Star Wars
War! The Republic is crumbling under attacks by the ruthless Sith Lord, Count Dooku. There are heroes on both sides. Evil is everywhere.
In a stunning move, the fiendish droid leader, General Grievous, has swept into the Republic capitol and kidnapped Chancellor Palpatine, leader of the Galactic Senate.
As the Separatist Droid Army attempts to flee the besieged capital with their valuable hostage, two Jedi Knights lead a desperate mission to rescue the captive Chancellor...
"Kill him. Kill him now". The Chancellor's calm commanding pierced Anakin. The double buzz of a blue and a red lightsabre crossed over the neck of the defeated Count Dooku, affording a simple strike to end the war.
"I shouldn't."
Trust your feelings Anakin. The memory of his master Obi-Wan Kenobi's oft spoken words, who was now lying crushed just meters away. Significance warred across the young Jedi's face. His feeling was not just that summary execution was wrong, his enemy was disarmed, incapacitated. Something more. Something here and now. Something on Coruscant below.
"Do it."
The slime seeped through Chancellor Palpatine's voice. Slime that gave Anakin clarity he had not felt since… since he had failed his mother.
Obi-Wan had mentioned to him debates in the Jedi council. Was Count Dooku the Sith Lord and Darth Maul's master? Or was he something else? Something… less? Merely a new apprentice to a more powerful and more dangerous being. That voice. It nags at Anakin. Along with the feeling, the feeling of cold and… he can't tell. The Dark Side obscures his feelings.
Clarity.
Anakin snaps his head toward the Chancellor and begins to speak: "Y..." But, the cold shivers through him, he knows he is too late. He strikes Dooku hard in the jaw with the curved hilt of the sabre and the old man crumples to the floor, before flinging it toward the Chancellor. He does not see, for he has leapt toward Obi-Wan, but the sabre hovers momentarily before Palpatine before crashing under Anakin's feet. A shower of sparks fly up from underneath him as Anakin propels himself toward the exit, toward his friend and ultimately toward his home. Blue lightning crackles from the Chancellor's hands aimed not at Anakin, for Palpatine is quick to abandon an apprentice, but to the wrecked walkway pinning an unconscious Obi-Wan to the deck. The walkway melts engulfing Obi-Wan's body, but Anakin cannot stop. He launches himself back onto the bridge, lifting Dooku's unconscious body and dropping it, hard, toward the Sith Lord. It will not be enough to save Obi-Wan. Someone must survive this catastrophe. The republic is lost. Lost longer ago than they knew.
The cold tells Anakin he will not escape, and from his eyes he sees Palpatine beginning to move. He reaches out, but the Dark Side around the Chancellor resists him, so he shifts his mind to something smaller. A console. Attached to the deck. He sees it in his mind lifting and hears the screech of torn metal as it is hurled toward the transparisteel viewers. The rush of air escaping to vacuum and the crash of a blast door. It will not hold long, but Anakin can get back, back the way he came, to his droid, his fighter and maybe even his home.
He had lost two solar panels and his second oldest friend, but Anakin was in the atmosphere. Hurtling toward the city below. Fire ships, desperate to keep death in space, and not on the, frankly rather well-off, citizens of the republic on the upper levels of Coruscant, tracked his descent, spraying fire retardant as he careened toward the Jedi temple. With Obi-Wan dead, only Master Yoda could find them a way out of this mess.
Clarity.
Yoda did not know what the Chancellor was. Even he was not strong enough to see through the cloud that the Dark Side had created. Barely any other Jedi recognised there was a cloud. Those that did, Master Windu and Master Luminara at least suspected, were too blinded by their own arrogance, or compulsion to play the role assigned them, to see what it meant. Yoda, the council, none of them could stop what was about to happen.
Hard starboard. His old trick. Anakin rolled the Jedi fighter away from the fire ships. They could not react, and he spiralled down.
Screaming toward the upper city, Anakin broke the fighter impossibly fast simultaneously popping the ejector seat. He reached out with the force, the eta-2 interceptor would fall a few hundred levels before exploding, and 3 more families would lose everything to the war. He was free of the restraints of his flight chair and now falling. He pushed with the force horizontally. He could make only very slight adjustments without proper leverage, but this was enough. He was over the duracrete and transparisteel canyon his interceptor was flaming toward. He had nothing to brace himself to and no hope of stopping the fighter, but he could slow it. He cleared his mind as best he could and tried to lift the burning yellow shape a hundred klicks below him. He was getting closer to it, which meant it had slowed, but it was still too fast. It would not hit homes. Anakin was determined it was so.
There. A shopping district. No one cruised the plaza, no one gawked at falling debris from the mezzanine. Anakin pulled the interceptor into the Display billboard that constituted the outer wall of the district. It was only when it stopped playing that Anakin realised that it had been showing the Chancellor's face. Probably repeating the same politi-babble as always. Sparks flew and debris crashed, but Anakin's instinct had been right. There was no-one in the district. It would burn. But no one would die from his crash.
Except maybe him. He would need to slow and guide himself to a safe landing place. For a moment he focused on keeping his heart slow and eyes open. Launching the ejector seat up had bought him some time, but without something to push against, his movements would be limited. R2! He spun, now facing up away from the city. He reached out with the force, those towers were getting uncomfortably close to his back, but he could see R2, perhaps 2 klicks above him, beginning to slow his own descent with his manoeuvring jets. Not so fast buddy. Anakin reached out toward R2 spinning him around a horizontal axis, until his blue and white domed head pointed straight at Anakin, and his jets straight up to the sky. Waaaaaaaaaa. R2 let up a high pitched screech as he did exactly what he was trying to avoid, accelerate toward the city.
Anakin was still falling too fast, R2 would not catch him intime to slow them enough to land safely, let alone aim where they wanted. Anakin reached out with the force again, grasping onto R2 to pull himself up as hard as he could. It was not enough to move him up relative to the city below, but it held him in place long enough… urgh. The air escaped his lungs as R2 crashed into him. Whhhaaaaa. Anakin didn't take the time to sooth R2 who continued to scream, then beep in annoyance, but who knew enough to let Anakin take control. Anakin used to the force to rotate the two of them together steadying the rotation when R2's roller feet were pointing vaguely down. Anakin clutched R2's back, had R2 been humanoid, Anakin could be whispering, yelling, in his ear.
"I'll slow us down, buddy, you get us some momentum towards home."
Beep beep?
"Home, home."
Anakin didn't have his direction right, because he grunted when R2 began to push back against him. Had he craned his neck he would have seen the Jedi temple come into view. Instead, he focused downward, pushing outward with the force. First gently, gradually harder, until it became a constant steady push. They were still going down, drawn toward the planet core, but now it wouldn't break anything when they hit the towers. He hoped.
Now Anakin did crane his neck, behind him the temple was coming into focus. Beneath him a familiar crescent shaped balcony, the kind that, on Coruscant at least, couldn't be bought with just money, it must also be bought with influence.
R2 cut his manoeuvring jets. They fell.
Padmè came running outside, a slow golden shape stumbling behind her. 3PO. 3PO!
"3PO! Get the senator's ship we must leave now."
"Anakin? Where are we going?"
"The outer rim at least. Not Tatooine. Ahsoka is on Mandalore…"
"Ahsoka, when did you speak to her?"
"…so we'll start there. A few….a few hours ago."
Padmè looked shocked. Incredulous, then shocked. Feeling her confusion and anger, Anakin blurted out the best explanation he could muster.
"Obi-Wan is dead, Padmè. I've been deceived by a lie, we all have. The
Chancellor is the Sith Lord and he already controls the Republic."
"We can get to Master Yoda and the rest of the council, they must know."
"The Chancellor has blinded them. And me as well," cold rage settled over Anakin's eyes, but he blinked it away, "we must get away, far away."
Grasping hands, they ran to the ship which C-3PO had summoned. A blinding silver Nubian Star Skiff. It mirrored the glow of the city below and the flashes of battle above. Under the shelter of an s-foil which housed a sub-light engine, they both touched her stomach. Anakin tried to open his mind to share his sense of the new life growing within Padmè. Clarity eluded him and all they shared was the squeeze of flesh on cloth.
