Vader had a bad feeling about this, and despite what his master might think, it wasn't just his distaste for politicians. It was true that Vader frankly could think of nowhere he wanted to be less than the Junior Legislators Summit, but that was far from the biggest thing bothering him.
The fact was that the force positively rebelled at him being here. Vader couldn't figure out why. There was no apparent threat. His fake credentials had easily passed muster, and no one was the least bit suspicious of him. Something was wrong though, and he desperately wanted to get out of here.
Using a portable scanner, Vader quickly checked the room for recording devices. He found none. Usually, that would have been enough to satisfy him, but today he just couldn't shake the feeling that something was off, so he repeated the process manually - lifting up sheets and mattresses, pulling out drawers, checking light fixtures.
In all honesty, he didn't really expect to find anything. This was a high end hotel, and its patrons paid good money not to be watched. There were holorecorders around the entrances to keep out the riff-raff of course, but to have any in the interior guest areas would be unthinkable. Still, you couldn't be too careful.
Satisfied for the moment, Vader pulled out his comlink and connected to the private encrypted frequency he used to communicate with his master. The hologram of Sidious appeared a moment later.
"Lord Vader. How goes your mission?" Sidious asked without preamble.
"Everything has gone according to plan so far, but… Master, I am concerned," Vader admitted. "I have a bad feeling about being here. I am not sure this is the right way to go about this."
Sidious sighed. "I do not wish to have this conversation again, my apprentice."
"But could I not just…"
"I have told you no already!" Sidious snapped. "The man is an idealist. He will not respond well to a show of force."
"Well then, couldn't Tarkin…"
"Tarkin lacks the necessary means of persuasion as you know full well," Sidious said dismissively.
"I hardly understand what Tarkin is even good for if not this," Vader retorted.
That wasn't entirely true. He understood full well his master's reasoning for keeping Tarkin around. With Dooku dead, the Separatist movement needed a figure head, and it certainly couldn't be Vader.
To his master's great frustration, Vader had never been able to blend in entirely amongst the galaxy's elites. Sidious had spent hours upon hours trying to coach him on it. He would show Vader how to dress, how to talk, point out little things like if he carried his arms wrong or emphasized the wrong syllable in a particular word. It made no difference though. Invariably these sessions would end with Sidious frowning. "Something is still off, but I just don't know what," he would say. And wasn't that a rarity for the man who always seemed to know everything.
Indeed, within high society circles, people always did detect that something was off. Sure, Vader could pass as new money or as the bastard of someone important, but that wasn't the same thing as being truly one of them. They would allow him into their spaces, into their social circles to a certain degree. But he could never pass as a true elite. He could never be someone who they would follow as the leader of the Confederation of Independent Systems.
Privately, Vader found it rather amusing that these people who could smell outer rim trash from a parsec away could at the same time be utterly ignorant of a Sith Lord in their midst.
"I have explained this to you before, and I tire of this conversation," Sidious snarled. "This is not a difficult assignment. You will stay and complete it as I have specified if you do not wish to experience my immense displeasure!"
Vader shuddered involuntarily as the transmission ended. He knew from years of experience that it was never a good idea to ignore the force's warnings, but it was an even worse idea to ignore his master's orders. Whatever danger was coming his way, Vader would just have to deal with it.
Down at the hotel lounge, Vader ordered the second cheapest drink on the menu - the one that most screamed "I'm too poor to be here, but I'm trying to hide it". He just knew this guy would love a good charity case. He sat down, pretending to read something on a datapad, waiting for his target to arrive.
As it happened, he only had to wait a few minutes for President Monkle to show up. Not only that, but he was alone. All the easier. Vader watched as Monkle ordered a drink, sat down at one of the tables, and started working on something on a datapad, much as he was pretending to do.
He waited a few more minutes, glancing briefly at Monkle every so often. Once he was satisfied that the president had noticed him looking, he stood and walked over to the table where Monkle sat.
"Um excuse me, but you wouldn't happen to be President Monkle of the Minmara system, would you?" he asked, striking a perfect balance between bashful and confident that men like this fell for every time.
Monkle smiled. "As a matter of fact I am."
From there Vader introduced himself as Garen Starsi. He was a student at the very elite Chandrilan Legal Institute - on scholarship of course - and President Mokle was one of his personal heroes. Vader wouldn't have felt comfortable with this cover story had his target had anything more than a basic knowledge of law, but he knew from his research that Minmaran president did not.
