“Anakin’s the father, isn’t he?” Obi-Wan said gently. When she did not answer, he shook his head. “I’m so sorry.” He pulled up his hood and walked toward the veranda. Padmé saw an airspeeder there; that must have been what set off the alarm. She felt torn. If Obi-Wan was right, she should call him back and tell him where Anakin had gone. But she couldn’t betray Anakin. But—
The airspeeder took off. Obi-Wan was gone. Padmé’s head bowed, and she found herself staring at the japor necklace. Anakin. She needed him here, now, to explain away all this horror. But Anakin was on Mustafar.
A long time later, Padmé looked up. With decision, she crossed to a comlink. “Captain Typho, prepare an interstellar skiff,” she said, then turned back to her bedroom to dress. If Anakin was on Mustafar, she would go to him.
Obi-Wan slipped through the darkness at the edge of the landing platform. Trailing Padmé hadn’t been difficult. Though she had been in danger many times, she had never learned to watch the shadows around her for possible threats, and her security guards had no reason to suspect that she might be followed. She always believes the best of everyone, until she’s forced to see the worst, he thought sadly. Such faith should be a strength, not a weakness.
Judging from Captain Typho’s tone, her security officer was very unhappy with the Senator at the moment. “My lady,” the captain was saying, “let me come with you.”
“There is no danger,” Padmé told him. “The fighting is over, and…this is personal.”
They’ve probably been arguing ever since they left the Senator’s apartment, Obi-Wan thought.
Captain Typho paused at the foot of the landing ramp and bowed. “As you wish, my lady,” he said formally. “But I strongly disagree.”
“I’ll be all right, Captain,” Padmé said softly. “This is something I must do myself.” She waited until the captain returned to the speeder and took off. Then she and her protocol droid climbed the ramp into the skiff. The skiff’s engines started and the ramp began to retract.
Now! Obi-Wan thought, and leaped. He landed lightly on the end of the ramp and dove into the skiff just before the outside door closed. Padmé and her droid were in the cockpit. They didn’t see him enter, and by the time the ship was safely in space, Obi-Wan had found a place to hide. All he had to do now was wait.
Outside the underground door of the office at the base of the Senate, Yoda paused. This was the domain of Mas Amedda, once the Vice-Chair of the Senate and now Chancellor—Emperor Palpatine’s majordomo. Here, Mas Amedda prepared to run the Senate meetings; it was from this chamber that the Chancellor’s podium rose into the center of the Senate. And tonight, the Force told him, it was here that Palpatine had come to see the finish of his evil plan.
Softly, Yoda approached the chamber. All four of the beings in the room—the two red guards, Mas Amedda, and the hooded figure of Darth Sidious—were too focused on the hologram in the center of the room to notice him. Darth Vader, who had been the Jedi Anakin Skywalker, had apparently been reporting.
“—taken care of, my Master,” Vader said.
“Good, good,” Sidious said. “Send a message to all ships of the Trade Federation. Tell them the Separatist leaders have been wiped out.
“Very good, my lord.”
“You have done well, Lord Vader.”
“Thank you, my Master.”
As the hologram faded, Yoda stumped into the room. Before the guards could react, he used the Force to fling them against the walls. They collapsed in motionless heaps as Yoda said to the Sith Lord, “A new apprentice, you have, Chancellor. Or should I call you ‘Emperor’?”
“Master Yoda.” The Emperor inclined his head. “You survived.”
“Surprised?”
“Your arrogance blinds you, Master Yoda,” Darth Sidious hissed. “Now you will experience the full power of the dark side.” He raised his arms, and the Force pulsed as blue lightning blasted Yoda across the room.
Mas Amedda looked from the Chancellor to Yoda, his eyes narrowed maliciously. He turned and left the room. Another wave of dark power lifted Yoda and flung him hard against the wall. Yoda used the Force to cushion the impact, but he pretended to be knocked unconscious. A surprise, I will give him.
“I have waited a long time for this moment, my little green friend,” Darth Sidious sneered. He stepped forward, and Yoda pushed off, propelling himself straight at the Sith Lord. He knocked Darth Sidious over the desk and stared down at him.