The entrance ramp was already lowering when Anakin made a decision. The crew must stay behind. Something awful was coming, something somehow more awful than this war. The war the Jedi had failed to prevent and couldn't win. Anakin was cold. As they climbed the ramp, Padmè shivered with his cold. Something had changed, the tools that served a General of the Grand Army of the Republic: Loyalty, Trust, Courage. Clear unambiguous ideas lay rusted and cracked around him. He'd broken his loyalty to the Chancellor when he ran. Broken because Palpatine betrayed the trust he'd created. He didn't move for courage, he moved because there was nothing else left to do.
"We have to ask the crew to stay here on Coruscant."
"We can trust them, Annie."
"We could trust the Chancellor."
"I'll tell the handmaidens, you get the pilots, they're used to leaving when you're onboard."
As Padmè knew the pilot and co-pilot left without comment. No one in their right mind, no, no one with basic perceptual abilities, would want to fly into that sky. The handmaidens were a different matter.
When Anakin entered the passenger compartment, Moteè was all that was left of Padmè's handmaidens. The others had accepted their former Queen's command, but Moteè would not.
"…. sworn to you."
"Then follow my command." Padmè straightened, pulling her shoulders back, and lowering her voice. She was not speaking as Moteè's friend. A rush of adrenalin told Anakin they didn't have time for this. Or perhaps his Adrenalin rushed because they didn't have for this. He signalled to R2 with a small simple hand gesture. R2 whirred away, returning moments later with a shambling 3PO.
"Ah, senator, R2 says he needs your help with…"
Padmè's glare silenced 3PO. She shifted her eyes to Anakin, who was giving his best calm, vaguely non-committal, don't worry I'll take care of it look. Padmè left following R2 and 3PO, leaving Moteè and Anakin alone.
"Master Skywalker, please, help me convince your… Senator Amidala. I only want to help." Anakin fought with himself to keep his face calm. He didn't care about his "secret" anymore. He only wanted to get his family away from the darkness engulfing Coruscant. He didn't know what she would do, or even if it would be something she did, but he knew Moteè must not be on the skiff when they left. Her very presence made him want to draw, his fingers even brushed against the hilt hooked on his belt. It was cold to touch, so he withdrew from it and crossed his arms. Leaning in what he hoped looked like a calm way against the door frame linking the rooms of the ship.
"Ok, we can try, but if she still says no, you have do as she asks." For a second Moteè's passive face, trained for for years, and honed even tighter under her Senator's service, looked like it would crack. But she held. She pressed her lips tightly together. A thin pale line. She nodded curtly, then cut in front of Anakin, making her way to Padmè in the cockpit.
"Uhh, Moteè?" Anakin thought fast, "R2 took her into the apartment to get some things for the trip." She made firm eye contact with Anakin, watching for any hint of deceit or duplicity. She was not so sure she saw it that she would risk trying to get away from a Jedi Knight.
Moteè made her way down the entrance ramp, stopping at the bottom when Anakin touched her right shoulder. She turned. He waived his hand in front of her face. Moteè's eyes rolled back sharply and she crumpled to the floor. Some old habits remained. He tried to console himself saying that he and Padmè both knew that Moteè must not come with them. He ignored the voice that said he should have talked to her first, and listened to the one that said he would have if the rush weren't so desperate. Anakin pushed Moteè away where she would not be in danger of the push of the engines when they switched from pure repulsor lifts to sub-lights. He pushed her through the glass doors. Out of view of the cockpit when the skiff turned to the stars.
The scream of an old man is not a pleasant sound. Darth Sidious does not care. He is angry to have lost a more powerful apprentice. But, he will use that anger.
Darth Tyranus drags himself to his feet. Pushing the medical droids aside, they crumple in heaps by the walls they almost collapsed. Fear welled inside him. He straightens and walks deliberately toward his master.
"The war is not lost, Lord Tyranus. But, our schedule is moved up. I have ordered the Separatist leadership to Mustafar."
The Chancellor walks them through a door into a dark room containing a single, circular, holotable. At the wave of a hand the table powers on to reveal the face of a clone commander.
"Execute order sixty six."
"Yes, my lord."
Recognising the quizzical feeling from Tyranus, Sidious spoke.
"Enough holo-footage from the bridge of Grievous' ship survived to show Skywalker as a coward and a traitor. It will be enough to convince the senate that the Jedi are traitors to the Republic and plotting my assassination. By the time I return from the Senate I will be Emperor, and we will announce a peace agreement in which we pledge to work together to rid the galaxy of the real threat: the Jedi and their lies."
"I will take care of the gathered Separatist leaders, My Lord." Tyranus tried to speak clearly and confidently, as he turned and extended his arms toward the replacement medical droid who had been holding a cyborg arm. The droid was backing away. Banging into a black wall. Servos whirred; fait smoke of rubber lifted from the droid's wheels as they span on the spot. It had nowhere to go. Neither did Tyranus. Fear and sadness welled in him. Even as bright blue lightning ran up and down his body, surrounding and burning his mangled arms, boiling the fluid in his eyes, he found he did not have the energy left to hate.
Sidious would hate enough for them both. One stage of his plan had glitched, but all plans have a contingency. Darth Zoon had a new role to play.
Come to me Zett Jukassa. Your Republic needs you.
5 years later
The outer rim was a more difficult prospect than Anakin had recognised. Keeping two babies fed and warm, and two droids powered meant stopping. They could not live in hyperspace, stopping only to fuel the ship, on credits they didn't have. Anakin had toyed with the idea of Tatooine. Perhaps they would be taken in or offered work by his half-brother and his family. But he knew people on Tatooine. Watto… maybe even Wald was still there. A moment of recognition could mean a squad of clones chasing his daughter and son. A squad of clones… or worse. His infamy with the Hutts excluded much of the space near Tatooine. Even the thought of crossing Hutt space made Anakin shiver. But it would have to be done. Darkness lay in the Unknowns. And your failure on Mokivj. Anakin ignored that voice, he focused on the one that congratulated him for keeping his promise of not keeping secrets from Padmè. None. Not one. Not since they had fled Coruscant.
Despite quietly regretting not having her children even see Naboo, Padmè quashed any thought of returning home. The Emperor's home world would likely never be safe again. Beyond that she was worried about how far the new Empire would reach. The agreement with the cloners on Kamino raised the terrifying thought that the Emperor would claim space outside of the Republic. If he did attempt to expand into new space, into systems with no representative in the senate what hope was there that such expansion would be peaceful? Knowing the power of the grand army of the republic as she did, an army that had surely only grown under the Empire's rule, the only question was how long violent resistance would last.
Mon Calamari was an option they had discussed. Although it was not well suited to Humans, they had friends there. Friends they knew would feel the same repulsion to an oppressive totalitarian regime as they felt. If nothing else, it was as far from Coruscant as almost anywhere in the Republic. But, as with Tatooine any system which they knew and in which they were known presented an unacceptable risk. To them, to Leia and Luke, and whatever work they had left. Even if that were not a concern, Padmè did not trust the Quarren government who had thrown in so readily with Dooku, and Anakin was worried at the price some Mon Calamari would pay to see an end to conflict.
They found a remote spot on a remote world. They didn't know if anyone claimed this space. But no one had challenged them. It was temperate and contained enough other life to support them. A game animal that seemed to be worth something to those they met when they occasionally travelled off world to barter for fuel, less than twelve parsecs away. Although never a part of the Republic, indeed it could only be reached by crossing Hutt space, this part of wild space had the feel of the outer rim. Even 3PO could identify the species of only one or two of the peoples they traded with. It was the edge of someone's space, but whoever claimed it had no interest in 4 humans and two droids. Droids whose motility, at least, appeared unsophisticated compared to the tools possessed by the locals.
Anakin travelled rarely with Padmè on the trade trips. He told himself it was because she was substantially more qualified to engage in trade discussions than he. But the reality was as much to do with the feelings of pity needling his mind from the locals and his own feelings of inadequacy. The trip was short so there was no problem for Anakin to spend a night alone or with the twins, openly hunting with his lightsabre or playing force games with his children.
Once a standard month they could acquire enough fuel to jump to the edge of Imperial space. Most often they could receive a propaganda holo-reel, but occasionally they dared to approach a small system, close enough to obtain a local broadcast, ones which at least for the first few years, portrayed the Empire in a more accurate light. After such trips Padmè and Anakin worked hard to keep each other out of a pit of depression. Padmè felt helpless away from her role in the Senate. A place where she had, if only occasionally, actually made people's lives better.
