Chapter Eighteen – The Temptation of Rey

Rey ran and ran after she heard the spectral voice of the dead Emperor. With no other light than that cast by her saber she tried to find her way back to the reactor hall, but somehow had gotten turned around. It was as though her mind was clouded, and whenever she tried to remember the steps she had taken to get into the system of tunnels, which turned out to be massive and extend widely under the palace, she could recollect nothing precise. And all the while she ran, she heard Palpatine's voice in her head. The voice was gentle and accommodating, just as it had been in the videos she had watched of his days as Senator and then Chancellor.

"There is no need to run my child. I cannot harm you, and would not even if I could," his voice said. Despite his entreaty Rey continued to run, trying to find a way out. Every time she reached a split in the path she would mark the tunnel she took with her lightsaber, hoping to at least prevent herself from going in circles.

"Why would I harm you, when I have waited so long for your arrival?" he asked. "I understand, of course, your anger at having been deceived. But I knew you would not come at my call unless I disguised myself as your late master. For your entire life you have heard lies about me."

Unable to stomach this lie, Rey said, while continuing to run, "You are a monster."

"No, child. Have I been harsh? Yes. But only ever as a necessary corrective to the anarchy and the corruption all around me," Palpatine responded.

Finally stopping to run so that she could catch her breath, Rey replied, "Anarchy is what tyrants call liberty."

"Ah yes, the vaunted liberty of the Old Republic. A republic you never saw. You have been fighting for years to restore something you never knew. And why? Because Leia Organa told you to? She herself never knew it. She only passed on to you the ideology of the monarchs of Alderaan.

Rey began to walk, rather than run, and said, "She knew your Empire. She knew what your tyranny was like."

"She knew what the Empire was like only as a rebel, and I do confess I made things hard on the rebels. What responsible state can do anything less, without surrendering its authority and power, the only things that hold back the horrors of general disorder," Palpatine said. "Leia never tried to live in peace. And it was not really her fault. She was stolen from her father, and raised in a nest of reactionaries, unwilling to adapt themselves to the new order. Those who were powerful in the days of corruption will fight change whenever they can, and so it was with the Organas. Had I been able to find her and her brother when they were young, deliver them to their father, everything would have been different.

"Yes, your oppression would have lasted longer," Rey responded.

No. An orderly galaxy could have been created, and there would have been no need for what you call oppression, but which was really simply the imposition of order and peace. The galaxy has known nothing but war for most of a century Rey. There was a chance, for a moment, after the fall of the Separatists and the Jedi Order, for peace. Anakin and I came so close," Palpatine said regretfully.

"Peace?" Rey all but laughed. "You brought war to countless worlds, destroyed Alderaan, ground the non-human races beneath your heel."

"Peace can only be achieved by such means. There is only one emotion powerful enough to blunt the desire of the wicked and the corrupt, and that is fear. For each to live without fear of all those around them, all must feel at least some fear of the state above them, for then they know that no matter how rich, or powerful their neighbor is, he will not dare to trespass on what is theirs, for my Empire would be watching. At its height, the Empire guaranteed the ability of people to travel the galaxy without fear of pirate lords. They could raise their children, knowing they did not need to fear a Trade Federation or Banking Clan droid army descending on their world. That is the world Anakin and I made, and tried to preserve," Palpatine said.

"You and Anakin? I know what happened. He killed you," Rey said.

"Yet here I remain. Anakin failure was only in loving his children too much. Loving them more than peace. Luke's failure was the same as his sister's, to be captured, at birth, by the Jedi. It was they who convinced him to carry on the war, who used his power to prolong the conflict they craved. Obi-Wan Kenobi. Yoda. Warmongers. You never knew them. All you have ever had of them are stories. Stories from the Skywalker twins, who barely knew the two themselves. I knew them for decades Rey. I saw their true face," Palpatine said.

Rey stopped and leaned against the wall of the tunnel. "How are you still alive?" she asked.

I am not alive Rey. I simply endure. For one purpose only, to end the Jedi disease, the cause of so much needless suffering. Luke saw it. He told you of their failings," Palpatine said.

