Shades of Gray
Chapter 6
In the shadow of the nearest generator station, a line of pathetic and desperate people waited. They stood cringing and shuddering, as a hefty foreman or manager passed down the line, distributing something into their outstretched hands as he passed. The Force tightened with desire, with trembling need.
Anakin crept closer. Food? Money? Payment, undoubtedly…but in what currency? He pressed himself against the generator's smooth, humming side and squinted through the gloom. A pair of the grateful recipients broke away form the main crowd and wandered closer, clutching the treasure between closed hands.
"Less than yesterday," one of them moaned, wiping grime off his tattooed face with a filthy sleeve. It had little effect.
"Doesn't matter," his companion snorted. "I just wanna leave this place for the night. If I don't wake up, just let me lie."
They crouched down a scant two meters away, oblivious to his presence. The first speaker held out his hand, palm upward. In the hollow of his wrinkled skin lay a tiny heap of sparkling grain. He raised the dust to his nostrils and inhaled sharply, a blunt retort like a sneeze. His head lolled back against the hard metal of the power station, and he exhaled deeply. His friend followed suit.
Anakin counted his breaths, the passing seconds….but neither man moved. He stepped forward, directly into the line of their vision. No response. He crouched down, nudged at their slack limbs, pried an eyelid open to discover a curve of bloodshot white. The Force seemed to pool and eddy, sluggish and contorted, around the slumped figures.
Spice. They were being paid in spice. And that explained their servitude – it was well known that an established spice addict could never break the habit, and would go to irrational extremities of suffering to obtain the next dose, and the next. It was also well known that such unmoderated indulgence in the stronger varieties was a sure death sentence, taking years and then decades off the user's life, gradually reducing the being to a gibbering madman even while he eked out the short remainder of his life.
It had the simplicity of true brilliance. And true evil.
How much did the Senate know? The Chancellor could not possibly know about this; Palpatine's ethics were above reproach. He would be appalled to learn of these abuses, of the way Lenn ran his mining operation. This was no cooperative mine like the ryll harvesting corporations on Ryloth; this was slavery and slow murder, for the sole sake of profit, for the pleasure and idle indulgences of the rich. It was intolerable.
He drew his cloak over his head, eyes traveling back to the man who had distributed the spice. He was disappearing into a wide grav-sled now, moving away to the next batch of workers coming off shift. Anakin's hand went to his saber hilt. The generator stations could be easily destroyed. The men responsible for keeping the miners in subjection could be cut down. They should be – they should be slaughtered like animals for what they did. The mines themselves….they could also be destroyed. A few well placed proton torpedos, or an orbital bomb, and the vile spice pits would no longer exist. His elite squadron of 501st pilots could handle the whole operation in a matter of hours. They could take Lenn down, bring him to his knees.
But he was alone here, and officially not here at all. He gritted his teeth. What would Obi Wan do in this situation? Besides lying, of course. He would be patient. He would observe, assess, and then report back to the Council before engaging in rash action. A long breath out. He could do that. He released a long breath, loosened his tight grip around his weapon's hilt. His fighter was a short distance away.
He would report back to the Chancellor first. And then he would act.
Hojo Lenn's meeting with the Senators from Meglon, Dervash, Pylar, and Huuk'chtu 4 took a considerable amount of time and left a stunning detritus of emptied food and drink containers in its wake. Serving droids escorted the guests back to their private speeders and air cars, leaving Lenn and his newly appointed bodyguard alone in the private alcove located at the back of an exclusive jargul den in the Belshuu district.
"Sit down, sit down," Lenn ordered, waving Ben out of the shadows at the back of the sumptuously appointed space, and indicating a portion of cushioned bench directly beside himself.
Obi Wan settled himself cautiously beside his new employer's massive figure.
"So…what do you think, eh?" Lenn inquired, leaning back against the soft velvet backrest and fixing his retainer with a penetrating look.
Careful. "I think they will make the changes you suggested," Ben offered. "They seemed eager to …ah…benefit from your generosity."
"Glitterstim addicts, every one of them," Lenn confirmed. "They'll do whatever I ask. And they have the connections to pull a majority vote in the legislature, too. This contract should be signed in two days."
Ben stirred thoughtfully. "I'm no businessman," he said. "But I don't see why you would go to all this trouble when you could land a similar arrangement with the CIS. And avoid the assassination attempts."
Lenn polished off the remainder of his last drink. "You're a clever one," he mused. "But if I sided with the Seps, the Republic might send Jedi to assassinate me."
"Jedi don't do assassinations," Ben protested.