Anakin's helplessness came from being away from battle. He had believed that the struggle of the Republic against the separatists was a righteous one. But now, the face of every living being he had struck down in that conflict, or lost under his command, weighed on him. Occasionally he even wondered if some of the more sophisticated battle droids where more like R2 than he was willing to admit. He finally had a real enemy to fight, not an enemy of deception, but no one to fight with.
Hate, anger and loss warred with him. Or rather with the Jedi he had wanted to be. But the Jedi had failed. Out here there were no Jedi. No indication of any force sensitive peoples. Except for Anakin, Leia, and Luke. Out here Anakin had to find a new way to manage his feelings, and the Dark Side. Under Padmè's council and love he meditated nightly, allowing himself to experience the losses he had lived, but not to act on them. If not peace, he did achieve a kind of manageable instability for a time.
Harder to manage than his loss was his inadequacy. His personal losses gradually became more remote and even on waking from nightmares about his former padawan Ahsoka he could find some comfort in his biological children. Chaos around Mandalore had allowed them to sneak to the surface. They had landed in the capitol. Most of the fighting was on the far side of the planet, though there was substantial action above Concordia as well. Days before Ahsoka had led, well consulted for, the newly promoted Commander Rex's division of the 501st as they pursued a lead as to the location of Darth Maul. Cubed buildings, once brilliant blue transparisteel and even glass were husks. Settling for a corner of his own to live out the oncoming storm of Sidious after Anakin had failed to take the bait and come himself, Maul had forced a new conflict on Mandalore. Within hours of order 66 Bo-Katan was dead. Gar Saxon and Maul lead forces between the enclosed biodomes that pocketed Mandalore's dead surface. Most were in no position to fight. Those that could didn't fight long.
The old throne room, where Anakin had derived some joy at seeing that his old master was capable of deep feeling, was abandoned. Anything left of the walls shattered when Anakin found her. Ahsoka Tano, face down, lightsabre wound through her chest. But it was the blaster burns in her back, caused by Republic blasters, fired by clones she had loved that caused Anakin to loose his grief. Padmè had not been thrown by the blast. She had lain next to Anakin on the cold floor. Shrapnel falling around them. They had held each other, forehead pressed to forehead. For the first time in his life Anakin felt grief he didn't need to experience alone. Padmè felt they could get up.
They hadn't left Ahsoka there, but they couldn't keep her on their ship. They had buried her with her lightsabres, along with one clone before they left. There had been several dead clones in the throne room. Helmets painted orange as a symbol of love to the woman they had murdered. The one they had buried had warn his old helmet, the one he'd worn since phase 2 smoke filters where introduced, kills marked with a simple tally on the faceplate. The back of the helmet was missing. Blown away by the blast from Rex's own pistol, set to kill, still grasped in his right hand, when he had pulled the trigger. The only thing he could do to stop his left hand completing the order.
Anakin's inadequacy was there fresh everyday, regardless of whether or not he relived that day. Not only was he not fighting the Sith, but Padmè was sick. It was taking longer and longer for her to recover from bouts of depression when they had news of the Empire. Anakin taught her to meditate, and they would run and walk with Luke and Leia. But after all she had offered him, and how she was still helping him now, he could not offer her what she needed.
Padmè had lost herself. She had been powerful, but it was not power that had given her life meaning. The action had. As one of youngest Queens elected on Naboo she had been raised to understand the effects she could have on the world. The difference she could make. Despite her efforts being frustrated in her professional life, especially once the war had begun, there was always something to be done. Now there was nothing but the menial tasks of survival. At least that's how she felt. And immediately berated herself for not loving her children enough.
Anakin could feel that there was more inside her than showed through her greying face. Her depression was becoming a deep self-loathing. The kind of self-loathing that comes to a woman of freedom, a woman who made a difference to the world, being stripped of all capacity to act. Being stripped, by the Empire and the Sith, of who she was.
This morning the children had taken well to their tasks. Anakin had given them the task of collecting grasses and bark from the nearby woods. Neither he nor they sensed any danger, and after some years on this world they had selected an area with no large predators as their main landing bay. He allowed himself a smile, Luke and Leia had been confused by his request, but after many months of practice in his rare hours alone Anakin has mastered the art of making toys from such materials. Dolls, ships and even something that passed as a practice sabre he had designed. He hoped they would get some joy when he instructed them on how to assemble them.
Padmè was still asleep, even though the sun had been up for hours. 3PO and R2 were attached to the crude solar generator Anakin had whipped up, he and Padmè had hoped to minimise their fuel consumption by not charging the droids from the ship when possible. It was the morning after a trip 'inward' to find an Imperial Transmission. All they had come across was mundane propaganda. Such and such a governor was being promoted to Moff for his 'service to peace and order'. It seemed the Empire had even given up on is series of 'exposes of Jedi lies' in which a blacked out face of a person who supposedly worked at the Jedi temple explained how Jedi 'tricks' were done to create the illusion of powers, followed by a description of their 'brutal and barbaric attacks on civilians' supposedly perpetrated during the clone wars. The 'accounting' of Obi-Wan's actions on Mandalore had been particularly hard to hear. The Jedi Order which had stood as the guardians of peace for a thousand generations was already slipping into myth. They both felt defeated, but Padmè felt it most strongly, and personally. There was nothing of her left.
She was not asleep after all Anakin discovered as he entered the cabin of the ship which served as their bedchamber. She was lying, eyes open, in the dark. Anakin allowed himself to feel a flash of anger at her and the illness that prevented her from seeing the obvious in front of her. There was a way left for her to make a difference. If nothing else she was raising Luke and Leia. There was probably much more than that, but Anakin would not talk of that. His nightmares and dreams of late had been busy, fragmented, and contradictory. At times he saw possible futures, and all of them involved at least three of his family members returning to Imperial Space, via Illum he thought. Beyond that his visions, if indeed they were that, varied too greatly and horribly to discuss. He allowed himself a moment of anger, but stilled himself against acting until it had passed.
Knowing that Padmè would respond, almost as though she were now without a will of her own, he made his request. Desperately hoping that the benefits for his wife would outweigh the costs of asking.
"Come," he said, "shower. I've filled the system with fresh water from the river, no recyc' today. Come and then join the twins for their morning exercises."
Padmè stared at the ceiling of the bed chamber. Anakin was talking, and there was still a hint of warmth within her at the sound of his voice. She felt that she should turn her head toward him, yet at the same time felt, not so much that she couldn't, but that her body resisted her. It was like pulling the release on the hatch on a cold morning, the signal just didn't get through. In the case of the hatch it was because it was old and there were more important things to keep in working order in the shelter. Padmè wasn't old, but her body worked against her. She tried to straighten her legs, they pulled bent. She tried to sit, it lay down. She could feel weak muscles under her shoulder blades. They felt bigger than they should, hot, sore, but pathetic. The thought occurred to her to ask Anakin to rub them. But that would impose, and he'd already asked her something…
"Padmè?"
She thought again of turning her head toward him, but nothing got through. She tried her legs. Squeeze right quad. Nothing. Pressure built beneath both eyes, but no tears came. She tried her legs again. Still nothing. Her eyebrows raised as if in fear, and the muscles under her eyes tensed. Still tears didn't come, but her mouth pulled down at the edges. Something like a frown, but not as dramatic. She stopped trying, there was nothing to do anyway, she could just be here with the numbness. But, Anakin was asking her to do something. She wanted to turn to him, even felt as though she was trying, but there was just nothing that could be done.
Anakin reached out, he could feel that Padmè wasn't meditating, though the outward appearance was similar. He touched her sadness. It wasn't a bright flame of mourning tinted with anger. That was how Anakin experienced sadness. It was loud, it was cold, tinted with darkness, and it was big. Padmè's sadness was small, tightly bound in her chest and stomach, but it still controlled her. Anakin reached out with his hand and held her head.
Padmè turned to the touch. Anakin looked frightened. Padmè realised this was because he had been touching her for several seconds but she still hadn't responded. She allowed herself to feel the warmth of his touch. His left hand, flesh on flesh. The knots under her shoulders released a little and something like a smile touched her lips, but not her eyes. But she did make eye contact and was back in the world. She could see Anakin, and she could hear the kids coming back. She began to piece together what Anakin was asking her, and the thought of warm fresh water on her aching midback seemed sensible. She nodded.