As it was, Monkle ate it all up. "Please, have a seat," Monkle invited after a couple minutes of careful flattery.
Vader took a seat. Then it was mostly a matter of listening to the man talk and smiling and agreeing with everything. The trick was to let the target feel like they were controlling the conversation while subtly guiding it in the direction he wanted.
It took hours. Frankly, Vader thought it was a waste of time. A few well placed threats, maybe a bit of light torture, and Vader was sure he could have gotten Monkle to cave within 10 minutes. But Sidious insisted this required a more subtle approach, and it wasn't his place to disagree.
"You know, I just wish there were more young people like you!" Monkle remarked at one point, slightly tipsy by now. "My son has no interest in politics and finds me dreadfully boring. All he wants to do is race swoop bikes! Can you imagine?"
Oh, how he wished to be talking to Monkle's son instead. But this he could work with. Vader focused his efforts on being precisely the son Monkle wished he had. He had never had a father himself of course, but he understood the gist of the relationship.
Eventually, he managed to work into the conversation, "I just feel like it's a real shame what the Republic is doing to planets in the mid-rim. Palpatine might mean well, but his tax code is allowing the mining guild to decimate the local economies."
"And don't even get me started on what he's let the Corporate Alliance get away with!" Monkle exclaimed. "But half the planetary leaders and nearly all the senators are in the pocket of one guild or another, so it just gets worse and worse."
Vader sighed dramatically. "We need more leaders like you who are brave enough to stand up and say enough is enough." That was as far as he would push the point for tonight, but Vader was confident that within a few days Monkle would be fully convinced to join the Separatists without realizing that he'd been manipulated in any way.
Vader excused himself but not before Monkle had extended an invitation to join him the following morning in a game of Greenputt, another of Monkle's interests which his son unfortunately did not share.
Vader of course assured the man that he would love nothing more than to play Greenputt together and confided that he and his father used to play together before his father's tragic passing.
He had never actually played Greenputt before, but that was beside the point. The force would make it a trivial matter to be good at it. Or, if the Minmaran president wanted to show off a bit, he could be bad at it and quickly improve thanks to Monkle's brilliant teaching.
It seemed like it would be all too easy. It seemed like it, but nonetheless Vader knew something was going to go wrong and soon.
After a rather restless night, Vader started the morning how he always did - some katas, a quick shower, a cup of caff. He was still having misgivings about this whole thing but didn't know what to do about it. To defy Sidious was simply not an option. He wished he had his lightsaber, but he'd left it back on the ship. Maybe he should go get it?
It was silly. He didn't need his lightsaber. It was only a bunch of politicians and rich kids here. He could kill any of them with just a thought whenever he felt like it.
Yawning, he turned on a holo entitled "Greenputt: The Basics" and watched until he was confident that he knew enough of the terminology not to make a fool of himself. Well, time to go give it a try.
He took the turbolift down to ground level, following the signs to the Greenputt fields. As he stepped outside, the bright sunlight hit him, momentarily blinding him. He took a few steps forward, then froze. Something was very wrong.
"We have you surrounded. Surrender now and come quietly."
Vader's gaze snapped to the source of the voice, and the unmistakable hum of a lightsaber igniting rang in his ears. Then another ignited. And another. Kriff, how many were there?
He caught sight of the Jedi who had spoken - a human with auburn hair - and quickly scanned the group around him. A dozen, maybe more. How had they found him? Panic clawed at the edges of his mind, but then he looked up. The shadow of ships circled ominously overhead, turning a bad situation into something far worse.
He was done for. There was no way around that. But he certainly wasn't going down without a good fight.
"I never surrender," he informed the Jedi.
"You can not possibly think that you can win against all of us," said a Jedi who held a purple lightsaber. Vader recognized him as Mace Windu, one of Jedi's leaders. They must really fear him.
"Maybe not, but how many of you do you think I can take out with me?" he said. In spite of the fact that he was about to die, Vader felt a sense of satisfaction at the welcoming party they'd put together for him.
Scanning over the Jedi nearest him, Vader's eye caught on a quarren whose hand shook slightly. In one swift motion, he pulled her towards him, grabbed her wrist, and twisted until the lightsaber fell from her hand. He caught it, turned it in his hand, and stabbed her through the heart.
"One," he said with a smirk.
"Close in!" the auburn haired Jedi shouted.