“At an end your rule is,” Yoda told the Emperor. “And not short enough it was, I must say.” He ignited his lightsaber and brought it down, to be met by the Emperor’s blood-red Sith blade.
Even from space, Mustafar glowed like a hot ember; as her ship neared the surface, Padmé saw rivers of lava and oceans of molten rock. Fissures leaked fire from the heart of the planet, and smoke rose from cracks and vents on the blackened surface. It was hard to control the skiff in the shifting air currents, but eventually C-3PO fought it to a safe landing.
Through the cockpit window, she saw Anakin running eagerly toward the landing platform. Hastily, she unstrapped and ran out to meet him. His embrace reassured her; his arms made her feel secure once more. “It’s all right,” he murmured. “You’re safe now.” She looked up gratefully, and he said, “What are you doing out here?”
All the things she had been pushing out of her mind since leaving Coruscant came flooding back, and she looked down. “Obi-Wan told me terrible things.”
She felt Anakin stiffen. “What things?”
“He said you have turned to the dark side,” Padmé blurted. “That you killed younglings.” Her voice sounded accusing, even to her own ears. This wasn’t the way she’d meant to ask him for the truth.
“Obi-Wan is trying to turn you against me,” Anakin said, and she heard the stirring of a terrible anger in his voice.
“He cares about us,” Padmé told him. “He wants to help you.”
“Don’t lie to me, Padmé,” Anakin said. His arms dropped. “I have become more powerful than any Jedi dreamed of. And I’ve done it for you. To protect you.”
What has that to do with Obi-Wan? With what he said? But she knew. It was Anakin’s excuse for whatever fearful things he had done. As if saying “I did it for love; I did it for you” would make it right. Padmé drew back. “I don’t want your power.” She swallowed. “I don’t want your protection.” She reached for him, pleading, wanting him to be the man she loved. “Anakin, all I want is your love.”
“Love won’t save you,” Anakin said, and it sounded like a threat. “Only my new powers can do that.”
“At what cost?” Padmé asked. “You are a good person. Don’t do this.”
“I won’t lose you the way I lost my mother!”
“Come away with me.” She put a hand on her swelling stomach. “Help me raise our child. Leave everything else behind while we still can.”
“Don’t you see?” Anakin leaned forward eagerly. “We don’t have to run away anymore. I have brought peace to the Republic. I am more powerful than the Chancellor. I can overthrow him, and together you and I can rule the galaxy. We can make things the way we want them to be.”
Padmé recoiled. “I don’t believe what I’m hearing! Obi-Wan was right. You’ve changed.”
“I don’t want to hear any more about Obi-Wan!” Anakin’s temper burst loose. Her fear must have shown on her face, because he made a visible effort to control himself. “The Jedi turned against me,” he said more softly. “The Republic turned against me. Don’t you turn against me, too.”
I’m not against you. I’m against what you’ve done, and what you’re planning to do. “I don’t know you anymore,” she told him. Couldn’t he see what he was doing? Couldn’t he feel her heart breaking? “I’ll never stop loving you, but you are going down a path I cannot follow.” In despair, she reached for the connection they had had through the Force, for that one moment when she had known him completely
even though they hadn’t been together.
But even a Jedi couldn’t create a Force connection just by trying, and Padmé was no Jedi. Desperate as she was, she could find only a faint thread of what they had shared, thinner than a strand of spider silk. It still joined her with a familiar trace of…goodness? Sensing that, she felt a stirring of hope. She spoke to that part of him, trying to call back the Anakin who was her husband, her lover, the father of their child. “Stop now,” she begged. “Come back! I love you.”
For a moment—for the barest instant—she thought she would succeed. Then Anakin’s expression changed. “Liar!” he cried.
He was staring at something behind her. Padmé turned, and saw Obi-Wan standing in the door of the skiff. He tricked me! “No!” she said, knowing that this new Anakin would never listen to her now.
“You’ve betrayed me!” Rage made Anakin’s face unrecognizable. He lifted his hand and curled his fingers into a fist. Padmé felt herself choking, unable to breathe.
