CHAPTER THREE: SERENNO

RUNE

The Twin Suns Luxury Towers. In a galaxy ripped apart by civil war it seemed there could be no less likely redoubt for the militant Confederate leadership than a former playground for the obscenely wealthy. Rune Haako, Viceroy of the Trade Federation and senior member of the Leadership Council, was not like other Neimoidians. Oh, he had played the games his people played. Ever since the creche he had fought, schemed, hoarded and groveled for the slightest advantage. Greed was a almost a religion on Neimoidia. Still, though, even as he'd planted knives in the backs of the males and females between himself and power, his conscience had insisted on maintaining a constant, irritating presence. Don't kill her, Rune! Don't let the people starve, Rune! Wait for the crowd to clear before telling your pilot to ignite the engines, Rune!

It was endless, interminable. And then had come the invasion of Naboo, that great effort to strangle the galaxy's trade routes into submission to the Federation. Greedy Nute had overreached himself and paid dearly for it. Rune Haako, the cautious voice of reason, had barely escaped with his life. For sixteen hours he had sweated beside the mangled Darth Maul in the cockpit of Nute's shuttle, praying for his life to whatever gods would listen. Nute was dead, Maul was dead, the monster Grievous executed, but Rune remained. Now, on the balcony of his lavish apartment in the complex's southern tower, he watched Coruscant die.

It was not the war they had been promised, that night in Dooku's penthouse suite. It was not the glorious revolution the Count had told them to expect. True, some worlds had taken up the Confederate banner with rousing cheers and raised arms, but more had flinched beneath the lash of galactic conquest. Cities living second lives as smoldering craters, the grasses of Hypori pounded into rugged hills of glass by turbolaser fire, dead heaped for burning on a hundred thousand nameless worlds. Breadlines on Coruscant, posters on every wall and leaflets raining from the sky to clog the sewers and the minds of every citizen. Rune passed a hand over his perspiring face. This isn't what I paid for. Nute, what did you get us into?

"It's a beautiful night, no?"

Rune turned. Wat Tambor, the Foreman of the Techno Union, stood in the doorway leading back into his privacy-screened suite. The Skakoan wore an air filtration mantle that obscured his mouth and upper body, along with safety goggles to shield his eyes from corrosive elements in the atmosphere and a long purple robe of synthetic rish-velvet. He joined Rune at the rail, putting his gloved hands on the night-chilled metal.

"Quite," said Rune sourly.

"Lord Sidious's communication is due to begin any minute now," said Wat. The Skakoan's eyes were dark, wet and unreadable behind his goggles. "San, Archduke Poggle and and I wondered if you might join us for the address."

What a lovely idea, thought Rune, the edge of his lipless mouth twisting into a sneer. What an absolutely spectacular way to spend the rest of the evening. I wonder what inventive new ways Sidious has contrived to deepen the Galaxy's loathing for us. "Of course," he said. He was, after all, the ranking representative of the Confederacy's most powerful member corporation, and appearances had to be preserved. "It would be my pleasure."

The complex's Grand Atrium was a yawning abyss of a conference space, a shaft sixty floors high ringed with endless galleries, its support pillars decorated with glowing holosculptures, its ground floor a dizzying mosaic of reactive tiles that appeared different from each viewing station. On the eighteenth floor Rune, San Hill, Wat Tambor, and Poggle the Lesser watched the myriad thousands of high-ranking Confederate diplomats, noblemen, officers, and industrialists assembling in their finest dress. The rumble of their conversation echoed in the depths of the shaft, resounding from the great holo-screens suspended by repulsors in midair.

"My informants say Lord Sidious's address will be of particular import tonight," said San, resting his elbows on the rail and steepling his long, thin fingers beneath his chin. "I really cannot recommend the Bothans too highly."

Pretentious shitheel, thought Rune, scowling. Before he could respond with some suitably bland compliment, though, the holo-screens fizzed to life. At once, chill silence dropped like a stone into the pool of muttering potentates. The Sith Lord's countenance, fifty feet high and drowned as always in shadow, swam into view. Rune froze. He knew it was illogical, knew it was just the reptilian stub of his hindbrain writhing madly in the electric blue light of the hologram, but still the fear caught at him with its sharp, barbed little claws. He knows my thoughts. Spastic, Rune gripped at the collar of his dress robes. His scalp itched beneath his ceremonial miter.

