CHAPTER TWO: The Tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise
PADME
The Mon Bannu Opera House was a wonder of Coruscanti architecture, a great rose-pearl series of scalloped wings that folded one around the other into something like a colossal conch. There were no windows, but the Mon Bannu's lush interior glowed with a soft green light that, combined with the million-gallon aquarium wrapped around the interior of the structure's spiral, contrived to create an atmosphere of total submergence in gently eddying waters. Padmé, along with a crowd composed largely of Senate notables, followed the tall, elegant figure of Madame Ilaghi Ackbar, the Mon Bannu's owner and patroness, around the spiral. Footsteps echoed in the aquatic dim while the bizarre sea life of a hundred different worlds flitted and lurked behind the triple-thick glass of the aquarium. A dwarf Colo swam past through the murk, its lantern eyes piercing the gloom, its claws grasping fitfully at nothing. It vanished into the darkness of the aquarium's artificial reef. Padmé hadn't seen one of the beautiful, deadly creatures in years. When was I last on Naboo?
You know the answer to that, Padmé. The lake house at Varykino, just after the attempt on her life. Before Anakin. Before the children. As always, thinking of the twins brought Padmé's heart into her throat. Here she was, dressed in a gown of Bothan shimmersilk with jewels glittering on her fingers and a choker of obsidian slats around her neck, her hair done up in a style that had cost more than most families paid for a month's food, while her children remained under the watchful eye of their Ithorian nanny Nuodo, a mute Anakin had hired from a private agency. He'd wanted clones on hand to guard the apartment, but Padmé had flatly refused. She wanted nothing to do with Fett's progeny.
The children would be safe with Nuodo.
The music began as the senators reached the upper levels of the Mon Bannu. The spiral opened suddenly on the opera house's innermost chamber, the Grand Sonorium that stretched from its lowest level far beneath the upper reaches of Coruscant to its peak a hundred meters above the heads of the Senators, suddenly dwarfed by the rose-colored vaults of the great spiral dome. Thin catwalks branched out over the walls, leading to private boxes shaped like spiral shells. In the vast open space of the Sonorium, though, hung the true centerpieces of the Mon Bannu. Ten enormous spheres of water, held in place by complicated networks of repulsor fields, floated above the distant floor like little planets of shifting liquid. The smell of salt was in the damp air as the senators, silenced by the sheer echoing immensity of the Sonorium, broke into clots and vanished into the branching network of stairways, catwalks and lift platforms. Padmé glanced to her left where the Chancellor's inner circle was making its way to his private box, a grand privacy-screened affair on the far wall. Palpatine looked tired, his hair more white than grey, his face deeply lined.
"It's hard to remember anything before he was in office, sometimes."
Padmé turned. Bail Organa, consort of Alderaan's hereditary ruler Queen Breha, and that planet's representative, stood beside her. He was a tall, broad-shouldered man with a neat goatee and thick, dark hair. His dress was simple, his manner unpretentious. "I know just what you mean, Senator," said Padmé, careful to keep her tone neutral as she adopted her best pre-packaged smile. It matched the choker of Krayt pearls around her throat. "The war has changed so much."
Organa nodded, looking somber. "Would you join me in my box tonight, Senator Naberrie?"
"I would be honored," Padmé said. She had intended to join her colleague Mon Mothma of Chandrila, a fellow member of the Reconciliation Committee, but Organa was much more highly-placed in the Senate. The Alderaanian sat on the Chancellor's private War Council. Padmé let Organa take her arm and together they climbed a narrow stair with filigreed rails to the Senator's box, a three-seated affair set high up on the southern arc of the Sonorium's inner well. Organa took the left-hand seat, graciously leaving the central seat of honor for Padmé. She sat.
"I'm told tonight's performance has a somewhat irregular origin," said Organa, looking down at the rippling surfaces of the water-spheres.
"Oh?" said Padmé.
Madam Ackbar floated from the periphery of the Sonorium to its center on a repulsor dais not unlike the Chancellor's in the Senate Round. She began to give a long, boring speech about patronage of the arts and the importance of beauty during times of great suffering and deprivation. Padmé wondered if anyone within a mile of the Mon Bannu really knew what deprivation felt like. We've lost touch, she thought, if we ever had it. This has all gone on too long.