Don’t! Don’t kill our child! But she had no breath to cry out with, and even the ghost of the Force connection was gone. The world darkened, and she felt herself falling. Her last conscious thought was a feeling of relief. She would rather die here, now, than live and have to watch what her Anakin had become.
Obi-Wan ran forward as Padmé collapsed. He flung his cloak aside, and bent to check on her. She was still alive, and not, he sensed, in immediate danger. But Anakin was already there, his face an angry mask. “You turned her against me!” he cried, flinging the accusation against Obi-Wan.
“You have done that yourself,” Obi-Wan told him. Here, in Anakin’s presence, he could feel what the hologram couldn’t show him: the roiling cloud of the dark side that surrounded his former apprentice. It made the coming duty a little—a very little—easier. “You’ve let the dark side twist your point of view until now…now you are the very thing you swore to destroy.”
“Don’t make me kill you,” Anakin said.
The words struck straight to Obi-Wan’s heart. Surely something of his friend and student was still left, for him to say that? But even if there was, no Jedi had ever returned from the dark side. Yoda had warned them all, over and over, throughout their training: If once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny. Anakin had turned to the dark side. It was too late for him. Sadly, Obi-Wan said, “My allegiance is to the Republic, Anakin. To democracy.”
“You are with me, or you are against me,” Anakin replied.
“Only a Sith Lord deals in absolutes, Anakin,” Obi-Wan told him, and ignited his lightsaber. Now I will do what I must.
Anakin’s face twisted as he ignited his own weapon, and the battle began.
Strong, this Sith Lord is, Yoda thought as their lightsabers whirled and clashed and whirled again. It should not have been a surprise. With the strength of the dark side growing, the Sith must, logically, have grown stronger, too. But always before, his own years of study and practice and his own strength with the Force had been more than enough to prevail. This time, he wasn’t sure.
But Palpatine didn’t seem entirely sure, either. Suddenly, he launched himself into the air, heading for the door. Yoda did a back flip, bounced off the wall, and reached the entrance before him. “If so powerful you are, why leave?”
“You will not stop me,” the new Emperor croaked. “Darth Vader will become more powerful than either of us.”
“Faith in your new apprentice, misplaced may be,” Yoda replied. As is your faith in the dark side of the Force. Even if Palpatine killed him here, today, the dark side would not truly win. For the dark side was anger, hatred, despair—all the forces of ruin and decay. Powerful, they were, to tear down and destroy, but they could not build anything lasting. Palpatine’s ten-thousand-year Galactic Empire would be lucky to outlast his lifetime.
That thought gave Yoda new energy, and he pressed his attack. He drove Palpatine back across the room, into the Chancellor’s podium. Palpatine hit the controls, and the podium began to rise, carrying him up into the Senate. But the podium moved slowly; Yoda had plenty of time to flip himself into the air and land beside the Emperor, to continue the fight.
As the podium rose into the Senate arena, the fight intensified. Twice, Yoda came near to pushing Palpatine over the edge. They were high enough now that a fall could be fatal, even to a Sith Lord. Or a Jedi Master. The cramped space within the pod left little room for maneuvering.
An end, I must make. Yoda redoubled the speed of his blows. Palpatine parried one, then another—and then the red lightsaber spun out of his hands and over the edge. Yoda raised his weapon for the final blow.
Force lightning spat from the Emperor’s gray fingers, surrounding Yoda in a blue nimbus. But Yoda had faced Force lightning before. To deflect the first bolts, he had to stop his intended strike at the Emperor. Once his initial surprise was over, he reached out to the living Force. The lightning bent, arcing back toward the Emperor.
“Destroy you, I will,” Yoda said grimly. “Just as Master Kenobi, your apprentice will destroy.”
The Sith Lord only redoubled his attack. Hurling Force lightning, the Emperor backed away, to the very edge of the platform. Following him was like walking against hurricane winds. Never had Yoda faced one so strong in the dark side. Before he came within reach, a particularly strong blast knocked Yoda out of the pod.
As he plunged over the edge, Yoda realized that Palpatine was right about one thing. He, Yoda, had indeed been arrogant. It is a flaw more and more common among Jedi, he had told Obi-Wan once. Too sure of themselves, they are. And he had fallen into the same trap himself.