Before any of the Jedi had covered the distance, he was bombarded with no less than a dozen blaster bolts. Now really - that was just uncivilized. Unable to deflect them all with his lightsaber, Vader had to resort to using the force to deflect a couple then dodged the rest. Vaguely, he registered that they were using stun bolts. Weird.
Before he could think about it too much, Windu's purple lightsaber came uncomfortably close to his neck, and Vader batted it away while simultaneously ducking underneath a green one.
The trick to fighting many opponents at once was simple; keep moving. He couldn't let any of them get him in a saber lock or he would be dead. He needed to dodge what he could and keep his lightsaber available for when one of them gave him an opening or as a last resort for something that would otherwise kill him. He could handle two, maybe three Jedi at a time, but let them all surround him at once and he simply wouldn't be able to move fast enough to deal with all of them.
And so Vader moved. He jumped, spun, dodged, kicked - anything to keep from being at the center of the group of Jedi. He was careful though never to entirely exit the perimeter formed by the Jedi, lest the fighters overhead get a clear shot at him. The snipers didn't have to be quite as careful. Being Jedi, they were highly accurate, and even if they missed and hit one of their own, they were only stun rounds - which, Vader realized belatedly, would be exactly why they were firing stun rounds at him.
The blasters were an annoying distraction. Had it been that alone then the number of bolts he could deflect using the force would be more or less infinite, but it took concentration which he really couldn't afford at the moment. Still, he was managing for the time being. He was able to slash another Jedi across the chest when he let his guard down. But there were still so many more.
Vader quickly determined that the biggest threats were Windu and the auburn haired one. He tried to keep them out of sync with each other, but they seemed to be catching on to this strategy. He just registered it as the two briefly locked eyes, Windu pausing for a beat Vader hadn't expected.
Then, all of a sudden the purple and the blue saber were both coming at him from opposite directions. Making a split second decision, Vader brought his own blade up to meet the purple one while twisting away from the blue one.
He didn't quite make it and felt a stinging sensation as the blade grazed his right arm, just above were the prosthetic joined flesh. Vader stumbled slightly which was all the auburn haired Jedi needed to slice right through the mechno arm.
It wasn't nearly as painful as losing that arm the first time. The artificial pain receptors were calibrated to stay at a low enough level to not incapacitate him. The bigger problem was that he now had no lightsaber.
Desperation taking over, Vader leapt into the air, trying to get to where the second fallen Jedi lay. Windu slashed at his legs, so Vader twisted in midair, but then there was another lightsaber which he couldn't avoid. He focused with all his might, willing the force to stop it. An instant later, he felt something like a sting or a pinch on his left side and then everything went dark.
Then - Six Months After the Invasion of Naboo
Life was better now that he was allowed to live in the house. Anakin's bed was soft, his food plentiful and delicious, and it was never too hot or too cold. In fact, once his leg stopped bothering him, Anakin was more comfortable than he could ever remember being back on Tatooine.
Not only that, but he was learning the ways of the force as Sidious had promised he would. "You must master yourself completely, body and mind," Sidious informed him. And so Anakin tried.
He learned dance-like movements called katas. He practiced lifting rocks and manipulating small objects with the force. He learned to meditate and to defend his mind. He learned to jump impossibly high and land softly. He figured out how to swim in the lake without swallowing a bunch of water. He learned to use the force to influence and subdue animals. He worked with training remotes and a training saber daily.
The training was difficult, but Anakin found that he quite enjoyed it. There was something thrilling about tapping into that vast, endless power that had surrounded him all his life. It made him feel powerful. No longer was he that weak slave boy to be trampled under the feet of cruel masters. He was someone strong now, someone of consequence. The more Anakin felt that rush of power the more he wanted to feel it again and the harder he worked at it.
He was doing well with his training, he thought. His master was usually only around one or two days out of every week, so it was only on those days Sidious would teach Anakin something new. Anakin made it a point to have always mastered whatever he was taught by the time his master returned. Sidious seemed satisfied with his progress. He hadn't seen fit to punish Anakin again in any case. Not really punish him anyway. Not like that first time.
Really, the only thing that bothered Anakin was the loneliness. He used to have lots of friends: Mom, 3PO, Kitster, Amee, and Wald, and so many more. But now… now he had no one. He supposed C3G8 was his friend, but the protocol droid was too busy with household tasks to ever have much time to talk to Anakin.
