by James Luceno
“Ah. As it should be.”
The humaniform 2-1B was in the midst of executing Vader’s instructions when sparks geysered from Vader’s left forearm, and blue electricity began to gambol across his chest. With an infuriated growl, Vader lifted the injured arm, hurling the med droid halfway across the laboratory.
“Useless machine!” he shouted. “Useless! Useless!”
Sidious watched his apprentice with rising concern.
“What is troubling you, my son? I’m aware of the suit’s limitations, and of the exasperation you must be experiencing. But anger is wasted on the droid. You must reserve your rage for times when you can profit from it.” He appraised Vader again. “I think I begin to understand the cause of your frustration … Your rage owes little to the suit or the droid’s ineptitude. Something disturbing occurred on Murkhana. Some occurrence you have elected to keep from me. For your good or mine? I wonder.”
Vader took a long moment to reply. “Master, I found the three Jedi who escaped Order Sixty-Six.”
“What of it?”
“The damage to my arm was done by one of them, though she is now dead, by my blade.”
“And the other two?”
“They eluded me.” Vader lifted his scarred face to regard Sidious. “But they wouldn’t have if this suit didn’t restrict me to the point of immobility! If the Star Destroyer you placed at my command was properly equipped! If Sienar had completed work on the starfighter I designed!”
Sidious waited until Vader was finished, then stood up and walked to within a meter of the room’s transparent panels. “So, my young apprentice, two Jedi slip through your grasp and you scatter the blame like leaves blown about by a storm.”
“Master, if you had been there—”
“Keep still,” Sidious interrupted, “before you damage yourself all the more.” He gave Vader a moment to compose himself. “First, let me reiterate that the Jedi mean nothing to us. In having survived, Yoda and Obi-Wan aren’t exceptions to the rule. I’m certain that dozens of Jedi escaped with their lives, and in due time you will have the pleasure of killing many of them. But of greater import is the fact that their order has been crushed. Finished, Lord Vader. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, Master,” Vader muttered.
“In burying their heads in the sands and snows of remote worlds, the surviving Jedi humble themselves before the Sith. So let them: let them atone for one thousand years of arrogance and self-absorption.”
Sidious watched Vader, displeased.
“Once more your thoughts betray you. I see that you are not yet fully convinced.”
Glancing at him, Vader gestured to his face and black-cloaked body, then gestured in similar fashion to Sidious. “Look at us. Are these the faces of victory?”
Sidious was careful to keep himself from becoming too angry, or too sickened by his pupil’s self-pity.
“We are not this crude stuff, Lord Vader. Have you not heard that before?”
“Yes,” Vader said. “Yes, I’ve heard it before. Too often.”
“But from me you will learn the truth of it.”
Vader lifted his face. “In the same way you told me the truth about being able to save Padmé?”
Sidious was not taken aback. For the past month he had been expecting to hear just such an accusation from Vader. “I had nothing to do with Padmé Amidala’s death. She died as a result of your anger at her betrayal, my young apprentice.”
Vader looked at the floor. “You’re right, Master. I brought about the very thing I feared for her. I’m to blame.”
Sidious adopted a more compassionate tone. “Sometimes the Force has other plans for us, my son. Fortunately I arrived at Mustafar in time to save you.”
“Save me,” Vader said without emotion. “Yes, yes, of course you did, Master. And I suppose I should be grateful.” He got up from the table and walked to the panel to place himself opposite Sidious. “But what good is power without reward? What good is power without joy?”
Sidious didn’t move. “Eventually you will come to see that power is joy. The path to the dark side is not without terrible risk, but it is the only path worth following. It matters not how we appear, in any case, or who is sacrificed along the way. We have won, and the galaxy is ours.”
Vader’s eyes searched Sidious’s face. “Did you promise as much to Count Dooku?”
Sidious bared his teeth, but only briefly. “Darth Tyranus knew what he risked, Lord Vader. If he had been stronger in the dark side, you would be dead, and he would be my right hand.”
“And if you should encounter someone stronger than I am?”