Padmè ran. Cool morning air was ripping at her throat. It was dry and it hurt. Any moisture left in her body coated her skin. She told herself that was only mild exaggeration given how dry her throat was. She was sticky and dry, cold and hot all at the same time. It was awful, but she was running and that was wonderful. She could already feel that her left hamstring would be sore for days. That was wonderful too. If she focused of the pains, aches, sticky grossness of running, then she wasn't nothing. She used to be healthy, athletic. Not like a Jedi or clone trooper of course, but she could dead-climb a rope, and that, as it turned out, was an unexpectedly practical skill. The fog around her mind was clearing, though even as she noticed that, her stomach sank and she stumbled.
Anakin, who was splitting his attention during his own run, felt her mood change. The Padmè he loved was strong and determined, a survivor of a Kouhun attack, giant arthropods, who's venom was one of the most painful, and deadly, that could be inflected on almost any humanoid species. She'd survived more explosions than some soldiers. And she'd survived Anakin's contact with the dark side. It was because of her that Anakin had survived. Anakin knew that Padmè wanted to fight the darkness that was sinking her now. She just needed… Anakin was using the force to climb trees, he was demonstrating to the twins how to augment the movement, propelling them with speed that couldn't be tracked, except by another force user of course. He let himself fail. The next jump was all human. He was propelled only by his muscles, and he'd chosen the right branch to aim for.
CRACK. He fell hitting the ground. He wanted it to be loud, so he didn't slow himself. Tilting his eyes back he saw Padmè make eye contact, and… she didn't stop. Anakin flicked to his feet, and launched himself to the next tree, dashing past the twins, who where being propelled back, to the ground behind Padmè. They would catch her, then dash again to the next tree.
The distraction had been enough, Padmè wasn't thinking about the fog that slowed her mind and constricted her vision. She ran.
After the morning meal, Anakin had revealed to Luke and Leia what he had been working on. Carved practice sabres. Thick wooden hilts, too light, but perfectly shaped for grip. He had thought to attach some scrap metal too them, but he didn't yet have enough for what he planned let alone any spare. Thin sticks, half a metre in length and made of harder wood than the hilts which he had carved extended in front of him. The weight was wrong, and he worried that would interfere with the children's form, but to practice only carrying the hilt would mean the twins would not learn to avoid the blade. It was easier to adjust a form than reattach a limb. Anakin stroked his right hand.
The kids were thrilled at their new acquisitions. Today they wouldn't do much. He walked them through grip, and how to maximise reach. One smooth kata, long lunge, extend, front guard, no square your hips, now feet together. Leia and Luke were both light on their feet, but Anakin had been 9 when he came to the Jedi temple, approaching Padawan age. He didn't know if all younglings, at 5 standard years, failed to concentrate or if he just didn't know how Master Yoda had taught them disciplined focus.
It was the 10th time through, the twins were showing form, but also fatigue. When Anakin's back was turned, Leia adjusted the angle of her stance just enough… Whack!
"Ouch! Dad! Leia hit me!" Luke thrust his chin out as he spoke. But he didn't hit back. Some lessons did get through.
"They're sabres… they're for hitting." Leia looked at her brother as though he was incomprehensibly stupid. "Dad kills nurflets with his." They didn't know if the small bovine animal found on this planet had a name, but they resembled the major livestock of the republic enough that the name seemed apt. That was it, the mere mention of food…
"Dad…" whinged Luke, holding his arm rather more dramatically than the hit from his sister had warranted. He raised his eyebrows at Anakin, looking frustrated that his father couldn't, or rather wouldn't, so Luke assumed, read his mind.
"Plants." He dragged the word out, it was both a request and a sarcastic demand. Anakin nodded. Luke ran to his plant bed, he was determined to grow his own crops. Or dig as much up as possible, Anakin hadn't worked it out, but he let the boy play. Luke loved the runs, using the force to propel himself higher and higher into the tree tops. But he didn't like fighting, perhaps he felt his mother's emotions whenever the war or the empire had been mentioned. Seeing her brother had left, Leia ran to the nearest tree and began to whack it indiscriminately with her practice sabre. Anakin sighed and pulled it, gently with the force from her hands. She looked like she might cry until Anakin sent a more appropriate stick to her. She snatched it from the sky and began attacking the monster tree again.
Padmè had been watching, but she had said she was too tired to join more physical activity after her first run in months. Her tea had gone cold, and she was staring off into the woods, eyes unfocused. Anakin touched her face as he passed, and she leant into him. He kept moving, he had something for her. Part of the conservation of power plans Padmè had drawn up meant prioritising food. That meant the water for her tea had been boiled over fire, and that she didn't run data pads for writing, only for teaching the twins. Anakin returned in a moment, he didn't have a box for this surprise.
The last few times he'd been off world trading nurflet meat for fuel he'd visited more of the shopping districts. They had something there, something that apparently held the original Jedi texts. Paper. It was blinding to look at in the direct sunlight as he handed it to Padmè, but their eyes adjusted. He'd also purchased some graphite writing implements. 3PO, who had been bursting with desire to tell Padmè all about them, but who had been sworn to secrecy, appeared and began rattling off facts about how paper was made, when it's use had gone out of fashion in the republic, and the odds of finding a reliable producer of the material in wild space.
He had paused when Padmè began to cry, but she had bidden him continue and that she was crying from joy. She was not better, but she had something to do. She began to write her thoughts, a list of things to do on the paper. The very first item read "draft plans for the reconstruction of democracy." That was someway off, but she could help their own lives now. She began by cataloguing all the trades they'd engaged in since they arrived. C-3PO remembered them all, but now she could visualise them. She could see where they were getting the right deals. She could visualise which foods grew best where, Luke would love that.
Anakin brought her fresh tea and she barely looked up. She was not ok, but now thoughts of not being ok weren't the only thing on her mind.
Anakin felt some peace. Padmè was making a difference to herself. Luke was growing new life, or digging a hole, and Leia was practicing, or battling a monster tree. He would use this time to meditate. He sat cross legged in the corner of the master bedchamber. The ship wasn't big enough to divide the spaces. His body levitated and his mind left. He was walking, deep in the woods, deeper than he had been in person, coming a foothills that where only distantly visible from the trees he climbed with the kids. Qui-Gonn was with him.
"Train yourself to let go of that which you fear to lose. Both Count Dooku and Yoda told me that." Anakin seemed to be walking by a river, presumably the same river they used for water, but a different part of it. It was narrower, surrounded by a depth of life Anakin had so rarely felt. Not on the city world of Coruscant, not in the depths of space, not on Tatooine! And definitely not in battle. It was good in itself, but more than that, here he had come to first feel and then hear and see Qui-Gonn Jinn, the first Jedi he'd ever met, the man who had saved him, but not his mother from slavery on Tatooine. A Jedi, but certainly not a strict fundamentalist, at least as Obi-wan had described him. Anakin had only the vaguest first hand knowledge of this, knowing, but not really understanding, how Qui-Gonn had defied the will of the council to take Anakin as a padawan learner.
"But. They never said how."
"Death does not blunt the Jedi's tendency to pose obscure problems to which they well know the answer." Anakin said in his best temple voice. Through a blue shimmer which accompanied the old master whenever he appeared Anakin could see Qui-Gonn's indulgent smile. Indulgent with just a hint of something more. Pride? Perhaps.
Now regret tinged his voice.
"There is more to the force than the Jedi. Or the Sith. You know this Anakin, you have seen it."
"Dathomir" Anakin agreed "The Night Sisters."
"Yes. And more still. Something you have both lived and not lived." Qui-Gonn halted and let the silence draw out.
"Death does not blunt the Jedi's tendency to speak in riddles."
Qui-Gonn laughed, a broad, indulgent laugh. "I am sorry, Anakin, but I both know and don't know what I mean."
"You would have been excellent at frustrating the council, Master." Anakin held his composure.
"Indeed I was, and an apprentice or two at that."
The reminder of Obi-wan halted them both. Neither knew what to say, how to talk to each other about such things. Anakin raised an eyebrow at Qui-Gonn.
"No, I haven't found him. By all knowledge of the Jedi what you see here of me is impossible. For someone to keep their identity after joining with the force is unheard of, though plainly not so impossible after all. I planned to guide Yoda in this, as you know. But he had just begun his path when we lost him."