Organa nodded. "It's a Sith tragedy, penned by their last Emperor. The Mon Cal have adapted it into a water ballet at the Chancellor's request. He has a soft spot for Sith scholarship."
"A Sith tragedy?" Padmé's stomach turned. The last Sith she had met had been Darth Maul, Qui-Gon's murderer who had bisected Naboo's Queen before her eyes without a second thought. Nute Gunray had taken the secrets of Maul's origins to his grave, but the shroud of Sith involvement in the war had hung over Senate and Council both since the inception of hostilities so many years ago. She grimaced. "It seems in bad taste."
"Doesn't it?" said Organa as Madam Ackbar's dais floated back into the concealment of her privacy screen and from the ceiling high above the reddish-pink forms of ten Mon Cal balletists dove in unison into the watery spheres. Applause rose from the galleries as the low, droning intonations of a full Mon Cal chorus swelled from the murky depths of the Sonorium. The ballet had begun.
Padmé's eyes wandered from the wondrous maneuvers of the water dancers to the privacy-screened dimness of the Chancellor's Box. Sometimes she thought she could feel the old politician's presence, as though the essence of him had overflowed his frail, aging frame and polluted the world around him. She looked at Bail, but he appeared distracted by the ballet. It was a glorious sight. Wearing only long, fluttering strips of red cloth the dancers fell and spun between the spheres to the droning of their peers in the chorus far below. They moved without pause or cease, passing one another sometimes by mere inches as they flew between spheres, droplets of salt water flying from their clammy skin. The privacy field hissed over cloth as someone else entered Organa's box.
"Ah," said the Senator, smiling at the new arrival. "Master Kenobi. I'm so glad you could make it. Can I offer you a drink?"
"No, thank you," said Obi-Wan as he took the box's last remaining seat. Obi-Wan's eyes found Padmé. "Senator Naberrie," he said.
Padmé forced herself to keep smiling. Just because Obi-Wan knew her secret didn't mean he was here to blackmail her in concert with Organa. He wasn't the kind of man who would allow himself to be involved in such a crass betrayal. "Obi-Wan," she said, injecting as much warmth into her voice as she could manage even as she ran through the mental exercises she had taught herself to cloud her thoughts and guard her mind against Jedi perceptions. "It's good to see you. It's been too long."
"Indeed," said Obi-Wan. His own smile was hesitant. He, like every Jedi Padmé had seen in the past year, looked tired. His auburn beard was untrimmed, his blue eyes bleary with lack of sleep.
"Senator Naberrie and I were just discussing the origins of tonight's performance," Organa said. "Are you familiar with the writings of the last Sith Emperor?"
Obi-Wan's brow furrowed. "In passing," he said. "His work tends toward the macabre. Is the ballet an adaptation?"
"Yes," said Organa. "One of his later efforts."
Obi-Wan looked troubled.
Padmé's heart leapt into her throat as she caught sight of Anakin making his solitary way along a catwalk toward the Chancellor's box. He moved quickly, but his left cheek was covered by a bacta patch and his robes were stained and torn. What was he doing tonight? Since he had become, at Palpatine's insistence, the Order's liaison to the office of the Chancellor he had been absent more and more, off pursuing Palpatine's mysterious agenda. Sometimes when he returned to the apartment they shared in secret he would refuse to tell her what he'd done. Other times his hurt was obvious, his pain impossible to salve. Once he had come home in such a rage that he'd destroyed the droid doorman, smashing the 3P0 unit to pieces with the Force. Padmé had locked herself and the children in Nuodo's little sleeping chamber until Anakin's anger had burned down to cold ash. Sometimes, though, he was tender and thoughtful. Sometimes he moved in step with the universe around him, serene as Qui-Gon had been, and in those times she loved him.
"If he is Sith," Obi-Wan said carefully, "it is a very foolish move on his part."
Padmé's ears rang. She watched Anakin join the Chancellor in his box, passing through the privacy screen surrounding it and vanishing into gloom. "The Chancellor?" she heard herself whisper.