Sidious almost smiled. “There is none, my son, even though your body has been crippled. This is your destiny. We have seen to that. Together we are unconquerable.”
“I wasn’t strong enough to defeat Obi-Wan,” Vader said.
Sidious had had enough.
“No, you weren’t,” he said. “So just imagine what Yoda might have done to you.” He flung his words with brutal honesty. “Obi-Wan triumphed because he went to Mustafar with a single intention in mind: to kill Darth Vader. If the Jedi order had showed such resolute intention, if it had remained focused on what needed to be done rather than on fears of the dark side, it might have proved more difficult to topple and eradicate. You and I might have lost everything. Do you understand?”
Vader looked at him, breathing deeply. “Then I suppose I should be grateful for what little I have been able to hold on to.”
“Yes,” Sidious said curtly. “You should.”
The crew of the Drunk Dancer was every bit as surprised by their captain’s revelations as Shryne was. For most of them, though, the disclosure only explained why they had come to place so much trust in Jula’s judgment and intuition.
Shryne and the woman who claimed to be his mother were sitting in a dark alcove off the main cabin, untouched meals between them and blue-tinted holoimages to one side, allegedly showing a nine-month-old Roan taking his first steps outside the modest dwelling that had been his home for just over three years. He had never enjoyed seeing likenesses of himself, and the images merely served to increase his embarrassment over the entire situation.
Master Nat-Sem had once told him that vanity was the cause of such uneasiness, and had ordered Shryne to spend a full week staring at his own reflection in a mirror, in an effort to teach Shryne that what he saw was no more who he was than a map of a place could be considered the territory itself.
Clear across the cabin, Eyl Dix, Filli Bitters, and Starstone were huddled around the ship’s communications suite, into which Filli had managed to patch Bol Chatak’s beacon transceiver, and the Drunk Dancer was now transmitting on frequencies Jedi would scan in case of trouble, or if attempting to establish contact with other Jedi. The talented young slicer, whose face was nearly as colorless as his short spiked hair, was still trying his best to engage Starstone’s interest, but she was either ignoring his attempts or simply too focused on awaiting a return signal to be aware of them.
With her dark complexion and black curls, and Bitters’s towheaded brilliance, they made for an interesting-looking couple, and Shryne wondered if perhaps Starstone hadn’t unwittingly stumbled on a new path to follow.
Elsewhere in the main cabin, Brudi, Archyr, and Skeck were playing cards at a circular table, labor droids whirring in to clean up their dropped snacks and spilled drinks. All in all it was a pleasant setup, Shryne decided. Almost like a family living room, with the kids playing games, the adults watching competition sports on the HoloNet, and the hired help in the kitchen preparing a big lunch for everyone.
As a Jedi, he had scant familiarity with any of it. The Temple had been more like a huge dormitory, and one was constantly aware of being in service to a cause greater than one’s family or oneself. Frequently there were classes or briefings to attend, chores that needed completing as part of one’s training, and long meditative or lightsaber combat sessions with Masters or peers, except
for those rare days when one was allowed to wander about Coruscant, sampling bits of a different reality.
In some ways the Jedi had led a life of royalty.
The order had been wealthy, privileged, entitled.
And that was why we didn’t see it coming, Shryne thought.
Why so many of the Jedi had turned a blind eye to the trap Palpatine had been setting. Because they had refused to accept that such entitlement could ever come to an end—could all come crashing down around them. And yet even those who hadn’t denied the possibility would never have believed that thousands of Jedi could be killed in one fell swoop, or that the order could be ended with one bold stroke, as if pierced through the heart.
We were played, he told himself.
And Skeck was right: knowing that you had been played was worse than losing.
But Roan Shryne—by a quirk of fate, circumstance, the will of the Force—had survived, been brought face-to-face with his mother, and was now at a loss as to what to make of it.
He had seen his share of mothers interacting with their children, and he understood what a child was supposed to feel, how he or she was supposed to behave. But all he felt toward the woman opposite him was an unspecific connection in the Force.