Anakin found himself staring at the ground. By habit, or perhaps primed by Qui-Gonn's opening musings, he began to reproach himself for his attachment to the lost Obi-wan. Knowing it or not, Qui-Gonn stirred the conflict in him, muttering:
"I don't even know where to look."
They walked in silence, some distance. It was peaceful. Anakin reached out with the force, not from where he seemed to be, but from his place of meditation. Everyone was as they were. Like visions and dreams, time in meditation was indeterminate. Anakin wanted to run. Qui-Gonn sensed this.
"There's no rush now, Anakin."
"The galaxy is under the rule of a Sith Lord, Qui-Gonn." Anakin's voice was tensing.
"It is."
"People are suffering now." Anakin's volume increased.
"They are."
"They are trapped now."
"They are."
Anakin's voiced reached crescendo.
"They are dying now!"
"They are. Anakin, say it."
"When is the time to rush." Anakin's throat was tight, but his voice was loud. Angry.
"When you can win." Qui-Gonn let the emotions pass for Anakin. Trust your feelings, did not mean be ruled by them, especially emotions like anger that are dangerously intertwined with the Dark Side. Anakin pulled his focus back to himself, slowed his heart, breath. Breathe passed his lips, filled his lungs. He needed to know so he probed.
"I can defeat Palpatine."
"Anakin, you can defeat Palpatine." Qui-Gonn agreed. Anakin probed again.
"You told me Yoda could not."
"I told you he did not."
"Hunted in the senate building, surrounded by clones, no one to aid his escape. Yet you say I can defeat him."
"The question, young padawan, is not whether you can defeat him, but what is left of you when you do?" It was the answer he expected. Anakin had seen darkness, been darkness himself, he measured himself consistently by how close he skirted those feelings. Qui-Gonn had taught him that strength was not standing strong, forcing oneself to be a barrier, a wall who would not feel anger. But rather not being governed by anger alone. Anakin's nightmares, especially when they first found this place, reminded him of nightmares he'd had on Coruscant, when he'd failed his mother. The feelings were still there but they were distant now. And those nightmares few and far between. Don't deny them, padawan, just don't be ruled by them.
"Where do you go, master? When you're not here? Do you travel Imperial space? Can you tell us what is going on? Where we can strike that will make a difference?"
"No."
"No what?"
"No I don't."
"Where are you."
"I am here, Anakin." Qui-Gonn had vanished. Anakin stood before a cave. The force had a presence here. It was cold, but physically cold. Anakin was higher than he realised. The hills, in turned out were mountains. It was white with ice and snow, but inside the cave was warm with the force. Death didn't blunt the Jedi's ability to speak in ambiguity either. But there was nothing ambiguous about this place.
"What can I eat." Leia's voice drew Anakin back to the shelter. It was dark out. Time in meditation is indeed indeterminate. He took Leia by the hand and went in search of food.
Over the next years Padmè's planning and implementation of those plans worked. The empire didn't fall, but their resources grew. The hatch didn't even freeze on cold mornings anymore. As their fuel stocks first stabilised, then consistently grew, they were able to fly for reasons other than trade and to pick up propaganda holos. They could be patient when they were off planet to trade. Anakin was able to develop a secretive collection of metal scraps. He was being secretive not because he had fallen to habits of trying to do everything on his own, but because he couldn't stand the thought of disappointing the kids. Padmè knew what they were, and so wasn't surprised when Anakin had packed them for the "hike" the family was going on for the twins twelfth birthday.
R2 and 3PO where left behind, to tend to home for a few days. They had specific instructions on how to find the family should there be any issues, and anyway they had taken a commlink. Luke had given more specific instructions on how to tend his crops. R2 trilled that he knew what to do, he did the same thing every day, but still Luke explained.
On the second day of the hike the twins dashed ahead, tree to tree, following the expected routine. Anakin called them back, and they jogged lightly. Padmè began to talk first. She started with familiar stories of the clone wars. The twins listened as they always had. After an hour Padmè told them something new, she needed them to understand that the separatists where people, not just droids, not just Dooku and Ventress. She told them about Clovis. When Anakin sprinted ahead, she wished she had thought to warn him she'd tell this story. Anakin might have come a long way in learning how to respond to anger, but learning to respond to jealousy still needed some work, apparently.
They caught up to Anakin in time for the midday meal. Anakin had prepared them fresh nurflet, river fish, and even picked wild fruits. Perhaps Anakin had learned more about dealing with jealousy than Padmè had realised. As they finished the meal, the reason for the comfortable meal became clear. As they had agreed Anakin told the kids of battle. The twins had never seen battle. Of course they fought, with each other, and sparring. But they had never known the desperation of battle, the fear of loss. And the loss. Anakin would not shelter them from that. He offered his feelings to the twins and they accepted them.
He shared with them the fear he'd felt when Ahsoka was buried on Geonosis. He shared every loss of a clone under his command. He shared the fear he felt from children on Ryloth. He shared the anger he'd felt at R2's capture, frustration and Obi-Wan for not wanting to go after him. The clearest image he shared was of Ahsoka, her pocketed body, cold and alone on the throne room floor on Mandalore.
When he was done Leia was on her feet. She leaped across the river and pushed. Sprayed out in front of her a hundred metres were fallen cracked trees. Nurflet hooves could be heard stampeding in the distance. Screams of birds filled the sky. Anakin made eye contact with Padmè, she nodded and he followed Leia.
Leia was incandescent, almost literally.
"How could he do that… that destruction, that death. Why did he do it!?" Anakin didn't answer. He turned Leia towards the destruction she had wrought. He didn't say anything he didn't need to. He rested his hands on her shoulders, and slowed his breathing. He waited until Leia synchronised her breathing with his.
"That is the way of the dark side. It is violent and selfish, yes." Anakin spoke.
"And dishonest." Leia had learned what Padmè had wanted them to know from her stories earlier in the day.
"Yes, dishonest too. But that's the what not the why. Do you know the why?"
"Yes." Said Leia. "He did it because he could." Anakin nodded and held his daughter tight. He called two sticks from the tree fallen closest to Leia. Reflexively she dropped her stance. She came at Anakin, swinging strong. Low, then high, then stabbing, stabbing, stabbing. Anakin deflected every blow but was forced back. He shifted his weight to his front foot and took the offense.
Over the river Luke was still and quiet. His mother held his hand. When Anakin and Leia began to spar, she squeezed tight.
"Why don't you join them?" She asked.
"Because I don't want anyone else to die." Replied Luke and he cried.
The next morning Anakin and Padmè set the kids a task. They wanted to get to the foothills where the river would lead them to the cave. Would they cut straight through the woods, navigate with poor vision over a shorter distance, or follow the meandering path of the river. On either route how would they accommodate the one traveller who couldn't speed her passage with the force. Both kids needed to be able to make a decision. Leia needed to act in light of what she had learned, Luke needed to move on. Anakin could feel the conflict within him. Luke knew he had to fight, but desperately did not want to. Luke grew things, he didn't kill people.
Anakin and Padmè went into meditation to allow the twins to make their plans without interruption. Without two domineering personalities who were likely to impose their will regardless of what the kids decided. They were snapped out of it suddenly. Padmè by the yelling. Anakin because he needed to guide Leia in what she was touching.
"… you don't even want him dead!" Leia was yelling.
"I didn't say that, I said I didn't want to kill him" Luke struggled to get the words out. How had they gotten onto this? Padmè should have known better she thought. Two twelve year olds with ideas that big bubbling away? Of course they couldn't keep them in.
Leia saw them coming, and turned on her parents.
"How could you show us that and keep us trapped here! We have to go after Palpatine! We have to!" They let Leia run out of words.
"We will." Anakin said, bringing back his temple voice, that he only used now with Master Qui-Gonn.
"Now, Dad! Not when…"
"These things that are new to you aren't new." Padmè interrupted. Leia paused. Taken aback. Her mother usually spoke in arguments, not sayings. That was Dad's thing.
"Your mother is right, be mindful of your point of view."
"My point of view is that Palpatine must die." Leia said. It started out firmly but she was shaking by the end. Adrenalin was taking control of her. Habit kicked in, even though she didn't want it to. She focused on her breath, felt hot air moving from her lungs. Frustrated with herself, but also aware she was doing the right thing, she slumped to the floor. She lay still and spoke again.
"We have to."
"We will."
"When?"
"When we can win."
