"Anakin, yes. Of course. You know how sorry I am for your mother. Listen: we're not asking you to act against Palpatine. We're only asking you to... monitor his activities. You must believe me."
Obi-Wan stepped closer and put a hand on Anakin's arm.
With a long, slowly indrawn breath, he seemed to reach some difficult decision. "Palpatine himself may be in danger," he said. "This may be the only way you can help him."
"What are you talking about?"
"I am not supposed to be telling you this. Please do not reveal we have had this conversation. To anyone, do you understand?"
Anakin said, "I can keep a secret."
"All right." Obi-Wan took another deep breath. "Master Windu traced Darth Sidious to Five Hundred Republica before Grievous's attack—we think that the Sith Lord is someone within Palpatine's closest circle of advisers. That is who we want you to spy on, do you understand?"
A fiction created by the Jedi Council... an excuse to harass their political enemies...
"If Palpatine is under the influence of a Sith Lord, he may be in the gravest danger. The only way we can help him is to find Sidious, and to stop him. What we are asking of you is not treason, Anakin—it may be the only way to save the Republic!"
If this Darth Sidious of yours were to walk through that door right now... I would ask him to sit down, and I would ask him if he has any power he could use to end this war.
"So all you're really asking," Anakin said slowly, "is for me to help the Council find Darth Sidious."
"Yes." Obi-Wan looked relieved, incredibly relieved, as though some horrible chronic pain had suddenly and inexplicably eased. "Yes, that's it exactly."
Locked within the furnace of his heart, Anakin whispered an echo—not quite an echo—slightly altered, just at the end: I would ask him to sit down, and I would ask him if he has any power he could use—to save Padme.
The gunship streaked through the capital's sky.
Obi-Wan stared past Yoda and Mace Windu, out through the gunship's window at the vast deployment platform and the swarm of clones who were loading the assault cruiser at the far end.
"You weren't there," he said. "You didn't see his face. I think we have done a terrible thing."
"We don't always have the right answer," Mace Windu said. "Sometimes there isn't a right answer."
"Know how important your friendship with young Anakin is to you, I do." Yoda, too, stared out toward the stark angles of the assault cruiser being loaded for the counterinvasion of Kashyyyk; he stood leaning on his gimer stick as though he did not trust his legs. "Allow such attachments to pass out of one's life, a Jedi must."
Another man—even another Jedi—might have resented the rebuke, but Obi-Wan only sighed. "I suppose—he is the chosen one, after all. The prophecy says he was born to bring balance to the Force, but..."
The words trailed off. He couldn't remember what he'd been about to say. All he could remember was the look on Anakin's face.
"Yes. Always in motion, the future is." Yoda lifted his head and his eyes narrowed to thoughtful slits. "And the prophecy, misread it could have been."
Mace looked even grimmer than usual. "Since the fall of Darth Bane more than a millennium ago, there have been hundreds of thousands of Jedi—hundreds of thousands of Jedi feeding the light with each work of their hands, with each breath, with every beat of their hearts, bringing justice, building civil society, radiating peace, acting out of selfless love for all living things—and in all these thousand years, there have been only two Sith at any time. Only two. Jedi create light, but the Sith do not create darkness. They merely use the darkness that is always there. That has always been there. Greed and jealousy, aggression and lust and fear—these are all natural to sentient beings. The legacy of the jungle. Our inheritance from the dark."
"I'm sorry, Master Windu, but I'm not sure I follow you. Are you saying—to follow your metaphor—that the Jedi have cast too much light? From what I have seen these past years, the galaxy has not become all that bright a place."
"All I am saying is that we don't know. We don't even truly understand what it means to bring balance to the Force. We have no way of anticipating what this may involve."
"An infinite mystery is the Force," Yoda said softly. "The more we learn, the more we discover how much we do not know."
"So you both feel it, too," Obi-Wan said. The words hurt him. "You both can feel that we have turned some invisible corner."
"In motion, are the events of our time. Approach, the crisis does."