"He said their failing was in not stopping you," Rey replied.

"Yes, well, his vision was always clouded when it came to me. But that is not the failing I mean. The Jedi thought theirs was the only way to use the Force. Anyone who dared to practice in their own fashion was hunted down and killed," he said. "Do you know of the history of the Sith?"

"I only want to know the way out of here," Rey said, as she forced herself to start moving again. Every step she took seemed to be getting more difficult, and her progress, if you could call it progress when she did not know where she was going, was slow and halting.

"At first, the name 'Sith' belonged to a species from the planet Korriban. Red of skin, powerful in the Force," Palpatine said.

"Never heard of them," Rey said.

"Of course not. They were the victims of a genocide, committed by the Jedi. Because the Sith refused to live as monks, alone and unfeeling, their use of the Force was declared heretical, the Dark Side. And so the Jedi, those lovers of peace, decided the Sith had to be destroyed. An entire race, an entire world, exterminated. Then even those who took their name, in mere remembrance of the ancient ways of the Sith, were hunted. Like animals. By the Jedi," Palpatine said.

"The Jedi brought peace to the galaxy," Rey insisted.

"Ah, but a moment ago, when I defended my actions in a similar fashion, you objected. Why is it better somehow for the Jedi? And was peace really their goal Rey? And even if it was, think about the means they employed. You have read the texts. The Jedi spread across the galaxy, finding Force Sensitive children. Taking them from their parents when they were infants. Training them to live as Jedi, to obey a creed they never chose. What do you think your friend Finn would say about that?" Palpatine said.

"The First Order trained children to be killers, the Jedi taught children how to control their powers," Rey said, now somewhat uncertain. The form that training took in the Old Jedi Order had always disturbed her, and Luke and Leia had felt somewhat similarly. They had both begun their training post adolescence, and it had not seemed to hurt them.

"They taught the students how to control their own powers? Or they taught the students to live in a way that let the Jedi Council control those powers? Direct them towards their own ends?" Palpatine asked.

"They did it to keep the peace!" Rey insisted once again.

"Do you really believe that? Across all the galaxy what is the universally recognized symbol of the Jedi Order?" Palpatine asked. When Rey looked down at her lightsaber he said, "Exactly. Their symbol is a weapon. It has only one purpose, to kill. Skywalker saw their limitations. That is why he decided they had to end. He knew the Force would survive. The Force is part of nature. All life creates it. The Jedi hated life. They denied it in themselves, and would deny anyone else gifted in the Force the chance to truly live. Why do you think the dead Masters do not come to you now? Why do they leave you alone? Because they know you feel the truth. They know if they reveal themselves to you, you will see their true nature."

"No!" Rey screamed, since she had nothing she could say to prove him wrong.

"Search your feelings Rey, you know it to be true. Had you been born 100 years ago you would have been taken as a child. Raised by people whose code demanded they care nothing for you. Think of your friends, of Finn and Poe and Rose. Think of living by a code which counseled that you detach yourself from them. To face their deaths with calm. Think of Ben. Think of feeling nothing more for him than you would any stranger. Think of Leia. What greater joy did she get than from her husband, and her son?" Palpatine said.

Rey began to run, despite the difficulty, if for no other reason than to try to get away from his words. As she ran, she said, "Alderaan, the Hosnian system, Jeddah, here on Naboo. You have slaughtered billions!" But speaking while running proved, along with whatever force was slowing her down, to be too much for her and she quickly fell to her knees, unable to catch her breath.

"This is the horrible truth Rey. No on may rule innocently. To rule a people is to take on the responsibility of sacrificing the good of some for the good of the many. Alderaan and Jeddah were breeding grounds for traitors and terrorists. An infection in the galactic community. For the whole to survive the infection had to be cut away. Destroying the Hosnian system was not my decision, for these long years I have been but a voice in the wind, but it held out the hope of securing the ascendancy of the First Order without any need for further war. I have seen the fruits of war Rey, as have you. These galactic wars which last for years, they cause far more deaths than those which occurred in the Hosnian system," Palpatine said.

