"Nah?"
"Nah. May as well stick around. See where you two get off to."
"Don't tell me you're starting to like us," says Sae. "I mean, you can like Tamri all you want. I'm just here."
Neelotas grunts and punches his palm half-heartedly. "Eh, I just don't got anything better to do."
"You might want to work on that."
"Yeah, right? Guy's got to have a purpose in life," he says with a half-grin. As soon as it comes it fades, and his face falls alongside it. "Guess I never had that."
"How's that?"
"What I was with the Brood, I just ran around and shot people. Other people said shoot 'em, so I did. Rust said shoot 'em and I did. Did other things 'cuz that's what needed doing, but I never felt anything 'bout it. We joined 'bout the same time buncha years ago. Don't even remember what I did before that. I've always just—" he pauses, mouth slightly ajar— "I dunno. Just went from one place to another. Guess you wizards would say the Force was pushing me or whatever, but I just went places. Did things. It's a blur. Never felt nothin' about it. Never cared. Guess I never even got to living."
"Where's home for you?"
"Nowhere I can think of. Guess I don't got one."
"Not Glee Anselm?"
He snorts. "Never even been there. What, all us Nautolans gotta go back to where we crawled outta the water? You ever been to, uh…where'd the humans get started before they got all over Coruscant?"
Sae looks at him as if he's forgotten to turn on several lights upstairs. "Humans did get started on Coruscant."
"Oh. Well, dumb question, then. Guess that's why it's Coruscant. Can't sneeze in the galaxy without trippin' all over your people."
"Blame our ancestors for breeding like nerfs, then," says Sae, staring off into hyperspace. "Not me, though. Strictly forbidden in the Jedi."
"Would you?" says Neelotas. "If you weren't a wizard. Ever consider it?"
She sighs. "Would you? If you weren't shooting people in the Haxion Brood and beyond?"
"Nah, never. I'd be the galaxy's dumbest father."
"And I'd be the most irresponsible mother. Let's leave it at that."
Besides, she thinks, staring out into the whirlpool of blue, there's no place for you, is there? Not with what's been there all along on Kuat. Not that thing the Council and the Order would tell you—would command you—to bury, to set aside and never think of again.
But all she can think of now is Dooku in the library, on Ossus, his lightsaber flashing inches from her face, his movements so easy, so fluid, as if he could cut her down without the slightest exertion. She has brushed with death many times before—done more than brush with it, given how she knows the feel of her lightsaber's unlit emitter pressed to her forehead (press the switch—it's so easy)—yet the fight with Dooku has inflicted a different sort of wound. She has seen firsthand just how powerless she is, and she has a feeling she has not seen the last of Count Dooku. If that is the case, she has to face what must be faced while there's still time, Jedi teachings be damned.
After all, there might not be much time left.