"Yes." Mace interlaced his fingers and squeezed until his knuckles popped. "But we're in a spice mine without a glow rod. If we stop walking, we'll never reach the light."
"And what if the light just isn't there?" Obi-Wan asked. "What if we get to the end of this tunnel and find only night?"
"Faith must we have. Trust in the will of the Force. What other choice is there?"
Obi-Wan accepted this with a nod, but still when he thought of Anakin, dread began to curdle below his heart. "I should have argued more strongly in Council today."
"You think Skywalker won't be able to handle this?" Mace Windu said. "I thought you had more confidence in his abilities."
"I trust him with my life," Obi-Wan said simply. "And that is precisely the problem."
The other two Jedi Masters watched him silently while he tried to summon the proper words.
"For Anakin," Obi-Wan said at length, "there is nothing more important than friendship. He is the most loyal man I have ever met—loyal beyond reason, in fact. Despite all I have tried to teach him about the sacrifices that are the heart of being a Jedi he—he will never, I think, truly understand."
He looked over at Yoda. "Master Yoda, you and I have been close since I was a boy. An infant. Yet if ending this war one week sooner—one day sooner—were to require that I sacrifice your life, you know I would."
"As you should," Yoda said. "As I would yours, young Obi-Wan. As any Jedi would any other, in the cause of peace."
"Any Jedi," Obi-Wan said, "except Anakin."
Yoda and Mace exchanged glances, both thoughtfully grim. Obi-Wan guessed they were remembering the times Anakin had violated orders—the times he had put at risk entire operations, the lives of thousands, the control of whole planetary systems— to save a friend.
More than once, in fact, to save Obi-Wan.
"I think," Obi-Wan said carefully, "that abstractions like peace don't mean much to him. He's loyal to people, not to principles. And he expects loyalty in return. He will stop at nothing to save me, for example, because he thinks I would do the same for him."
Mace and Yoda gazed at him steadily, and Obi-Wan had to lower his head.
"Because," he admitted reluctantly, "he knows I would do the same for him."
"Understand exactly where your concern lies, I do not. Yoda's green eyes had gone softly sympathetic. "Named must your fear be, before banish it you can. Do you fear that perform his task, he cannot?"
"Oh, no. That's not it at all. I am firmly convinced that Anakin can do anything. Except betray a friend. What we have done to him today..."
"But that is what Jedi are," Mace Windu said. "That is what we have pledged ourselves to: selfless service—"
Obi-Wan turned to stare once more toward the assault ship that would carry Yoda and the clone battalions to Kashyyyk, but he could see only Anakin's face.
If he asked me to spy on you, do you think I would do it?
"Yes," he said slowly. "That's why I don't think he will ever trust us again."
He found his eyes turning unaccountably hot, and his vision swam with unshed tears.
"And I'm not entirely sure he should."
=12=
NOT FROM A JEDI
The sunset over Galactic City was stunning tonight: enough particulates from the fires remained in the capital planet's atmosphere to splinter the light of its distant blue-white sun into a prismatic smear across multilayered clouds.
Anakin ba
rely noticed.
On the broad curving veranda that doubled as the landing deck for Padme's apartment, he watched from the shadows as Padme stepped out of her speeder and graciously accepted Captain Typho's good night. As Typho flew the vehicle off toward the immense residential tower's speeder park, she dismissed her two handmaidens and sent C-3PO on some busywork errand, then turned to lean on the veranda's balcony right where Anakin had leaned last night.
She gazed out on the sunset, but he gazed only at her. This was all he needed. To be here, to be with her. To watch the sunset bring a blush to her ivory skin.
If not for his dreams, he'd withdraw from the Order today. Now. The Lost Twenty would be the Lost Twenty-One. Let the scandal come; it wouldn't destroy their lives. Not their real lives.
It would destroy only the lives they'd had before each other: those separate years that now meant nothing at all.
He said softly, "Beautiful, isn't it?"
She jumped as if he'd pricked her with a needle. "Anakin!"
"I'm sorry." He smiled fondly as he moved out from the shadows. "I didn't mean to startle you."