He knew Sidious was not his friend. Sidious was his master. Sidious had hurt him. But even so, Anakin found himself talking to Sidious more than he ought to out of sheer desperation. The odd thing was that he really didn't mind talking to Sidious. Strange as it might sound, his master was actually perfectly pleasant most of the time. Sidious never seemed to tire of answering Anakin's endless stream of questions. Anakin asked about just about everything: rain, hyperspace travel, mountains, the senate, the Jedi.
He soon learned that his master did not like the Jedi much. "Narrow minded fools," he would call them. Sidious explained that the Jedi feared the true nature of the force and tried to hide from it which made them weak. This surprised Anakin because he had always thought the Jedi were the strongest warriors in the galaxy.
Sidious despised nothing more than weakness. In training, if Anakin cried out when one of the training remotes got him, Sidious would slap him. Anakin quickly learned not to react in any way when something hurt.
Other than Sidious, the only other beings he ever encountered were on the rare occasions when one of his master's associates would visit. Sidious always called them associates, not friends, though Anakin wasn't really sure what that meant. His master sometimes wanted him to talk to these people and sometimes not. Really, Anakin preferred it when he didn't have to talk to them. None of them seemed very nice.
It was a while before he got up the nerve to ask Sidious if he could work on the server droid, S3V7. It didn't seem like Sidious really needed the droid. Anakin only ever saw it sitting on its charging station.
"Hmm," said Sidious, thoughtfully. "I suppose that would be acceptable so long as you do well in your training. But should you disappoint me in any way, I will revoke this privilege."
Anakin was thrilled. He was determined not to disappoint his master. From that point forward, he put everything he possibly could into his training. He practiced with the training remote until he could deflect every shot on the highest setting every time. Then he started practicing with two. He ran through all the katas Sidious had taught him, one after the other, repeating them until his muscles ached and he could hardly move anymore. He practiced swimming until he could make it all the way across the lake and back. Every day, Anakin made it his goal to jump higher, to run faster, to be stronger.
Sidious wished for Anakin to learn other things too. His master had been pleased that Anakin could already read, knew several languages, and was pretty good with numbers, but Sidious insisted that there was much more he needed to learn. Each time he saw Sidious, his master would give Anakin several texts that he was to read. Some were more interesting than others; Anakin liked reading about the history of the Jedi and the Sith, the development of hyperspace technology, even about healing to an extent. Less interesting were those about politics and legal proceedings and trade disputes.
Anakin often didn't really understand what any of it meant, but he had to try because Sidious would always ask Anakin's opinion on what he had read. He mostly got it wrong at first. After reading about the budgetary surplus on the planet Zirulast, Anakin had been fully convinced that the money ought to go back to the people. Sidious had explained that was wrong though.
"Back on your home planet, did your master give you money to buy food?" Sidious asked.
Anakin nodded.
"And were there ever times he didn't give you enough money for the food you needed?"
"Yes," Anakin admitted. "If he wanted to punish us."
"Hmm," said Sidious. "Now say one time he gave you more money than you needed. What would you do with the extra?"
Anakin brighted at the question. "We could get a ruby bliel!"
"I see," said Sidious. "And did you need a ruby bliel?"
"No," Anakin said. "But I liked it."
"I see," repeated Sidious. "But would it not have been better to save that extra money so that you could buy food on the occasions when your master didn't give you enough money?"
Anakin frowned. He'd never thought of it that way. He did really like ruby bliels, but was it worth enduring the nights when he went hungry?
"This is not a criticism, Lord Vader," said Sidious. "It is only natural for those who do not have much to want whatever they can get when they can get it. But herein lies the flaw in your theory with regards to Zirulast. So I ask you to consider this: if the surplus were distributed amongst all the citizens of Zirulast as you suggest, what would happen?"
"Most of them would spend all of it," Anakin answered. He was beginning to see where Sidious was going with this.
"Yes," said Sidious. "They would spend every last credit on things they do not need. You have yet to learn much about economics, but this would lead to something called inflation where things start to cost more and money becomes worth less. So the Zirulast citizens would be even worse off than they were before, and if there were to be a year of poor harvest or some other hardship, they would have nothing extra, no way to buy the things they actually need."
"Oh," said Anakin.
Sidious nodded. "It is unrealistic to expect everyone to understand these things. Most lack the capacity for this sort of thinking. It is far better that there be someone in charge with the wisdom and the vision to decide what is best for everyone."
Anakin had never considered that perspective before, but he had to admit that it really made a lot of sense. He reflected that the real issue was that most leaders were selfish and not all that wise.
