That all the Order has accomplished, all it has suffered—
All the Galaxy itself has gone through, all the years of suffering and slaughter, the death of entire planets—
Has all been for nothing.
Because it was all done to save the Republic.
Which was already gone.
Which had already fallen.
The corpse of which had been defended only by a Jedi Order that was now under the command of a Dark Lord of the Sith. Mace Windu's entire existence has become crystal so shot-through with flaws that the hammer of those nine words has crushed him to sand.
But because he is Mace Windu, he takes this blow without a change of expression.
Because he is Mace Windu, within a second the man of sand is stone once more: pure Jedi Master, weighing coldly the risk of facing the last Dark Lord of the Sith without the chosen one—
Against the risk of facing the last Dark Lord of the Sith with a chosen one eaten alive by fear.
And because he is Mace Windu, the choice is no choice at all.
"Anakin, wait in the Council Chamber until we get back."
"Wh—what? Master—"
"That's an order, Anakin."
"But—but—but the Chancellor—" Anakin says desperately, clutching at the Jedi Master's hand. "What are you going to do?" And it is the true measure of Mace Windu that, even now, he still is telling the truth when he says, "Only as much as I have to."
In the virtual nonspace of the HoloNet, two Jedi Masters meet.
One is ancient, tiny, with skin of green leather and old wisdom in his eyes, standing in a Kashyyyk cave hollowed from the trunk of a vast wroshyr tree; the other is tall and fierce, seated before a holodisk in Coruscant's Jedi Temple.
To each other, they are blue ghosts, given existence by scanning lasers. Though they are light-years apart, they are of one mind; it hardly matters who says what.
Now they know the truth.
For more than a decade, the Republic has been in the hands of the Sith.
Now, together, blue ghost to blue ghost, they decide to take it back.
=Part Three=
APOCALYPSE
The dark is generous, and it is patient, and it always wins.
It always wins because it is everywhere.
It is in the wood that burns in your hearth, and in the kettle on the fire; it is under your chair and under your table and under the sheets on your bed. Walk in the midday sun and the dark is with you, attached to the soles of your feet.
The brightest light casts the darkest shadow.
=17=
THE FACE OF THE DARK
Depowered lampdisks were rings of ghostly gray floating in the gloom. The shimmering jewelscape of Coruscant haloed the knife-edged shadow of the chair.
This was the office of the Chancellor.
Within the chair's shadow sat another shadow: deeper, darker, formless and impenetrable, an abyssal umbra so profound that it drained light from the room around it.
And from the city. And the planet.
And the galaxy.
The shadow waited. It had told the boy it would. It was looking forward to keeping its word.
For a change.
Night held the Jedi Temple.
On its rooftop landing deck, thin yellow light spilled in a stretching rectangle through a shuttle's hatchway, reflecting upward onto the faces of three Jedi Masters.
"I'd feel better if Yoda were here." This Master was a Nautiloid, tall and broad-shouldered, his glabrous scalp-tentacles restrained by loops of embossed leather. "Or even Kenobi. On Ord Cestus, Obi-Wan and I—"
"Yoda is pinned down on Kashyyyk, and Kenobi is out of contact on Utapau. The Dark Lord has revealed himself, and we dare not hesitate. Think not of if, Master Fisto; this duty has fallen to us. We will suffice." This Master was an Iktotchi, shorter and slimmer than the first. Two long horns curved downward from his forehead to below his chin. One had been amputated after being shattered in battle a few months before. Bacta had accelereated its regrowth, and the once maimed horn was now a match to the other. "We will suffice," he repeated. "We will have to."
"Peace," said the third Master, a Zabrak. Dew had gathered on his array of blunt vestigial skull-spines, glistening very like sweat. He gestured toward a Temple door that had cycled open. "Windu is coming."
Clouds had swept in with the twilight, and now a thin drizzling rain began to fall. The approaching Master walked with his shaven head lowered, his hands tucked within his sleeves.