"My noble associates," came the Sith Lord's mellifluous voice. "My colleagues, my friends. We stand closer now to our final victory than we have ever been. Our struggle, our ceaseless efforts in the prosecution of this war against injustice, is nearly at an end. Four months from today, this very day, we shall crush the perfidious Republic, end its tyrannical reign, and establish the government this galaxy deserves! No longer will bureaucrats hand down laws from on high! No longer will the jackboots of the clone soldiers be heard in the streets!"

There were cheers from the balconies, cries of support and eager enthusiasm. Glasses of alcohol, hydrogen-slurry, granulated protein liquor, were raised by grasping hands and tentacles. The hooded countenance swept the room with its stare. "We must be stringent in our preparations," said the projection. "We must strengthen our resolve, harden our hearts against the horrors of this bitter war. Only with the full power of our alliance can we hope to lance the festering boil that is the Republic. Four months from today we will stand together on the steps of the Senate Rotunda! The Jedi will fall! The Senate will fall! The Grand Army of the Republic will be as water in the wind! This, I swear!"

Rune caught sight of Count Dooku at the center of a veritable swarm of aides, attaches and hangers-on, Poggle the Lesser at his elbow. The Count of Serenno did not join in the tempestuous applause. He stood at the rail of his private gallery box, a glass of wine in one hand, the other behind his back. He looked...odd. Angry, perhaps. It was so hard to gauge the emotions of humans. Rune scratched at his throat where the collar of his ceremonial robes was chafing in the heat. Sidious had actually promised to appear in person. After so many years, we finally see the man.

The towering hologram's hooded countenance turned, silent amidst the acclaim, and for a moment its eyes seemed to pierce Rune's. He froze, his mouth dry, fear clutching his throat with an iron grasp. Sidious knew him. He felt it in that single, endless instant. The Sith Lord's reach was too long to avoid, his knowledge infinite. If he wished he could reach out across the gulf of space and crush Rune like a sher-grub, leave him twitching in his own fluid.

"I say," said San, wringing his spidery hands in delight. "This is it, my friends. My shareholders, yourselves included, will be most relieved."

Wat Tambor nodded in satisfaction as the hologram dissolved, but Rune felt only a cold, wet fear chewing at the pit of his stomach. It was the same unreasoning terror he'd felt when Nute had first struck his bargain with the Sith. He fucked us that day, and he's never stopped fucking me. Even dead, you rotten greedy bastard. "Yes," he managed, clearing his throat. "Yes, quite the relief."

The applause went on and on.

ANAKIN

It should have gone perfectly. If not for Dooku's blind luck and that clone bitch's interference, it would have. Anakin sat alone in the Jedi Temple's lowest meditation chamber, trying to shed the frustration that clung to his skin like the smell of stale sweat. The war was killing him, prying with gnarled hands at his defenses. Every moment of every day he felt without surcease the clangor of a trillion bent and fearful minds, the clawing terror of a planet enveloped in bloody conflict. Every death was a slap to the face, every injury a new knot in the pit of his stomach. He drank little, ate less. Often he went without sleep until the world around him blended into a vast, seamless wasteland of concurrent events. All things were one grey pulse, the Living Force a clotted river of petty emotion and pain.

I am a drop of water.

Anakin squeezed his eyes shut and ground his palms against them, relinquishing as much as he had ever been able his connection to the Force. It was like cramming his ears and mouth with cotton, like pulling a hood over his eyes. He could sense the Force's presence, but it was muffled. Distant. Best to shut it away when he felt this way. Best to retreat, for a while.

"Disturbed, you are."

Anakin turned quickly, concentration lost. Yoda stood in the meditation chamber's doorway, a wizened figure shrouded in brown robes. Some of his paradoxical youth had faded during the war's long, bloody course. He no longer smiled so often, and the wrinkles in his greenish skin were deeper than they had been. Still, though, his air of warmth and kindness remained. "I'm sorry, Master," said Anakin automatically. He felt a faint stirring of shame at being caught without his mask in place, at letting another see his turmoil. He manufactured a smile, seizing the Force in an iron grip.