"The Order has been investigating him since the invasion began," said Obi-Wan. His eyes never left the spiraling dancers, but Padmé knew he had seen Anakin go into Palpatine's box. The Jedi continued. "I know you harbor your own suspicions concerning his motivations. The Council and its allies thought it time we extended a hand to you, Senator."
Padmé wet her lips. Her hands shook on the arms of her seat and her skin felt suddenly cold and clammy. She had known, somehow, that circumstance would place her on side of the board opposite Anakin. It was something they had discussed. The more distance between our political stances, he'd said as they lay together in their bed, his real hand on the dome of her pregnant belly, the less cause anyone has to suspect us. Beyond that, we might be able to use it to our advantage.
She had disliked the idea, in the beginning. Now, though, it appeared to have borne fruit. If Kenobi and Organa unmasked the Chancellor as a Sith, she could sway Anakin against his old mentor and create a power vacuum with Palpatine's destruction. If, however, they failed she could turn them in to Anakin to increase his trust in her. A dangerous situation, but one rich in potential.
"Accepted," she said. "Tell me what I need to do."
DOOKU
Sidious wanted him dead, that much was plain. Treachery, after all, was the way of the Sith and the old monster hadn't hesitated to kill his own Master. Alone in his meditation chamber, Dooku considered the sloppiness of the attempt on his life. Skywalker was powerful, skilled beyond a doubt and growing more ruthless by the day, but a solo assault on the epicenter of the Confederacy's occupation of Coruscant was still more than the young Jedi could reasonably be expected to pull off without a hitch. Dooku sighed and passed a hand over his lined, unshaven face. He sat alone with Asajj's corpse in his private meditation chamber, a domed redoubt in the deepest sublevel of his manse. The guard patrols had failed to apprehend Skywalker and Dooku, blind with rage, had retreated into the comforting embrace of the Force. It pulsed and thundered all around him, now.
Asajj. He had found her starving and half-dead in the death pits of Rattatak, a miserable slum far on the outermost extreme of the Outer Rim territories. The owners had pitted her against hundreds before Dooku had bought her from them. She'd attacked him almost as soon as they arrived at his villa on Serenno, just a few years before the war's inception. Somehow she had gotten hold of a Jedi's lightsaber and had smuggled it with her out of the arena. A quick duel and a dose of Force Lightning had shown her the error of her ways. Beneath her brutal exterior he had found a wounded, raging, vulnerable girl and molded her over the years into a viciously effective Sith. She had become something else, though. Something more than apprentice, more than lover. She had been his daughter, the little girl he'd never had. He cupped her cheek with a wrinkled hand, looking into her vacant eyes. "I loved you," he said.
Now, because of Sidious and Skywalker, she was dead. Sidious had never cared for her. He'd thought her too unstable, too prone to violent outbursts to make a true Sith. To Sidious, though, there was really only one candidate for apprentice. Anakin Skywalker, Qui-Gon's last Padawan and the supposed Chosen One. Dooku let his rage fill him, let it burn the lining of his stomach and claw at his aging heart with fiery talons. He let sorrow howl in the pit of his belly, let grief and loss scream in his aching chest. He let the Dark Side reign, let it have his mind and serenity be damned. The world acquired a burnt, orange-red hue as his breath came quicker and quicker. Sweat dripped from the end of his nose and ran through his short, well-trimmed beard. Poggle's weapon was his road to vengeance, but the thing was as yet half-built. He needed other tools.
He needed other plans.
It had been so long ago that Sidious had come to him, robed in shadow, his many voices echoing from the walls of Dooku's penthouse apartment in a symphony of whispers. He had been days out of the Order, then, his whole world lost in a sea of self-loathing and fear that he had spent his life propping up a junta of corrupt arbiters who cared for nothing but their own self-righteous philosophies. There had been scant comfort for him, then, but what he could find at the bottom of the bottles he drained in his search for death or redemption. Liquor had drowned the whimpers he heard through the Force, had silenced the demonic voices of his fellow Masters, Oppo Rancisis and Ki-Adi Mundi, when they had gone to Kalee to end the war between the Huk and the Kaleesh. To end it not to secure peace and justice but so the Republic could resume its purchasing of pharmaceuticals from the Huk. Even in the deep calm of meditation, Dooku's hands became fists. Sidious had come to him then, while he wrestled with himself in depression's clutches. He had not revealed his true identity for years, but even that first brush with the glory of the Sith had been intoxicating.