Lenn dismissed this with a noisy snort. "Bantha chisszk, they don't. Jedi are the black hand of the Republic, Ben my boy. I'd rather cross Dooku than those hopped-up religious fanatics. By signing with the Republic, I guarantee that the Chancellor's office will keep the Jedi off my back. You have to play these things like a sabaac game, my friend. Besides, democratic rule is always better for the free market. My product can reach a wider customer base here in the Core and Inner Rim."
"I see," Obi Wan replied neutrally. Lenn was an astute manipulator of others' needs, and a cynical and neutral observer of the war playing out in every corner of the galaxy. He saw; and he wondered how it had come to this. How was it that the Council, that he, had agreed to surreptitiously protect this evil being in order to procure a portion of his ill-gained profits for the Republic's war effort? What kind of peace and justice did that uphold? Thank the Force that the contract would be signed in two days….at which time he could withdraw gratefully from this repulsive assignment. On the other hand, did he really want Lenn's contract to be ratified?
It wasn't his to decide, he reminded himself. He had sworn an oath of service.
"Not only are you a thinker, you know when to keep your mouth shut," Lenn chuckled genially. "I'd like to keep you around on a more permanent basis. I must say, you're the only decent thing Uun has ever dragged in. Her other diversions were all useless."
"I'll take that as a compliment."
"Take it as a job offer. I'll pay you twice what Uun gets. I want you on security alert around the clock. Expenses paid, and your choice of side benefits."
"That's…a tempting offer."
"Let's drink on it, then," Lenn decided. He leaned forward and grabbed the carafe of amber fluid still sitting on the table. He filled two small glasses and then fished a tiny inlaid box out of an inner pocket. "This," he explained. "Is my best spice. I keep it for personal use only. And I'd like you to seal our little arrangement." He used a miniscule tong-like implement to transfer a pinch of glittering dust from the box into the drinks.
"What's that?" Ben asked, suspiciously, though he had a sinking suspicion he knew already.
"This," Lenn smiled, thrusting the box back into its pocket, "Is the naturally occurring base of synthetic ixetol cilena."
"Deathsticks."
"No, no – that's for the hoi polloi. This is the real thing, Ben. It makes glitterstim look like cheap colfillini beer. I only let those I trust in on this secret." He shoved one of the glasses toward his new bodyguard, with an ingratiating smile, and raised the second one to his own lips. "To our new relationship."
Obi Wan took the glass of toxic brew in one hand and sniffed at it. The pungent aroma of alcohol rose from the amber liquid, but nothing else. He hesitated a moment, feeling the Force tauten in warning. The muscles across his belly crawled with apprehension, and he felt the hairs on the nape of his neck rise in alarm. But really, it was no more difficult than swallowing a vocal emulator or forcing down live quanta worms out of diplomatic necessity. The Force was a powerful ally, and he was trained.
He tipped the vile liquid down his throat.
Lenn took a small sip of his own glass and leaned back, watching him with a smirk of pleasure on his bloated features.
Nothing happened. The drink burned a raw trail down his throat and warmed his chest, a slight flush of answering warmth in his skin and a tingling sensation at his fingertips, a palpable and almost pleasant relaxation of his tense muscles, his vague apprehension…. He was still looking at Lenn, and the soft drape of decorative curtain behind him, its crimson folds falling in an elegant swag against the wall. The Force itself seemed to unwind, uncoil, its thrumming presence slowing to a soporific eddy.
That was odd.
Focus. Lenn was speaking, but his voice had disappeared, as though muted into the colors of the drapes, which dripped, wax-like, to pool on the table and the floor, a red and rippling pool, a basin in which Lenn's face and the interior of the Jargul den and the table and the clutter upon it were nothing but dull reflections.
He closed his eyes, but the image was not sensory. Focus. Breathe. The Force. He centered himself in the trickling current, the sluggish pulse of life energy around him, but to his growing alarm the Light itself seemed elusive, slippery. The center, his foundation, shifted treacherously beneath him, melted like the dripping crimson of the curtains; he felt the dark spread of warmth, like blood, erupting from his own core, where the Force should have been, where his heart should have been.
He gasped. Not right- not good. Scrabbling for purchase as the world melted into crimson rainfall, into a red shower of burning, scalding droplets, he held on, dangling over a bottomless pit of black while a red-and-black-assassin mocked him above, scattering agonizing sparks on him as his grip slid, loosened…
He fell into the pit. He fell far, far, down into the melting pit, into the place where colors and sounds and shapes had pooled and melded together. And the hole in his chest widened until his entire body was nothing but gaping wound, and the molten hot lava in the pit rolled in , consumed him, melted him into its own embrace.