Luke sat someway off. Watching water flow in the river. It looked soft. It was running fast but somehow seemed calm, currents split by a rock in the middle of the river, coming back together, washing over pebbles, then seeming to still as the incline settled flat. Anakin came and asked what was wrong. Luke just shook his head. He didn't want to be a coward, but he found he didn't have anywhere near the courage it took to say that his sister frightened him.
Luke got his way in taking the shortest path to the foothills, but the compromise with his sister was that he would lead Padmè, especially when visibility was bad. They could take it slow, and Leia could walk-meditate with Anakin. Boy did she need thought Luke when he saw them back away.
When they did reach the foothills Anakin started to set up camp. He wanted the kids to have something of the experience he'd had on Ilum, during his gathering. He didn't share with them his own feelings of the gathering but after the last few days they should start this stage with a peaceful image. He set them to meditating, and allowed himself to feel pride at how easily they were able to do it. He formed an image in his mind of his old Master. Obi-Wan, reddish beard, under a light brown hood. Then Ahsoka, just her face, framed by blue and white lekku. These weren't images of loss, they were images of peace. He opened himself, sharing his feelings, there for the twins to touch, they did but formed their own images in their mind. Silvered metal, thick and heavy in their hands. Cylindrical, a forearm long. One had hooped grips, one had two smooth halves with a small gap. Anakin didn't mean to make the suggestion but there it was.
Anakin helped the kids find the cave in the force. He'd never actually been there, but it was exactly where he remembered. Afternoon sun would be shining right in the face of it now. Physically warm as well as warm in the force. When the sun was down, would it freeze like the cave entrance on Illum? Probably not, but Anakin toyed with the idea of telling them it would anyway.
"What are you smiling at?" Padmè asked. Anakin wanted to change the topic, but he kept his promise to himself of not keeping things from Padmè.
"Laughing at my own joke." Padmè exaggerated a roll of her eyes.
"The twins have a 4 hour hike to the cave, however long your challenge for them takes, and 6 hours back. Is joking really what you want to be doing." Padmè raised her eyebrows at Anakin. He chuckled at her moving topics just as fast as him.
"No," he said "it's not."
The kids were back for breakfast. They were tired, cold, and dirty. But not hurt. Indeed they were bubbling with excitement. They both held out their hands. Hovering above them were kyber crystals. Small, they looked like they had grown wild. Darker blobs inside were reminiscent of cellular organelles. Leia held blue, Luke's was green. They suited them. Padmè brought them food, Anakin pulled his bag of scraps from his pack. He laid them out, ordered. Emitters, modulation circuits, energy gates, casing, and more.
Once the twins would have had a selection of parts to stuff a starship, and the guidance of the ancient droid Huyang in choosing. Anakin's selection was beyond inadequate, and he knew a moment of fear. What if the kids wanted the same part? He only had two emitters, if they both wanted the same one… Anakin tried to trust in the force. With so much darkness in the galaxy it was difficult to trust that the force had a plan. Maybe it didn't. The only plan he knew of for sure was the one Qui-Gonn had told him about Yoda's path to immortality. That hadn't worked out. But the force had brought them here, if they'd taken the ship they would have been mere minutes from a cave that held kyber crystals right for Luke and Leia. Something more than chance had guided his selection of parts. The force might only be reacting to the disasters they faced, but it was seeking something less chaotic, more balanced, for the galaxy. The galaxy was burning with fever. What was Anakin? An antibody that would seek out and destroy the infection? Water to sooth the burn, and help return the body to balance after the infection was cleared? Or just another cell to be invaded and torn apart, co-opted to endlessly reproduce the virus with no proper function of his own?
The kids sat on opposite sides of the parts. Despite their physical exhaustion, they slipped smoothly into mediation. Their kyber crystals floating at eye level, rotating slowly. Leia selected an emitter, Luke another. Crystal casing. Switches. Components selected with the force. No conflict between the twins, no question that another part should have been there. In front of Luke, his sabre began to take shape. No longer a collection of parts, but a single thing. Two smooth silver halves, vertical black split, casing slightly overlapping the emitter.
A blue crystal was encased by a hooped grip, bronze inlays, looped by gleaming chrome. The emitter sat on a narrow connection, all visible above the casing. The force lived in the crystals and the twins both beamed with pride as their faces were suddenly illuminated with blue and green light from pure plasma, contained in a field of the force. Elegant and precise, but deadly and destructive. Leia took an attack stance, fierce determination in her eyes. Luke blinked away a tear and settled into a high defensive stance, ready to dash up the trees.
Anakin was right, both twins made a smooth transition from training sabres to lightsabres. As the years past Luke wanted to spend more time flying, and Leia more time in space. They were able to spend some time socialising with locals when they made trade trips, but Leia, especially, was dedicated to her mission, and sought any sign that it might be time to make a move. When the time came there was no need to seek a sign.
Leia was hunting a nurflet. She combined hunts with training. Learning to move with such stealth she could strike them down, a single decapitating blow, before they were aware anyone was present. She was tracking this one through light grass. She moved when it moved. Nurflets didn't have a great sense of smell, so direction of approach was guided by sightlines. She would approach from behind. Make a noise to the left, rustle some leaves with the force, or break a twig. When it turned she would appear on it's right side and strike. Snap, dash, str… She froze, the nurflet turned to her, eyes wide, and ran. It didn't kick at her, but Leia's chest was collapsing in pain.
Luke was digging. He was collecting good soil. There were some edible river grasses, that were surprisingly spicy. He had an idea that if he made a floating "island" in the river he might be able to grow a crop with no irrigation. He thought at first he'd slipped and struck himself in the chest. He looked down and he wasn't even holding the shovel. His hands were shaking.
Anakin was picking fruits from trees they had grown themselves near the "landing bay" clearing that was now better understood as home. He collapsed suddenly. Padmè came running, 3PO shambling behind, R2 even fired up his jets. Padmè had been writing, but heard him fall. When she got there he was sitting, leaning against a young tree. Holding his chest, for a minute Padmè panicked. Had Anakin's comments about slowing down not been so sarcastic as she thought?
"Annie? What is it?" Anakin was silent. He was staring into the distance, but he turned to Padmè. His eyes were wide, pupils dilated. His lips were apart, tongue pressed up against the roof of his mouth. He was shaking his head. He pressed his head in Padmè's chest. She squeezed him, unable to move. Luke was there first, but Leia was not far behind.
Anakin nodded to Leia, they had to go. If they didn't there would be nowhere to go, nothing to do, nothing they could do. Leia ran to the ship, ordering R2 to begin flight checks. Luke ran to his parents. He held them. He wanted to stay there. What was out there? He didn't want that. Flying the mountains, growing things here, hit the space ports every few weeks. That's enough adventure and excitement for anyone. He knew he couldn't. What he just felt, what millions and millions of people had just felt must never be experienced again. He moved because he had to.
Anakin took to the cockpit with Leia, Luke settled with Padmè in the passenger compartment. It was a little worn now, but the elegance and drama of Naboo royalty was still there. Bright with colour and shine. The most inappropriate place for what was happening.
"Luke, what was that? Why won't he tell me?" Luke squeezed his mother's hand. For a minute he thought he'd forgotten how to speak. He sat there shaking his head.
"Tea?" Perhaps it would have been better if had forgotten how to speak.
"Luke, what's happened?"
"Mum…" It had never occurred to him to be jealous of people who weren't force sensitive before, but suddenly Luke was. He shook the feeling away. What he had just felt was nothing compared to what those people… so many people… had just felt. "I don't think I can explain it properly. Words are too…they're too small… it was… It was like millions of voices. Human a lot of them, most of them, I'm sure. And lot's of others I didn't recognise. You… you might, but…" Luke paused, focused on the pounding of his chest in his heart. He found he was relieved his mother was there, squeezing his hand. He couldn't imagine a world in which he had to do this without her. He blinked tears from his eyes.
"So many voices, mum. Millions and millions, all crying out in terror, the worst… worse than when dad showed us the clone wars, do you remember?" Padmè nodded. "Terror. All of them. Then suddenly silenced."
"Silence?" Luke wanted to say it worse than that. A deep, cold, nothingness. He pulled away from it, he didn't want to touch it again. He found he was blinking away tears. How had he lost his sense of presence that he hadn't noticed he was crying. He voice broke.
"He has to die. There's no other way." He shook his head. "We have to kill him." He looked up, Leia was in the door. Arms crossed over her chest, leaning against the wall. She looked just like, Anakin, Padmè thought. She nodded, a single firm nod. She turned, back to the cockpit. She took the co-pilots chair.