"Master Ti and Gate Master Jurokk will direct the Temple's defense," he said as he reached the others. "We are shutting down all nav beacons and signal lights, we have armed the older Padawans, and all blast doors are sealed and code-locked." His gaze swept the Masters. "It's time to go."
"And Skywalker?" The Zabrak Master cocked his head as though he felt a distant disturbance in the Force. "What of the chosen one?"
"I have sent him to the Council Chamber until our return." Mace Windu turned a grim stare upon the High Council Tower, squinting against the thickening rain. His hands withdrew from his sleeves. One of them held his lightsaber.
"He has done his duty, Masters. Now we shall do ours."
He walked between them into the shuttle.
The other three Masters shared a significant silence, then Agen Kolar nodded to himself and entered; Saesee Tiin stroked his regrown horn, and followed.
"I'd still feel better if Yoda were here...," Kit Fisto muttered, and then went in as well.
Once the hatch had sealed behind him, the Jedi Temple belonged entirely to the night.
Alone in the Chamber of the Jedi Council, Anakin Skywalker wrestled with his dragon.
He was losing.
He paced the Chamber in blind arcs, stumbling among the chairs. He could not feel currents of the Force around him; he could not feel echoes of Jedi Masters in these ancient seats.
He had never dreamed there was this much pain in the universe.
Physical pain he could have handled even without his Jedi mental skills; he'd always been tough. At four years old he'd been able to take the worst beating Watto would deliver without so much as making a sound.
Nothing had prepared him for this.
He wanted to rip open his chest with his bare hands and claw out his heart.
"What have I done?" The question started as a low moan but grew to a howl he could no longer lock behind his teeth. "What have I done?"
He knew the answer: he had done his duty.
And now he couldn't imagine why.
When I die, Palpatine had said, so calmly, so warmly, so reasonably, my knowledge dies with me...
Everywhere he looked, he saw only the face of the woman he loved beyond love: the woman for whom he channeled through his body all the love that had ever existed in the galaxy. In the universe.
He didn't care what she had done. He didn't care about conspiracies or cabals or secret pacts. Treason meant nothing to him now. She was everything that had ever been loved by anyone and he was watching her die.
His agony somehow became an invisible hand, stretching out through the Force, a hand that found her, far away, alone in her apartment in the dark, a hand that felt the silken softness of her skin and the sleek coils of her hair, a hand that dissolved into a field of pure energy, of pure feeling that reached inside her—
And now he felt her, really felt her in the Force, as though she could have been some kind of Jedi, too, but more than that: he felt a bond, a connection, deeper and more intimate than he'd ever had before with anyone, even Obi-Wan; for a precious eternal instant he was her... he was the beat of her heart and he was the motion of her lips and he was her soft words as though she spoke a prayer to the stars—I love you, Anakin. I am yours, in life, and in death, wherever you go, whatever you do, we will always be one. Never doubt me, my love. I am yours—and her purity and her passion and the truth of her love flowed into him and through him and every atom of him screamed to the Force how
can I let her die?
The Force had no answer for him.
The dragon, on the other hand, did.
All things die, Anakin Skywalker. Even stars burn out.
And no matter how hard he tried to summon it, no wisdom of Yoda's, no teaching of Obi-Wan's, not one scrap of Jedi lore came to him that could choke the dragon down.
But there was an answer; he'd heard it just the other night.
With such knowledge, to maintain life in someone already living would seem a small matter, don't you agree? Anakin stopped. His agony evaporated.
Palpatine was right.
It was simple.
All he had to do was decide what he wanted.
The Coruscant nightfall was spreading through the galaxy.
The darkness in the Force was no hindrance to the shadow in the Chancellor's office; it was the darkness. Wherever darkness dwelled, the shadow could send perception.
In the night, the shadow felt the boy's anguish, and it was good. The shadow felt the grim determination of four Jedi Masters approaching by air. This, too, was good.