Pain mounted until it was intolerable pleasure; bliss so piercing that he writhed with it, soundlessly screaming with the devastating ecstasy of it. Oh Force, no… this wasn't right – this was wrong and dark and twisted, and he must escape. Ecstasy broke over its own horizon, a new dawn of joy spilling over the first, and then another, until each successive starburst of pleasure burned a deeper scar into him, until he was begging for it to end, to cease, to release him…Where was the Force? Where was the light, and peace? He clawed for its retreating tendrils, the smoke rising off the molten pool of hot-sharp nervous pleasure, the tiny thread of self that remained intact enough to feel this torturous illusion of joy.
He had it. He held to it. The Force. Reality. Light.
The searing, sucking pool released him, its clinging smears ripping at his soul, burning blissful shudders along his spine as he struggled out of its morass, choking him and dragging at his heavy limbs. He rose from the depths, burned alive, limp with pleasure, with boundless relief, with an unspeakable pang of loss and a terror of ever returning.
He opened his eyes. The ceiling was glowing with a soft ambience. The curtains were crimson-dyed velvet, and quite undamaged. Hojo Lenn was still sitting nearby, idly watching him. He was on his back, sprawled across the long padded bench inside a private alcove in a jargul den on Coruscant.
"Good trip?" Lenn inquired casually.
He was drenched. Blood? No….just sweat. His face was dripping, too. He hoped tears were not mixed with the rivulets of perspiration, but there was no way to know. He tried to sit up and failed. "I…ah…"
Hojo Lenn smiled blandly. "I told you that was the real deal. Now you know one of the universe's best kept secrets." He summoned two droid attendants, who unemotionally hauled the stricken bodyguard to his feet and supported him out the door as Lenn led the way back to his private air transport. "Sadly, it's instantly addictive," he added. "So you're stuck with me now."
"You seem…disturbed, Anakin."
The Chancellor's blue hologram considered him gravely, flickering slightly over the projection plate. Anakin hunched inside the small cockpit, a flame of outrage swathed in dark cloth.
"Chancellor," he choked out. "I've just had a good look at Lenn's spice mines. They make Kessel look like a vacation resort. It's an abomination." He proceeded to relate all that he had witnessed, sparing no detail. Palpatine had to understand – he would be able to do something, to make it right.
But the Supreme Chancellor merely shook his head sadly when the grievous recitation finally came to an end. "Ah, dear," he sighed, his shoulders drooping. "This is my worst nightmare realized. I fear we will be obliged to support and protect such practices for the sake of expediency."
"Chancellor. I could take a squadron, just twenty fighters and a special clone unit, and –"
"No,no," Palpatine interrupted him sharply. "I cannot authorize any such action, not when the Senate is on the brink of signing an accord with Lenn. Our hands are tied. Of course, I wil present your findings to the legislature tomorrow, during a special session, but …alas…There is little chance that even such scandalous revelatioins will stop the gears of conspiracy form moving forward. Such is democracy."
Anakin's mechno hand clenched spasmodically. "There must be a way to stop that agreement form going through. The Republic can't commit itself to such corruption, for the sake of money."
"Oh, I only wish that were true," Palpatine sighed again, the weight of the galaxy seeming to settle upon his weary shoulders. "When I took office all those years ago, I vowed to eliminate corruption in the Senate." He shrugged wryly. "How naïve I must have been. Short of a miracle, I fear Lenn will go through with this treaty."
"Unless Dooku manages to assassinate him in the meantime."
Palpatine's expression was grave. "It is a terrible thing to say, but one almost wishes that might happen…however, our intelligence suggests that Lenn has surrounded himself with the best security in the galaxy. I doubt any feeble Separatist attempts at killing him would succeed."
"He could be arrested," Anakin insisted. "The Jedi could do it."
"That wouldn't stop the contract going into effect. Lenn's status as a diplomatic entity extends until the Senate has ratified the new agreement."
Kriff all this beaurocracy and double talk. Anakin knew exactly what needed to be done. "Somebody has to stop him," he said darkly.
"Yes, that is true, if there is to be any decency left in the galaxy," the Chancelleor replied levelly. "But there is nothing you or I can do, Anakin. I am bound by my office and you by your Jedi code. We must accept our limitations."
To the hells with that. He was the Chosen One, He didn't have limitations. "I understand," he gritted out. "Skywalker out."
But as he sat in the gloom of his cramped haven, watching the stars peek out overhead and the swirling dust climbing in slow columns heavenward, he formulated another thought… a dark and secret thought that would, nonetheless, restore balance to the Republic.
And that was what he was supposed to do, wasn't it?