You have paid homage at the altar of lies, the Sith Lord had said. You have trimmed from your soul that which makes us strong, excised from yourself the ocean of power that comes with knowing one's hatred, one's rage and fear and love. The Jedi are empty husks channeling the mute will of an idiot force of nature. They understand nothing of what it is to wield the Force, to seize it by its throat and compel it to obey. You have seen children playing with fire and thought them gods, but that is folly. I am Sidious. I am power, and I will show you the meaning of Sith.
Then pain, and the beginning of his long and agonizing tutelage at the hands of the Dark Lord. He had learned things under Sidious's instruction, had shed the skin of his depression and exchanged it for the luxurious robes of power. Together they had hatched a plot to reform the Galaxy, to excise the corruption and stupidity of the Republic, to put the lesser races in their place beneath mankind's guiding hand. How bright it had seemed then, their dream of rebuilding Darth Traya's Sith Triumvirate. He had objected to Maul's inclusion in their scheme, but even he had been forced to admit that the beast possessed his uses. Then Qui-Gon had died at his hands, and Dooku's disillusionment with the Sith had begun. How did it take me so long to see it?
"First Skywalker," said Dooku to the darkness. His voice, his famous voice that had inspired the galaxy's trillions to rebel, to throw off the oppression of the Republic, fell on dead ears. Without another word he dropped back into the seething, tumultuous comfort of the Force. He closed his eyes and saw his master's face staring back at him, lips curled upward in that gloating grin. Rage crushed his heart in iron hands. He knew, in that instant, the lever he needed to pull to rip Skywalker's happiness from his murdering hands, to bring Sidious's plans crashing down around his ears. It was all so simple, really, in its petty logic.
It was time, at long last, for Darth Tyranus to get his hands dirty.
PALPATINE
The boy was late. But then, he was always late. He cut an imposing figure in his Jedi robes as he strode in silence along the catwalk to the Chancellor's Box, dark hair cropped close to the lines of his skull, one cheek plastered with Bacta-soaked bandages. The low drone of the Mon Cal water dancers swelled in the briny air. Palpatine gestured with two fingers and his hangers-on ceased their conversation, rose from their seats and departed without comment. Mas Amedda, his Chagrian deputy, shot him a meaningful glance as he slipped through the privacy screen and into the adjacent box. Palpatine returned the alien's expression without feeling. Mas thrived on thinking he was included, that he was privy to secrets others only dreamed of. An idiot, and easily controlled.
Skywalker stepped into the box, the privacy field sliding over his robes like oil. Close at hand he looked windswept and exhausted. "Anakin," said Palpatine, "please, sit."
The Jedi Knight collapsed into the seat beside Palpatine's and sat for a moment, breathing deeply. "Ventress was there," he said, his voice flat and dead. "She was in Dooku's bedchamber. I killed her, again, and then the guards descended and I had to escape. Either he knew I was coming or it was an accident of timing. Either way, Dooku is alive, and he knows it was me."
"There are no accidents," said Palpatine. "No, I'm afraid this means we have been compromised. I feared as much, I confess. The mission was too audacious, and too dangerous. I worried you wouldn't return, Anakin." He let his voice fail him, let it trail off into the suggestion of tears as though he were a father mourning the blind pride that had cost him his favorite son. "You didn't tell anyone, did you? Anyone within the Order?"
Anakin's answering look was flat and emotionless, but Palpatine felt his pain at the suggestion of even such a small betrayal. "Of course not," he said.
Palpatine sighed and passed a hand over his face. Outside the privacy screen the Mon Cal spun through the air, enacting the Sith Emperor's last and greatest tragic play. "Anakin, Anakin," said the Chancellor, "I didn't mean to suggest that you'd committed any fault. Normally, the Order would be above suspicion...but I'm afraid that's changed. My surveillance systems recorded one of their spies, you see, attempting to plant a listening device in my private apartments."