"Apologize to me, do not," said Yoda. He hobbled into the room, leaning heavily on his knobby walking stick. Jedi and root seemed equally gnarled, equally bent by the years. "A heavy burden, yours is. Tax you, it does."

"Not so heavy as yours, Master," said Anakin. "I have no right to complain." I am a freak.

Yoda settled cross-legged on a mat facing Anakin. "Time there is, always, for sorrow, young Skywalker," he said, closing his eyes. "Make certain, though, that overcome you it does not."

"Yes, Master." Anakin stood, but Yoda raised a clawed hand.

"A moment, wait," said the ancient Master. "Speak, we should."

Anakin sat again, concealing his frustration. He clasped his hands together inside the wide sleeves of his robes. The city-planet raged around him. The Confederates were embroiled in a skirmish with a clone battalion near the Kuwat Driveyards branch headquarters, just outside the Senatorial District. They weren't using droids. Regular troops, recruits from rebel worlds or press-ganged soldiers fighting with shock collars on their throats. The carnage was terrible.

Yoda's eyes opened. "I sense much fear in you."

"It isn't mine, Master," said Anakin. "The war..."

"Ah, yes," said Yoda, nodding. "Heavy upon all our minds this war weighs. A terrible thing it is, and cloaked in shadow. Close to the Living Force are you, young Skywalker. Each death you feel, as I do. Each atrocity, at your heart eats. But despair not. There is no death."

"I'm trying, Master Yoda," said Anakin. The Force pressed hard against his temples, surging black and wild there, crying out in a million, billion voices. He saw blood and fire, worlds burning in the void, whole peoples lamenting their fates. He saw Qui-Gon die. He saw Obi-Wan die. Palpatine, Padmé, his children. He sat stiff and silent, and the Force raged in him.

"There is no death," repeated Yoda. He closed his eyes again.

Anakin rose and left the room. The halls of the Temple, refurbished after Grievous's brutal assault, were almost empty. So many miles of twining marble, home to a decrepit order mired in politics and war. Anakin walked aimlessly through the labyrinth. He came to a halt by a tall, narrow window, and looking out over the ravaged city-planet he thought of the Council chamber, of that great circular room at the center of the Temple's highest tower. He would sit there in conclave with Yoda, with Ki-Adi Mundi, with Obi-Wan. It brought hot, bitter joy to think of it. A seat in the Council, something even Qui-Gon never had. His gloved hand, the false one, formed a fist.

"Anakin."

He turned, joy fading. Obi-Wan walked up to stand at his side. His old Master's bearded face was haggard, his eyes underscored by dark circles. "I wanted to speak to you, Anakin."

"About what, Master?" The words burned in his throat.

Obi-Wan scratched his bearded chin. "We haven't seen one another recently. I understand you've been working closely with the Chancellor's office, and I've been with the 488th in the Menari district, off-planet handling Ryloth's repatriation, a dozen other cursed things. For good or ill this war will be over soon. I have had to accept many...many losses." Obi-Wan's voice faltered, and for a moment something of their old closeness hung between them as the bearded Jedi let his control falter, let his pain show. It passed quickly. Obi-Wan blinked, looking down at the cityscape outside the Temple precincts. "I would not want for our friendship to be one of them."

"I don't know what you mean, Master."

Obi-Wan gave him a worried look. "I mean that we see very little of one another."

"The war is taxing," Anakin said. He clasped his hands behind his back. In the distance blooms of fire described a duel between a CSS dreadnought and a Republic Venator-class Star Destroyer. In low orbit the crashes were disastrous, each one a fresh genocide. Anakin felt death uncoiling around the great ships. He closed himself off, shut the pain away. "We haven't had much opportunity."

"I'd like that to change," said Obi-Wan, offering a tired smile. "I have-"

"It will change, Master," said Anakin, unable to keep the smile entirely from his face. "The Chancellor has appointed me to the Council, as his liaison."

Obi-wan stared. His brow furrowed. "The Council appoints its own."