"The Jedi, the Republic, they didn't do that," Rey said while grabbing her own knees.

"If you could ask the Mandalorians, or the Sith, what they thought of your claim, they would convince you otherwise. But the Jedi and the Republic left none alive to ask. The Sith are gone. The Mandalorians are all but gone. All that remains of them are men and women pretending that because they wear the armor and say the words that they are part of that proud, lost culture. All that remains of the Sith died with me," Palpatine said.

Rey had no words left. She simply sat there, sure that he was wrong, but unsure how to prove it, unsure even why she believed it.

"Both sides have done horrible things Rey. The Jedi and the Republic to enforce their system, and the Sith to resist them, to be free. Horrible things must be done in war. And war there will always be as long as both sides survive. But you Rey, it is given to you to choose which side that will be," Palpatine said.

"I choose my friends. I choose the people who care about me," Rey said, sure at least of that much.

"Your friends Rey? Is there no one else? No one else who has loved you?" Palpatine asked.

"I have no family. My parents were…," Rey started to say.

"Nothing," Palpatine finished her sentence. "And so because your parents are nothing, you thought your friends were all you had. But there is more to you than that Rey. Finn, Poe, Leia, it was chance alone that brought them across your path. You ran across them at the right time and the right place. A few different decisions made, and it would have been someone else. But what has happened to you, that does not change where you come from. Who you are," Palpatine said.

"I'm no one," Rey said flatly. "I came from junkers, who cared more for a little money than they did for me. Who threw me away. Like I was worth less than the junk they hunted." After saying that she got back up and began to walk slowly once more.

"And they were fools, worse than fools, to throw away that which was of most value. But they are not the beginning of your story Rey. You think that because they gave you no care, that no care was put into your making? No, Rey. More care, and design, and sacrifice went into you than any person in the galaxy. You were born with a destiny. I should know, for it was I who forged that destiny," Palpatine said.

"What?" Rey asked, not comprehending what Palpatine was telling her. In the distance she noticed a light coming from one of the tunnels. It looked red and warm.

"Twenty five years ago, in this very place I poured all of my knowledge and the strength that remained to me into one task. The task of creating…perfection," Palpatine said.

Rey could see it in her mind, just as Ben had seen Luke's story in his. She saw a figure standing in a cavern, inside a square created by four large pillars, each topped with a pyramidal device which glowed intensely red. The light was so bright she could not recognize the figure, and could see only that he was quite tall. As the figure raised its hands the cavern in which it stood began to shake. Rey shook her head to clear her mind, but saw a similar red light growing ever brighter was she walked. Her steps now came easy.

"It was my master who discovered the secret. The ability to use the Force to create life itself. But there are rules to this universe, to the Force. You can create, but to do so you must also destroy. My master decided, all those years ago, that to defeat the Jedi's tyranny once and for all would take a life so pure, so strong in the Force, that it could not be made naturally. So he made the sacrifices necessary. Terrible sacrifices. But in return the galaxy was given the Skywalkers. The family on whose choices, wise and unwise, the fate of the galaxy has turned ever since," Palpatine said.

Rey said nothing, but turned a corner and emerged into a large cavern, filled with droids and machines of various sizes. In the center, she saw the four pillars, their pyramidal tops glowing red, though not so brightly as in her vision. The cavern was so large she could not see the other side of it, though in the distance she can see creatures moving around in the gloom.

"My master's shot at perfection missed its mark, ever so slightly. An unbalanced creation, one quickly found and perverted by the Jedi, though he was too strong for them to control. I knew the galaxy needed me to try again. But in dealing with power of galactic proportions one cannot control the results. I could not know where my precious creation would arise, or who it would be. I could only hope that it would live, that it would find me," Palpatine said.

Rey walked down into the cavern, towards the pillars, feeling for them a strange fascination.

"You Rey. My great creation. Welcome home," Palpatine said.

Rey, her voice trembling, could only say, "Home?"