Shryne wasn’t the first Jedi to have inadvertently encountered a blood relative. Over the years he had heard stories about Padawans, Jedi Knights, even Masters running into parents, siblings, cousins …
Unfortunately, he had never heard how any of the stories ended.
“I never wanted you to be found,” Jula said when she had deactivated the holoprojector. “To this day I don’t understand how your father could hand you over to the Jedi. When I learned he had contacted the Temple, and that Jedi agents were coming for you, I tried to talk your father into hiding you.”
“That rarely happens,” Shryne said. “Most Force-sensitive infants were voluntarily surrendered to the Temple.”
“Really? Well, it happened to me.”
Shryne regarded her with his eyes, and through the Force.
“Who do you think you inherited your abilities from?” Jula asked.
“Awareness does not always run in families.” He smiled lightly. “But I sensed the Force in you the moment you entered the cabin.”
“And I knew you did.”
Shryne exhaled and sat back in the chair. “So your own parents chose to keep you from joining the order.”
She nodded. “And I’m grateful they did. I would never have been able to abide by the rules. And I never wanted you to have to abide by them, Roan.” She considered something. “I have a confession to make: all my life I’ve known that I would meet you somewhere along the way. I think that’s partly the reason I took up piloting after your father and I separated. In the hope of, well, bumping into you. It’s because of our Force connection that I brought the Dancer to this sector. I sensed you, Roan.”
For many Jedi, luck and coincidence didn’t exist, but Shryne wasn’t one of them. “What happened between you and your husband?” he asked finally.
Jula laughed shortly. “You, really. Jen, your father, simply didn’t agree with me about the need to protect you—to hide you, I mean. We argued bitterly about it, but he was a true believer. He felt that I should never have been hidden; that I’d basically turned my back on what would ultimately have been a more fulfilling life. And, of course, that you would profit from being raised in the Temple.
“Jen had the strength—I guess you could call it strength—to forget about you after he handed you over to the Jedi. No, that’s too harsh. He had confidence enough in his decision to believe that he had made the right choice, and that you were doing well.” Jula shook her head. “I could never get there. I missed you. It broke my heart to see you leave, and know that I might never see you again. That’s what eventually ruined us.”
Shryne mulled it over. “Jen sounds like he was Jedi without the title.”
“How so?”
“Because he understood that you have to accept what destiny sets in front of you. That you have to pick and choose your battles.”
Her gray eyes searched his face. “What does that make me, Roan?”
“A victim of attachment.”
She smiled weakly. “You know what? I can live with that.”
Shryne glanced away, catching Starstone’s look before she quickly turned back to the communications console. She was eavesdropping on their conversation, worrying that the efforts she had made to keep Shryne on the proper path were suddenly being undermined. Shryne could feel her wanting to tear herself away from the communications suite before it was too late, and Shryne was lost to the cause.
He looked at Jula once more. “I’ll provide a confession in exchange for yours: I refused an assignment in the Temple’s Acquisition Division. I’m still not sure why, except that I’d persuaded myself on some level that I didn’t like the idea of kids being separated from their families.” He paused briefly. “But that was a long time ago.”
She took his meaning. “Long ago in years, maybe. But I’m guessing you still feel like you missed out.”
“On what?”
“Life, Roan. Desire, romance, love, laughter, fun—all the things you’ve been denied. And children. How about that? A Force-sensitive child you could nurture and learn from.”
He made his eyes dull. “I’m not sure how Force-sensitive a child of mine would be.”
“Why is that?”
He gave his head a sharp shake. “Nothing.”
Jula was willing to let the point drop, but she had more to say.
“Roan, just hear me out. From everything I’ve heard, the Jedi order has been vanquished. Probably ninety-nine percent of the Jedi are dead. So it’s not like you have a choice. Like it or not, you’re in the real world. Which means you could get to meet and know your father, your uncles and aunts. All of them still talk about you. Having a Jedi in the family is a pretty big deal in some places. Or at least it was.” She fell briefly silent. “When I heard what happened, I thought for a moment …” She laughed to push some memory aside. “I don’t want to get into all that. Someday you can tell me the truth about what happened on Coruscant, and why Palpatine betrayed you.”