As a Jedi shuttle settled to the landing deck outside, the shadow sent its mind into the far deeper night within one of the several pieces of sculpture that graced the office: an abstract twist of solid neuranium, so heavy that the office floor had been specially reinforced to bear its weight, so dense that more sensitive species might, from very close range, actually percieve the tiny warping of the fabric of space-time that was its gravitation.
Neuranium of more than roughly a millimeter thick is impervious to sensors; the standard security scans undergone by all equipment and furniture to enter the Senate Office Building had shown nothing at all. If anyone had thought to use an advanced gravimetric detector, however, they might have discovered that one smallish section of the sculpture massed slightly less than it should have, given that the manifest that had accompanied it, when it was brought from Naboo among the then-ambassador's personal effects, clearly stated that it was a single piece of solid-forged neuranium.
The manifest was a lie. The sculpture was not entirely solid, and not all of it was neuranium.
Within a long, slim, rod-shaped cavity around which the sculpture had been forged rested a device that had lain, waiting, in absolute darkness—darkness beyond darkness—for decades.
Waiting for night to fall on the Republic.
The shadow felt Jedi Masters stride the vast echoic emptiness of the vaulted halls outside. It could practically hear the cadence of their boot heels on the Alderaanian marble.
The darkness within the sculpture whispered of the shape and the feel and every intimate resonance of the device it cradled. With a twist of its will, the shadow triggered the device.
The neuranium got warm.
A small round spot, smaller than the circle a human child might make of thumb and forefinger, turned the color of old blood.
Then fresh blood.
Then open flame.
Finally a spear of scarlet energy lanced free, painting the office with the color of stars seen through the smoke of burning planets.
The spear of energy lengthened, drawing with it out from the darkness the device, then the scarlet blade shrank away and the device slid itself within the softer darkness of a sleeve.
As shouts of the Force scattered Redrobes beyond the office's outer doors, the shadow gestured and lampdisks ignited. Another shout of the Force burst open the inner door to the private office. As Jedi stormed in, a final flick of the shadow's will triggered a recording device concealed within the desk.
Audio only.
"Why, Master Windu," said the shadow. "What a pleasant surprise."
Shaak Ti felt him coming before she could see him. The infra-and ultrasound-sensitive cavities in the tall, curving montrals to either side of her head gave her a sense analogous to touch: the texture of his approaching footsteps was ragged as old sacking. As he rounded the corner to the landing deck door, his breathing felt like a pile of gravel and his heartbeat was spiking like a Zabrak's head.
He didn't look good, either; he was deathly pale, even for a human, and his eyes were raw.
"Anakin," she said warmly. Perhaps a friendly word was what he needed; she doubted he'd gotten many from Mace Windu. "Thank you for what you have done. The Jedi Order is in your debt—the whole galaxy, as well."
"Shaak Ti. Get out of my way."
Shaky as he looked, there was nothing unsteady in his voice: it was deeper than she remembered, more mature, and it carried undertones of authority that she had never heard before.
And she was not blind to the fact he had neglected to call her Master.
She put forth a hand, offering calming energies through the Force. "The Temple is sealed, Anakin. The door is code-locked."
"And you're in the way of the pad."
She stepped aside, allowing him to the pad; she had no reason to keep him here against his will. He punched the code hungrily. "If Palpatine retaliates," she said reasonably, "is not your place here, to help with our defense?"
"I'm the chosen one. My place is there." His breathing roughened, and he looked as if he was getting even sicker. "I have to be there. That's the prophecy, isn't it? I have to be there—"
"Anakin, why? The Masters are the best of the Order. What can you possibly do?"
The door slid open.
"I'm the chosen one," he repeated. "Prophecy can't be changed. I'll do—"
He looked at her with eyes that were dying, and a spasm of unendurable pain passed over his face. Shaak Ti reached for him—he should be in the infirmary, not heading toward what might be a savage battle—but he lurched away from her hand.
"I'll do what I'm supposed to do," he said, and sprinted into the night and the rain.
[the following is a transcript of an audio recording presented before the Galactic Senate on the afternoon of the first Empire Day; identities of all speakers verified and confirmed by voiceprint analysis]
PALPATINE: Why, Master Windu. What a pleasant surprise.