With time, Anakin was really starting to understand these things better. These days, Sidious was usually reasonably satisfied with Anakin's answer when asked what he thought about one thing or another. Sidious would point out some nuance here and there that Anakin had missed, but by and large Anakin understood what he was supposed to.
It was sometimes difficult to find time to work on S3V7, but Anakin usually was able to spare an hour or so before bed. Sidious had given him a few crates of spare parts that he could use and there was a workshed on the property with a variety of hydrospanners and other tools. He had to piece together the droid's neural core from bits and pieces which resulted in a rather eccentric personality, but Anakin quite liked the droid.
Each night while he worked, Anakin would talk to S3. He would tell the droid much of the same things he talked about with Sidious - what he'd done in training, what he'd read, various things that piqued his curiosity. But there were also things he could talk about with the droid that he couldn't share with his master. Anakin told S3 about Tatooine and his mother and the friends that he so desperately missed. He talked about his impossible dream of being a star pilot and seeing the whole galaxy. He told the droid about it when his master was in a bad mood and even confided his fears that Sidious would hurt him again, maybe even kill him, if he didn't do well enough.
It felt good to have a friend again. Anakin was glad to have someone to talk to, someone who understood and wanted to help, even if S3 was only a small droid and helpless to change his fate.
"When will I get to have a real lightsaber?" Anakin asked Sidious one day while he was practicing his katas.
"When you are ready to face a true opponent. You are not ready yet," is all Sidious said.
Anakin frowned. "But I know all the katas."
"There are far more katas than the ones I've taught you. You know only the basic forms," said Sidious. "But that is irrelevant. There is more to a real duel than memorizing katas."
"I could do it," Anakin insisted.
"Then prove it," Sidious said, drawing his lightsaber from the pocket of his cloak.
Anakin raised his training saber, feeling rather nervous yet also determined. He had been training for months, mastering all the katas and practicing with the remotes for hours at a time, and now here was his moment to prove himself to his master. He moved his saber into position to begin the opening sequence of form V.
Sidious met his eyes, raising an eyebrow.
Anakin stepped forward, taking care to place his feet as he had been taught, and brought his saber upwards. Only, before he had moved it so much as an inch, he found it wrenched from his grasp while at the same time a sharp kick to the stomach knocked him to the ground.
"Never show your enemy what you're going to do before you do it," said Sidious while Anakin attempted to catch his breath. "Again."
Anakin got to his feet and began a different sequence, this time being careful not to move into position ahead of time. This time the instant he started to bring his blade towards Sidious he felt a sharp burning sensation on his wrist, causing him to drop the training saber and scramble backwards.
"Be aware of your opponent's lightsaber at all times. If I hadn't chosen to stop my blade, you would have lost a hand," said Sidious. Then, "Again."
Anakin looked down at the painful red welt on his wrist. Grimacing, he picked up his lightsaber and stood up.
Anakin tried again and again, but to his dismay Sidious stopped him in his tracks every time. Each time his master would point out something Anakin did wrong, but try as might to correct all his mistakes, it made no difference. Sidious didn't seem to be making any effort at all whilst Anakin was completely exhausted and sporting a collection of bruises and small burns.
After what must have been at least an hour, Anakin found himself thrown against the wall behind him. He landed with a thump to see Sidious leap towards him, lightsaber raised.
"Stop!" he cried. "Please! I'm done fighting! I give up!"
He heard the sound of the red blade disengaging and was momentarily relieved. Then he saw the expression on his master's face.
"You are done fighting when you are dead or your opponent is dead," Sidious snarled, a truly unhinged look in his eyes. "If they knock you down, you get back up. If they take your weapon, you find a new one. If they capture you, you find a way to escape. Don't you dare ever surrender to an enemy or I will kill you myself."
Anakin saw a bright light, and then there was pain beyond anything he'd ever felt before. It felt like every drop of water inside him was boiling yet he was also freezing. He could not move or scream or do anything other than twitch involuntarily. Anakin was sure that he must be about to die at any minute. But then as time went on and death didn't come he started to worry that he wouldn't ever die and he would just be stuck like this forever.
He must have blacked out at some point because the next thing Anakin knew it was dark outside. He was lying on the floor of the training salle and every fiber of his body ached. Gritting his teeth, he managed to get to his feet and limp up the stairs and down the hall to his bedroom.
The first thing he noticed was that S3V7 was gone, and it was this more than anything that drove him to tears for the first time in months.