She held one hand pressed to her chest as though to keep her heart from leaping out. "No—no, it's all right. I just—Anakin, you shouldn't be out here. It's still daylight—"
"I couldn't wait, Padme. I had to see you." He took her in his arms. "Tonight is forever from now—how am I supposed to live that long without you?"
Her hand went from her chest to his. "But we're in full view of a million people, and you're a very famous man. Let's go inside."
He drew her back from the edge of the veranda, but made no
move to enter the apartment. "How are you feeling?"
Her smile was radiant as Tatooine's primary as she took his flesh hand and pressed it to the soft fullness of her belly. "He keeps kicking."
"He?" Anakin asked mildly. "I thought you'd ordered your medical droid not to spoil the surprise."
"Oh, I didn't get this from the Emdee. It's my..." Her smile went softly sly. "... motherly intuition."
He felt a sudden pulse against his palm and laughed. "Motherly intuition, huh? With a kick that hard? Definitely a girl."
She laid her head against his chest. "Anakin, let's go inside."
He nuzzled her gleaming coils of hair. "I can't stay. I'm on my way to meet with the Chancellor."
"Yes, I heard about your appointment to the Council. Anakin, I'm so proud of you."
He lifted his head, an instant scowl gathering on his forehead. Why did she have to bring that up?
"There's nothing to be proud of," he said. "This is just political maneuvering between the Council and the Chancellor I got caught in the middle, that's all."
"But to be on the Council, at your age—"
"They put me on the Council because they had to. Because he told them to, once the Senate gave him control of the Jedi " His voice lowered toward a growl. "And because they think they can use me against him."
Padme's eyes went oddly remote, and thoughtful. "Against him," she echoed. "The Jedi don't trust him?"
"That doesn't mean much. They don't trust me, either." Anakin's mouth compressed to a thin bitter line. "They'll give me a chair in the Council Chamber, but that's as far as it will go. They won't accept me as a Master."
Her gaze returned from that thoughtful distance, and she smiled up at him. "Patience, my love. In time, they will recognize your ability."
"They already recognize my abilities. They fear my abilities," he said bitterly. "But this isn't even about that. Like I said: it's a political game."
"Anakin—"
"I don't know what's happening to the Order, but whatever it is, I don't like it." He shook his head. "This war is destroying everything the Republic is supposed to stand for. I mean, what are we fighting for, anyway? What about all this is worth saving?"
Padme nodded sadly, disengaging from Anakin's arms and drifting away. "Sometimes I wonder if we're on the wrong side."
"The wrong side?"
You think everything I've accomplished has been for nothing—?
He frowned at her. "You can't mean that."
She turned from him, speaking to the vast airway beyond the veranda's edge. "What if the democracy we're fighting for no longer exists? What if the Republic itself has become the very evil we've been fighting to destroy?"
"Oh this again." Anakin irritably waved off her words. "I've been hearing that garbage ever since Geonosis. I never thought I'd hear it from you."
"A few seconds ago you were saying almost the same thing!"
"Where would the Republic be without Palpatine?"
"I don't know," she said. "But I'm not sure it would be worse than where we are."
All the danger, all the suffering, all the killing, all my friends who gave their lives—? All for nothing—? He bit down on his temper. "Everybody complains about Palpatine having too much power, but nobody offers a better alternative. Who should be running the war? The Senate? You're in he Senate, you know those people—how many of them do you trust?"
"All I know is that things are going wrong here. Our government is headed in exactly the wrong direction. You know it, too—you just said so!"
"I didn't mean that. I just—I'm tired of this, that's all. This political garbage. Sometimes I'd rather just be back out on the front lines. At least out there, I know who the bad guys are."
"I'm becoming afraid," she replied in a bitter undertone, "that I might know who the bad guys are here, too."
His eyes narrowed. "You're starting to sound like a Separatist."