MACE WINDU: Hardly a surprise, Chancellor. And it will be pleasant for neither of us.
PALPATINE: I'm sorry? Master Fisto, hello. Master Kolar, greetings. I trust you are well. Master Tiin—I see your horn has regrown; I'm very glad. What brings four Jedi Masters to my office at this hour?
MACE WINDU: We know who you are. What you are. We are here to take you into custody.
PALPATINE: I beg your pardon? What I am? When last I checked, I was Supreme Chancellor of the Republic you are sworn to serve. I hope I misunderstand what you mean by custody, Master Windu. It smacks of treason.
MACE WINDU: You're under arrest.
PALPATINE: Really, Master Windu, you cannot be serious. On what charge?
MACE WINDU: You're a Sith Lord!
PALPATINE: Am I? Even if true, that's hardly a crime. My philosophical outlook is a personal matter. In fact— the last time I read the Constitution, anyway—we have very strict laws against this type of persecution. So I ask you again: what is my alleged crime? How do you expect to justify your mutiny before the Senate? Or do you intend to arrest the Senate as well?
MACE WINDU: We're not here to argue with you.
PALPATINE: No, you're here to imprison me without trial. Without even the pretense of legality. So this is the plan, at last: the Jedi are taking over the Republic.
MACE WINDU: Come with us. Now.
PALPATINE: I shall do no such thing. If you intend to murder me, you can do so right here.
MACE WINDU: Don't try to resist.
[sounds that have been identified by frequency resonances to be the ignition of several lightsabers]
PALPATINE: Resist? How could I possibly resist? This is murder, you Jedi traitors! How can I be any threat to you? Master Tiin—you're the telepath. What am I thinking right now?
[sounds of scuffle]
KIT FISTO: Saesee—
AGEN KOLAR: [garbled; possibly "It doesn't hurt"(?)]
[sounds of scuffle]
PALPATINE: Help! Help! Security—someone! Help me! Murder! Treason!
[recording ends]
A fountain of amethyst energy burst from Mace Windu's fist. "Don't try to resist."
The song of his blade was echoed by green fire from the hands of Kit Fisto, Agen Kolar, and Saesee Tiin. Kolar and Tiin closed on Palpatine, blocking the path to the door. Shadows dripped and oozed color, weaving and coiling up office walls slipping over chairs, spreading along the floor.
"Resist? How could I possibly resist?" Still seated at the desk Palpatine shook an empty fist helplessly, the perfect image of a tired, frightened old man. "This is murder, you Jedi traitors! How can I be any threat to you?"
He turned desperately to Saesee Tiin. "Master Tiin—you're the telepath. What am I thinking right now?" Tiin frowned and cocked his head. His blade dipped. A smear of red-flashing darkness hurtled from behind the desk.
Saesee Tiin's head bounced when it hit the floor.
Smoke curled from the neck, and from the twin stumps of the horns, severed just below the chin.
Kit Fisto gasped, "Saesee!"
The headless corpse, still standing, twisted as its knees buckled, and a thin sigh escaped from its trachea as it folded to the floor.
"It doesn't..." Agen Kolar swayed. His emerald blade shrank away, and the handgrip tumbled from his opening fingers. A small, neat hole in the middle of his forehead leaked smoke, showing light from the back of his head. "... hurt..."
He pitched forward onto his face, and lay still.
Palpatine stood at the doorway, but the door stayed shut. From his right hand extended a blade the color of fire. The door locked itself at his back.
"Help! Help!" Palpatine cried like a man in desperate fear for his life. "Security—someone! Help me! Murder! Treason!"
Then he smiled.
He held one finger to his lips, and, astonishingly, he winked.
In the blank second that followed, while Mace Windu and Kit Fisto could do no more than angle their lightsabers to guard, Palpatine swiftly stepped over the bodies back toward his desk, reversed his blade, and drove it in a swift, surgically precise stab down through his desktop.
Revenge of the Sith Page 28