Shryne narrowed his eyes. “If we ever learn the truth.”
From the comm suite came a cheer of excitement, and a moment later Starstone was hurrying across the cabin toward them.
“Roan, we got a hit! From a group of Jedi on the run.” She turned to Jula. “Captain, with your permission we’d like to arrange a rendezvous with their ship.”
Filli appeared at Starstone’s side to elaborate. “We’d have to divert from our course to Mossak. But the rendezvous wouldn’t take us too far out of the way.”
Shryne felt Jula’s eyes on him. “I won’t try to convince you,” he said. “It’s your ship, and I’m sure you have important business elsewhere.”
Jula took a long moment to respond. “I’ll tell you why I’m going to do it: just to have more time with you. With luck, enough time to persuade you to get to know us, and ultimately to stay with us.” She cut her eyes to Starstone. “There’s room for you, too, Olee.”
Starstone blinked in indignation. “Room for me? I’m not about to abandon my Jedi oath to go gallivanting around the galaxy with a band of smugglers. Especially now that I know that other Jedi survived.” She looked hard at Shryne. “We have contact, Roan. You can’t be taking her offer seriously?”
Shryne laughed out loud. “Normally Padawans don’t talk like this to Masters,” he said to Jula. “You can see how fast things have changed.”
Starstone folded her arms across her chest. “You said I shouldn’t call you ‘Master.’ ”
“That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t respect your elders.”
“I do respect you,” she said. “It’s your decisions I don’t respect.”
“Many Jedi have left the Temple to lead regular lives,” Jula thought to point out. “Some have gotten married and had childr
en.”
“No,” Starstone said, shaking her head back and forth. “Maybe apprentices, but not Jedi Knights.”
“That can’t be true,” Jula said.
“It is true,” Starstone said firmly, before Shryne could say a word. “Only twenty Jedi have ever left the order.”
“Don’t try to argue with her,” Shryne advised Jula. “She spent half her life in the Temple library polishing the busts of those Lost Twenty.”
Starstone shot him a gimlet look. “Don’t even think about being number twenty-one.”
Shryne let his sudden seriousness show. “Despite your claims for me, I’m not a Master, and there is no order. How many times are you going to have to hear it before you accept the truth?”
She compressed her lips. “That has no bearing on being a Jedi. And you can’t be a Jedi and serve the Force if your attention is divided or if you’re emotionally involved with others. Love leads to attachment; attachment to greed.”
So much for Olee and Filli Bitters, Shryne thought.
At the same time, Jula was regarding Starstone as if the young Jedi had lost her mind. “They certainly did a bang-up job on you, didn’t they.” She held Starstone’s gaze. “Olee, love is about all we have left.”
Instead of reacting to the remark, Starstone said: “Are you going to help us or not?”
“I already said I would.” Standing up, Jula gave Shryne a look. “But just so we understand each other, Roan? You and I both know that you don’t have access to any ‘secret funds.’ You make one more attempt at using Force persuasion on any members of my crew, and I may forget that I’m your mother.”
Darth Sidious had had most of his beloved Sith statues and ancient bas-reliefs removed from his ruined chambers in the Senate Office Building, where four Jedi had lost their lives and one had been converted to the dark side. Relocated to the throne room, the statues had been placed on the dais, the sculptures mounted on the long walls.
Swiveling his throne, Sidious gazed at them now.
As some Jedi had feared from the start, Anakin had been ripe for conversion when Qui-Gon Jinn had first brought him to the Temple, and for well over a decade all of Sidious’s plans for the boy had unfolded without incident. But even Sidious hadn’t foreseen Anakin’s defeat by Obi-Wan Kenobi on Mustafar. Anakin had still been between worlds then, and vulnerable. The failure to defeat his former Master had worked to prolong that vulnerability.