"Anakin, the whole galaxy knows now that Count Dooku is dead. This is the time we should be pursing a diplomatic resolution to the war—but instead the fighting is intensifying! Palpatine's your friend, he might listen to you. When you see him tonight, ask him, in the name of simple decency, to offer a ceasefire—"
His face went hard. "Is that an order?"
She blinked. "What?"
"Do I get any say in this?" He stalked toward her. "Does my opinion matter? What if I don't agree with you? What if I think Palpatine's way is the right way?"
"Anakin, hundreds of thousands of beings are dying every day!"
"It's a war, Padme. We didn't ask for it, remember? You were there—maybe we should have 'pursued a diplomatic resolution' in that beast arena!"
"I was—" She shrank away from what she saw on his face blinking harder, brows drawn together. "I was only asking..."
"Everyone is only asking. Everyone wants something from me. And I'm the bad guy if they don't get it!" He spun away from her, cloak whirling, and found himself at the veranda's edge, leaning on the rail. The durasteel piping groaned in his mechanical grip.
"I'm sick of this," he muttered. "I'm sick of all of it."
He didn't hear her come to him; the rush of aircars through the lanes below the veranda drowned her footsteps. He didn't see the hurt on her face, or the hint of tears in her eyes, but he could feel them, in the tentative softness of her touch when she stroked his arm, and he could hear them in her hesitant voice. "Anakin, what is it? What is it really?"
He shook his head. He couldn't look at her.
"Nothing that's your fault," he said. "Nothing you can help."
"Don't shut me out, Anakin. Let me try."
"You can't help me." He stared down through dozens of crisscross lanes of traffic, down toward the invisible bedrock of the planet. "I'm trying to help you."
He'd seen something in her eyes, when he'd mentioned the Council and Palpatine.
He'd seen it.
"What aren't you telling me?"
Her hand went still, and she did not answer.
"I can feel it, Padme. I sense you're keeping a secret."
"Oh?" she said softly. Lightly. "That's funny, I was thinking the same about you."
He just kept staring down over the rail into the invisible distance below. She moved close to him, moved against him, her arm sliding around his shoulders, her cheek leani
ng lightly on his arm. "Why does it have to be like this? Why does there have to even be such a thing as war? Can't we just... go back? Even just to pretend. Let's pretend we're back at the lake on Naboo, just the two of us. When there was no war, no politics. No plotting. Just us. You and me, and love. That's all we need. You and me, and love."
Right now Anakin couldn't remember what that had been like.
"I have to go," he said. "The Chancellor is waiting."
Two masked, robed, silent Red Guards flanked the door to the Chancellor's private box at the Galaxies Opera. Anakin didn't need to speak; as he approached, one of them said, "You are expected," and opened the door.
The small round box had only a handful of seats, overlooking the spread of overdressed beings who filled every seat in the orchestra; on this opening night, it seemed everyone had forgotten there was a war on. Anakin barely gave a glance toward the immense sphere of shimmering water that rippled gently in the stage's artificial zero-g; he had no interest in ballet, Mon Calamari or otherwise.
In the dim semi-gloom, Palpatine sat with the speaker of the Senate, Mas Amedda, and his administrative aide, Sly Moore. Anakin stopped at the back of the box.
If I were the spy the Council wants me to be, I suppose I should be creeping up behind them so that I can listen in.
A spasm of distaste passed over his face; he took care to win it off before he spoke. "Chancellor. Sorry I'm late."
Palpatine turned toward him, and his face lit up. "Yes, Anakin! Don't worry. Come in, my boy, come in. Thank you for your report on the Council meeting this afternoon—it made most interesting reading. And now I have good news for you—Clone Intelligence has located General Grievous!"
"That's tremendous!" Anakin shook his head, wondering if Obi-Wan would be embarrassed to have been scooped by the clones. "He won't escape us again."
"I'm going to—Moore, take a note—I will direct the Council to give you this assignment, Anakin. Your gifts are wasted on Coruscant—you should be out in the field. You can attend Council meetings by holoconference."
Anakin frowned. "Thank you, sir, but the Council coordinates Jedi assignments."
Revenge of the Sith Page 19