"Not this time," said Anakin, and with that he turned his back on Obi-Wan and strode away down the echoing hall. He felt better. Stronger. More alive.

In control.

PADME

There was someone in the apartment. Someone other than their old Ithorian nursemaid, Nuodo. Padmé stood in the doorway, security clearance card in hand, still wearing the ball gown the Bothan ambassador had given her as a gift. The pit of her stomach churned with a sort of nauseous premonition. She cleared her throat, which was suddenly dry. "Nuodo?"

"No," came the cool, sonorous reply from the darkened common room. "No, madam senator, I'm afraid not."

He sounds exactly like he does on the holonet.

The locking mechanism on the front door slid home of its own accord as the common room's lights flicked on, illuminating dimly the elderly man standing by the privacy-screened window. Count Dooku looked older in person, careworn and weary, but dignified. Distinguished. In the crook of his arm he held Padmé's sleeping daughter. Shmi, wrapped in a red thermal blanket, stirred sleepily. The infant girl clutched at Dooku's cape with a chubby fist.

"Please," said Padmé, her heartbeat thundering in her ears. She tasted dust, ashes. The world spun around her. "She has nothing to do with this."

"Her potential is enormous, you know," said the Count. Silhouetted against the darkened window he seemed more apparition than man, his silver hair ghostly in the murk. "Her brother's also. Young Qui-Gon was well-named."

Padmé tried to swallow, tried to breathe. "Where is he?"

"Sleeping," said Dooku in his oil-and-honey voice. "Force-sensitive children inhabit a different world. They require a great deal of rest. As did you, I'm sure."

Padmé adopted the cold, masklike expression she typically reserved for state speeches. "You have always been an honorable opponent," she said. Her mouth was dry, her muscles loose and trembling. She tasted bile, swallowed, forced herself to keep speaking. One chance to play both ends against the middle. I have to take it. "Please."

"You can relax, Senator," said the Count. "I respect your office, I respect your person. I am not General Grievous. You and your children are safe. Please, take a seat."

Padmé crossed the room and sat on the long, low Naboo-style couch along the room's east wall. Her heart was still thudding in her ears, but she was in control. The mask was in place. "What do you want, Dooku?" She smoothed her skirt, forcing a radiant smile.

"A chance at Palpatine," said Dooku. "He is Sith, you know. Darth Sidious, Lord of Betrayal. He has directed this war's every step, subverted its principles through graft, through blackmail, through simony and subtle application of the Force. Now that his designs near completion, he needs me gone. I have no intention of leaving. Your clandestine husband is the arm around which the serpent coils. You, I understand, occupy a position now unique within Skywalker's heart: that of beloved confidante. You are the lynchpin from which the galaxy hangs, Padmé Naberrie."

The sight of Shmi in Dooku's arms still clawed at Padmé's heart, but she swallowed bile and buried her maternal instincts beneath layers of analysis. Palpatine was the Sith Lord, and what reason would Dooku have to lie? "What are you offering me, Count?"

"Your husband is a loyal man, and dangerous, but uncomplicated. He doesn't understand the burdens State can place upon a man's shoulders, or a woman's. He is too close to Palpatine to see that he has fallen under his influence, that he exists now as an extension of the Chancellor's will. In a week's time he will be appointed to the Jedi Council as special liaison to the Chancellor, and then every piece will be in place. This is nearly over, Senator."

"You haven't answered my question."

"It's very simple," said Dooku. He crossed the room to stand before Padmé, Shmi breathing softly in his arms. The Count's dark eyes were wide, sincere. He transferred the sleeping baby to Padmé's arms, then stepped back, turning to the window where a sleek black airspeeder had pulled up and now hung, waiting, repulsors humming. "I'm going to train you. If you agree, meet me in the Memorial Garden in the Rotunda tomorrow night."

The window hissed open at a gesture from Dooku. He stepped out into the night, vanishing into the speeder, which departed with a faint hiss of muffled rotors. Padmé sat alone in the apartment, legs shaking so badly she couldn't stand to go and see whether Dooku had left Nuodo alive, or if Qui-Gon was sleeping. She held Shmi close against her breast and when the tears came she tried to keep them quiet.