They dropped out of hyperspace at the nearest inhabited world in Hutt space. Even for veterans of the clone war, with nearly two decades of experience in hiding, the news was too absurd to be true. Anakin, Luke, and Leia all knew it was true as soon as they heard it. But they waited until they were in Imperial space, watching official holonet news reels to say it out loud. A moon of the gas giant Yavin had been destroyed. None of them had heard of Yavin, apparently the obscure system had been targeted because a group of rebels had been tracked there after an unsuccessful assault on a minor facility on another obscure system called Scarif. Padmè cringed at the over the top propaganda, with the t-word flashing all over the images. Worse was to come. An old ally of Padmè's, Mon Mothma, had been accused of leading the rebels. Padmè found this hard to believe, not because she didn't believe in her fellow Senator, but because she doubted Mon could have survived so long under the Emperor's hateful glare. Perhaps she didn't want her to have lived so long. If Mon had survived, and was out leading a military rebellion, then Padmè should have been at her side.
In punishment for Mon Mothma's betrayal the Emperor had declared her world, Chandrilla, in rebellion. The holo-reels claimed the entire world was destroyed. Padmè had been processing this since they first heard it in Hutt space. Even now she couldn't believe it. She looked to her husband. To her son. To her daughter. And she knew it to be true. That this is what they had felt through the force. The destruction of an entire world. They had felt it and they were still here. They had felt it and all they could think to do was stop the next attack. She wanted to hold them all, to cry, to let them unload it on her. But that was not what they needed and not what she could offer.
"We need to get a clean ship to get onto Coruscant. Naboo is the Emperor's home world, this type of ship will be well known. Worse, if he suspects Anakin is still alive he may well have an automatic alert set up amongst his security forces for this sort of thing. How many royal yachts are there?" Anakin nodded agreement. Slowly, as if a part of him still wanted to rush headlong at Coruscant.
"Tatooine's as good a place as any to make a trade. It was for all practical purposes outside of the Republic." Padmè swallowed trying not to think of the Republic's failure to prevent slavery on Anakin's home world. "Any useful resources were mined out centuries ago, it's hardly a food bowl. If the Empire's bothered with it at all, and not just left it to the Hutts, they won't have much of a presence." Anakin had already programmed the jump, but Padmè finished anyway. "and the routes to the core worlds are pretty simple."
Padmè had learned a lot about in atmosphere flight. All of it was being used now. They had traded their ship, their home, a glorious royal yacht for junk. They had known there wouldn't be many options to choose from on Tatooine, but willingness to trade their J-Type Star Skiff had pegged them as desperate, and everyone assumed the ship was stolen, or at least being watched by the Empire. They had eventually traded for a positively ancient Corillian YT-1200. The maligned model that succeed the YT-1000 only to be replaced almost instantly by the far superior YT-1300. This was a particularly bad example, and Padmè suspected the previous owner had only agreed to a trade because all the compartments on the royal yacht were airtight. No doubt it had already been sold on and the previous occupant of this garbage was in the process of acquiring a far superior freighter.
Some outer hull plating had come off when they entered Coruscant's atmosphere, but they had been allowed to enter, thanks to the infinitely more valuable codes they had purchased with the ship. No doubt the previous owner had some corrupt official on Coruscant she did regular runs for, they had found her by looking for who was bragging the most obnoxiously about time in the core worlds. They were in Coruscant's atmosphere, but they didn't exactly have permission to pull up to the Imperial Palace. The Emperor had occupied the Jedi Temple, once visible from Padmè's balcony. The whole place was now a strict no fly zone, except for military craft of course. She wondered who occupied her space now. But returned her focus to the controls. Although the lost plating was probably (hopefully) cosmetic, its loss had changed how the saucer shaped ship responded to the atmosphere. Padmè corrected her course making for a large open shipping channel that pocketed the endless shining city. They had an approved destination. Exactly where one would expect a ship like this, level 1313.
They landed and saw a deck hand coming toward them, he looked, happy?
Anakin could hear him speaking before they ramp was down.
"Mia! I've missed you, don't have a pickup for you, yet. Dinner before it… You're not Mia." The young man said when Anakin lead the twins down the ramp. His eyes popped wide, "You kill her?"
"No." Anakin said firmly, then added "of course not." More gently.
"So, she finally unloaded this pile of frag, good for her, good for her. You taking over her run for the Captain?"
"No." Anakin was firm again.
"Whatever." Said the young man and wandered off. Anakin was glad they'd planned to try for a pickup on a higher level, if Padmè stayed here she might get picked up by some of these Captain's men. But he didn't get a sense this kid cared enough to call someone to chase the freighter.
Padmè was back in the air as soon as they had cleared the landing platform. Anakin began leading the twins through the streets. Over the next few hours they made their way, behind buildings, through vents, wherever they could fit, toward the upper levels. Anakin had felt a moment of sickness seeing the almost familiar shape of a storm trooper's helmet in the distance around level 1320, but they'd met exactly no resistance. Leia was the first to mention it.
"A path has been cleared for us." She said when they paused for water. "He knows we're coming." Luke and Anakin nodded in agreement.
"Is all this a trap?" asked Leia, "Did he do all this, murder a whole planet, just to get you to come, dad?" Both twins stared at their father. Anakin shook his head.
"Don't underestimate his control over this planet." He told them. "If he had the slightest sense of my presence when we entered the system that would have given him ample time to redeploy his security forces to give us a path."
"But he is waiting for us?" Anakin thought he should say 'no', that the Emperor was waiting for him alone. The prized apprentice who had betrayed him and run when he was so near to closing the snare. Perhaps he could get the kids to run back to Padmè and get out. He knew they wouldn't go. If Padmè hadn't been shot down as soon as she got back above the city, she'd be observing the agreed hours of radio silence and wouldn't be reachable.
Fear closed on Anakin's heart like a fist contracting. He settled himself, saying over and over in his head that if Padmè had been shot down he would know, he'd have felt it. His focus returned.
"Yes." He said simply to the kids. The got up and moved. This changed very little. They would approach the temple together in case they met military resistance. Then split, try and divide the Emperor's attention once they were inside. All three were glad of the endurance training they'd been doing, but as well as the exhaustion that came with climbing more than a thousand levels to reach the base of the pyramid that formed the Jedi temple, by the time they got there it would have been over 26 standard hours since any of them had slept.
The Emperor had allowed them to get the temple unmolested. They walked under the overhang of the giant pyramid above toward the entrance stairs. It was familiar to Anakin. These were the stairs where he'd first met Letta Turmond, and a terrible sequence of events that had ended in his Padawan leaving the Jedi order had begun. He blinked the memory of Ahsoka away and brought his focus to the here and now.
A black hooded figure was on the top of the stairs. He didn't even hide the fact his was holding a brilliant red lightsabre. Rage radiated from him, though he was perfectly still.
"Is that…?"
"No. Keep formation, but spread. Leia 5 metres to my left, Luke 5 to my right. Only one of us in reach of his blade at a time. I'll draw his focus, you wait for an opening. He has only one blade, he can't defend front and back together. Expect an aggressive form." Anakin spoke quietly but was under no illusions that his plan would be secret. As he closed on the staircase all he could think was that for all of 19 years of training, his children had no battle experience, and should be nowhere near a Sith Apprentice. And worse. The cold up his spine Anakin had been ignoring for days gave him a shiver. He moved because he must.
There was room out of reach of apprentice on the concourse up the stairs. He signalled to Leia and she dashed first, dropping into a deep defensive stance, holding her blue blade above her head, blocking the powerful but predictable repeated downward strokes. Anakin was up next, striking at the apprentices back, trying a quick jab in case he was lucky and the apprentice was sloppy.
He was not, he turned on Anakin and dashed away before Leia could switch to offense. Good. Anakin followed, striking quickly, to draw the apprentices focus. The twins followed the plan, taking up position, looking for an opening long enough to dash in and strike the apprentice down.
The apprentice had good focus. His black hilt drawn back to a central defensive position after every block. He tried to manoeuvre Anakin so only one of the twins was behind him, but they kept moving too. Anakin kept his distance, trying to draw the apprentice into a lunge that would leave him vulnerable from the side or back. He'd need to make him angry to force a mistake.