"You're sure it was one of theirs?"
Theirs, thought Palpatine, suppressing a smile. Not ours, theirs. "I'm afraid there really can't be any doubt about it, my boy," he said. "I was as shocked as you are now."
Anakin's mechanical fist creaked. "I've let you down," he said.
"No, Anakin," said Palpatine. "No, you've been an exemplary liaison, a strong right arm." A son to me. He has all but said it a dozen or a hundred times. Anakin had always craved a father. "This is my failing. I should have seen sooner that in your present position your power is limited. For some time now I've meant to make you my personal representative on the Jedi Council itself."
The Force was so loud in the boy's proximity. It conformed to his every change in mood, pulsed in time to his heart, swirled around him as though he were the eye of a maelstrom. He was in it, and it was in him. What did we make in the swamps of Naboo? wondered Palpatine, not for the first time. He cleared his throat. "Well?"
The Force snapped into glassy stillness.
"I don't know what to say," said Anakin. "The Council has always chosen its own."
"I'm confident that they'll accept my decision," said Palpatine. He looked at the boy, matched his stare. "They would be fools to deny your importance, Anakin."
The boy's guilty pleasure at the praise was palpable. He was confused. For a while they watched the ballet as the dancers swam and spun, leapt and pirouetted. Great streamers of water hung in midair and the drone of the choirs drowned out all other noises. Reflections danced on the walls of the Sonorium, washing the Mon Bannu's rose-hued inner spiral with gold. Palpatine closed his eyes and let the music wash over him. It really was a beautiful suite. He let the silence stretch on for the better part of half an hour before he opened his eyes and finally spoke. "Are you familiar, Anakin with the tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise?"
Apprehension stirred in the boy's heart. He glanced at Palpatine, returned his attention to the ballet. "No," he said. "I've never heard of it."
"I shouldn't think so," said Palpatine. "It's a Sith legend, not something you could learn from a Jedi. Darth Plagueis, you see, was a Dark Lord of the Sith. A mystic, and a true devotee of the Force and all its endless permutations. For a hundred years, the legend goes, he meditated on the planet Dagobah in an attempt to discern the will of the Force. When at last he emerged from his trance he was transformed, his powers increased a hundredfold. He had discovered the secret to eternal life, plumbed the deepest mysteries of its ebb and flow. Legend tells that he had become so powerful he could even create life, pulling order from the chaos of the Living Force.
"Like all Sith, he eventually took an apprentice, and when he had taught his apprentice everything he knew, like all Sith, his apprentice killed him in his sleep. It's a fable I heard often as a young boy. My mother was a scholar at Theed University and thought ambitious children ought to know the dangers of real knowledge." He allowed himself a faint smile. "Imagine such a thing. To cheat death, to save the ones we love from its embrace..."
"Death is a natural part of life," said Anakin. "All we can do is accept it."
He knows the boy does not believe. It was plain on his face. "Jedi dogma," said Palpatine. "Man transcends. He does not submit."
The rest of the ballet passed in silence. When it was over Anakin stood, still troubled. "Good evening, Chancellor," he said.
"A moment, Anakin," said Palpatine. Outside the privacy screen the Galaxy's potentates began to filter out of the Mon Bannu. "I'd like a word with you. Not now. Next week. Stop by the Rotunda and we'll meet concerning your appointment to the Council."
"Thank you, Chancellor," said Anakin. He left, a shadow on the darkened mezzanine. Palpatine watched him leave, watched Kenobi slip out of Organa's box and move to intercept. They spoke briefly, then Anakin shook his head and swept past the older man and out of the Sonorium. Kenobi remained a moment longer before he too made his exit.
Near midnight the lights in the opera house went out. Madam Ackbar knew better than to ask the Chancellor when he would be leaving, and so Palpatine sat in the dark, free for a few hours from the constant storm of aides, press briefings, appointments and war councils. He ran a hand through his thick white hair and sighed.
It's nearly over.