"So, you're Palpatine's new monkey lizard." He taunted, but the apprentice, his hood still up made no response. All he could see of his face was his mouth and chin. Smooth, unscarred, not battle worn. Anakin stepped back trying to draw him. A beat, the apprentice tried to take the opportunity, and moved toward Leia, forcing Anakin to attack again. Buzz. Clash. Buzz. Clash. Anakin tried to keep thinking. The apprentice was in no rush. Maybe he could be.
"Luke, make for the Emperor!" he breathed between strikes. Luke turned and ran for the entrance. The apprentice leapt, impossibly fast away from Anakin. A single long flip, landing in Luke's path. Sensing danger Luke pulled up short, and dashed back away from the apprentice. Anakin saw the apprentice's vulnerability. His hood was down.
Anakin didn't spend a lot of time teaching in the temple. Indeed, he avoided it as much as the council would allow. But he did make note of the Padawans most promising with the lightsabre.
"Padawan Jukassa." Anakin spoke calmly. That got a reaction. Slight, a twitch of the lip. "I remember you, do you remember me?"
"Jukassa is dead." The apprentice spat out. "I am Darth Zoon, Lord of the Sith." Anakin had him. Jukassa was speaking, betraying himself and his plan. Why pause to announce himself in the middle of a battle he was so clearly winning?
Leia understood too. She probed.
"This was a Jedi?"
"Not a Jedi, a Padawan Learner. But gifted with a sabre." Anger crossed Jukassa's face. Not just a twitch. His features crunched in rage. It clicked for Luke.
"He can't be a Jedi, a Jedi wouldn't stand by a let a planet be destroyed." Padmè would have called that heavy handed. But Zoon was already torn. He didn't need leading by the hand to this. Conflict was replaced by rage as the dark side tried to keep hold of Zoon. With a roar he dashed at Anakin, who took the same deep defensive stance Leia had held. Zoon was striking down, harder, and harder. As if to get more power he increased his motion, a large circular downward strike.
There, Luke saw what they had created. Zoon was looping. Luke dashed in, striking up short, sharp, between his father and Zoon. Zoon's pitch lightsabre went flying, hand still attached, blade still ignited, it stuck into a pillar. The hand dropped and it deactivated. At the same time Anakin pushed out with the force, sending Zoon away from him and Luke. Crack. Zoon's head struck a wall and he dropped unconscious to the floor. Anakin spoke.
"Ok, same as we said, Leia, stealth. Luke find a different path, but be ready to enter as soon as I'm in." Leia nodded, before they both realised Luke wasn't there.
Against the wall of the temple, Luke had propped Jukassa up. He was touching his forehead, muttering something rhythmical, but Luke and Anakin couldn't hear.
'Luke! Hurry up!" Even here they were siblings. Luke released Jukassa, and blinked away tears.
The Emperor wasn't trying to hide any more than Zoon had been. They could all feel him within the temple. Still, they avoided the turbo lifts, and walked their way to the old council chamber at the peak of the pyramid. Anakin traced the paths through the temple he remembered. They crossed the grand foyer, deep maroon and gilt colours now replaced with foreboding dark obsidian. Anakin found only two paths hadn't been sealed with the volcanic rock. He wasn't risking anyone in the turbolift.
When they reached the old council chamber, they saw how well the Emperor had chosen. There were limited entrances here. Even if they had followed their plan and split up, they still would have been funnelled to this point. Unless they wanted to climb outside and slice through solid walls this was it.
Uncaring of light and space the Emperor had sealed the windows with solid duracreet. All that was left was a single entrance. Anakin had walked through that entrance when he was nine, but now it sealed behind him. There was no evidence this was the same space he had known.
Gone were the comfortable council chairs, tailored to any variation on humanoid body plans, and others beside. There was no furniture at all. There was no lighting, natural or otherwise to show that orange patterned floor was gone. Symbol of the Jedi burned away by the Emperor himself. Pitch. Cold. Beyond icy, it was like the force wanted to freeze the room. Hold it in this form, impenetrable, locked in an eternity of evil.
Leia acted first. She ignited her sabre. Blue light filled the room. The Emperor just laughed. The light from Leia's sabre found him, a dark figure, hooded, features hidden. Perfectly still in the centre of the room. He lifted his hands, a single sudden burst of lightning flew from his hands, striking Leia square in the chest. She flew back in darkness, her sabre extinguished as soon as she dropped it. Crack, thump. She'd hit something. No telling what it was.
"Leia!" Luke yelled, bathing himself in green light as he lunged to where the emperor had been. He found only empty space before being struck in the back by a sickly blue/white ball of force energy. It burned him, under his skin. He screamed before his face cracked against a wall. He felt his jaw break as he lost consciousness and slid to the floor.
"Young Skywalker. You have returned to me." Anakin held still. He could feel Leia already returning to consciousness. Luke was hurt, but not far behind. Anakin needed to run to his children. To hold them, but he didn't. He held position because that's all he could do. He reached out, trying to sense the Emperor's position. There was a thick cloud of darkness swirling in the room. Darker than the pitch blackness that blinded his eyes. The darkness moved quickly. It was light and turbulent. Big enough to contain four of five people. Anakin couldn't use it to strike at the Emperor. He didn't ignite his lightsabre…
Clarity.
It didn't matter. Surely the Emperor could tell exactly where he was. Why wasn't he dead?
"You have done well to survive so long, my boy. So few of the Jedi eluded me. They didn't run for long. Dume. Katsis. Lucky Padawans. Nothing compared to Darth Zoon. You eluded me and survived my apprentice. You have proven your power." The last word was like a punch. Anakin was frozen. Listening.
"You disappointed me once, Anakin." The Emperor didn't sound angry. His voice was soft. It seemed to be in front of Anakin, maybe two metres away.
"My fault." Anakin hadn't sensed Palpatine dash, but he must have. His voice was now behind Anakin. Anakin still wouldn't move. He reached out, Leia was up, she sought her brother, in the force. Luke was groping for consciousness.
"I pushed you too soon. You didn't see how much I had to offer. I could have saved you from all this. You could have been at myside. Powerful." Familiar slime oozed from that word. The emperor was behind Anakin now, hot wet breath on his neck.
"Instead you are here. Nothing." His voice was clipped. "You could have ruled the galaxy." He crescendoed like the Palpatine of old, speaking to the senate, but a thick layer of malice replaced the old charm. He returned to quite smoothness. "Not trapped in a ship, stuck with sad wife, and weakling children." The emperor spat the last words.
Anakin roared, swinging his lightsabre. Blue light bathed his face as laughter echoed into the distance.
"Good. Good, Anakin. Use your hatred. Strike me down and all of it can still be yours." Anakin froze. Pathetic mistake. Don't lash out, focus. He reached for the twins. Leia and Luke were up and moving. They were slow. Dazed. Anakin opened his feelings to them. Gave them the memory of the breath on his back. No lightsabres, no light, they moved, silent, into position, Leia left, Luke right. They waited.
"You disappoint me again, Anakin." Sadness? Is that what he heard? He shared the feeling of breath on his face. As one, Leia and Luke, struck. Blue thrusting forward, simultaneously with green. Piercing flesh. A scream. No, two screams. Then laughter, echoing away to infinity in darkness. Thump, thump. Luke and Leia hit the floor, both lifeless. Anakin launched himself, spinning, screaming, lightsabre extended following the laughter. His lightsabre stuck in the wall. He tried to pull, but a lightsabre pierced his stomach, he looked down at the blue blade. Anakin gagged and tried to push off the wall. He was still looking down and for a moment saw a green plasma blade. Where was it? In his chest? Piercing. For a moment it hurt, then there was nothing.
Padmè was the last to die. The Emperor didn't even bother to do it himself. Two TIEs chased her from the atmosphere, a short burst of green plasma enough to disintegrate the ship, breaking it apart. A few citizens of the upper levels were treated to an impromptu meteor shower as they sipped sparkling wine. Only the best, imported from Alderaan. Aged to perfection.
The Emperor collected the lightsabres. He would present them to his Admiralty. There was a local fleet commander who had been promoted too far, and so had been excluded from Palpatine's order to stand down planetary security. He would no longer be an inconvenience.
At the base of the temple, the Emperor passed Darth Zoon. Beckoning the injured man to his feet, they turned toward the medical facilities. There was no rush, but Zoon could be improved.
Zett Jukassa fell in behind Palpatine.