He landed much sooner than he had expected, in an empty Senate pod floating below the Chancellor’s. As he climbed to his feet, the pod jerked, throwing him sideways and knocking him down once more. Palpatine was using the dark side to rip more pods free, crashing them into Yoda’s pod to keep him off-balance.
This game, two can play. Yoda reached out with the Force and caught one of the hurtling pods. He threw it back at Palpatine, who barely dodged in time. Then Yoda leaped, using the flying pods to get back up to the Chancellor’s level.
As he reached Palpatine’s pod, the Sith Lord hit him with another blast of blue lightning that knocked Yoda’s lightsaber out of his hand. Palpatine’s lips curled in anticipated triumph, and the dark side pulsed as he drew even more Force lightning to his bidding.
Yoda caught it. The blue energy built into a glowing ball in his hand, ready to throw back at the Sith Lord the moment his attack stopped. But Palpatine didn’t stop; the Force lightning came in a steady crackle, building more and more, until neither of them could hold it any longer, and the blast knocked them both out of the pod.
Palpatine was larger and heavier; he managed to catch hold of the edge of the pod as he fell. But Yoda was small and light. The explosion threw him high into the air, with nothing to grab to break his fall. Half-stunned, he began the long fall to the Senate floor.
As Anakin’s lightsaber hummed toward him, a calm certainty filled Obi-Wan. Anakin was going to kill him. Oh, he’d make Anakin work for it. He’d fight with everything he had. But he was positive, with the sureness that came from any Force-driven insight, that he would die at Anakin’s hands.
His lightsaber came up in an instinctive parry. They had sparred together so often that they knew each other’s favorite moves. Obi-Wan hardly had to think to counter Anakin’s attack. Lightsabers humming, they battled their way down the hall and into the control center. It felt…familiar, like another practice session, except for the exploding equipment.
He saw the same emotions reflected on Anakin’s face. “Don’t make me destroy you,” his former apprentice said again. Then his expression changed to a sneer. “You’re no match for the dark side.”
“I’ve heard that before, Anakin,” Obi-Wan said. “But I never thought I’d hear it from you.”
They were in the conference room now. There
were headless and limbless bodies on the floor; Obi-Wan recognized several of the Separatist leaders. Anakin has been here before, he thought. But still his arms moved, weaving light into a deadly shield against all of Anakin’s blows.
Anakin did a back flip onto the table to gain the high ground. But Obi-Wan had been expecting something like that, and did not follow. Instead, he threw himself into a long slide, bowling Anakin over.
As he fell, Anakin lost his grip on his lightsaber. Obi-Wan caught it and stared at it in surprise. How can Anakin kill me, if he doesn’t have a lightsaber? Then Anakin charged him. Before Obi-Wan could swing his own weapon, Anakin was on him. His left hand gripped Obi-Wan’s right wrist, holding off the deadly lightsaber; the mechanical right hand fought to repossess his own weapon.
Durasteel and servomotors proved stronger than flesh and bone. Anakin wrenched his lightsaber away, and attacked once more.
Out into the hall, they fought, then onto a balcony above a river of lava. A slender pipe led from the control center to a collection plant on the far side of the river. As Anakin’s attack intensified, Obi-Wan was forced onto the pipe, where a single misstep would send him plunging into the fire.
As Yoda fell, he reached out to slow his fall with all the mastery of the Force he had learned in his long years. It was enough, barely. He landed hard, but not too hard.
Bruised and battered, but alive, he crawled into a service chute. There would be no second chance to kill the Emperor; he would summon his clone troops immediately for protection. All Yoda could do now was escape.
Activating his comlink, he called to the one person on Coruscant he knew he could still trust—Bail Organa. The Senator did not waste time demanding explanations, and he followed Yoda’s instructions as carefully as any Jedi would have. Sooner than he would have believed, Yoda dropped from an access hatch into Bail’s speeder and was carried away into the night.
Away from the Senate, Bail gave Yoda a questioning look. Yoda told him the only thing that mattered. “Failed, I have.”
Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith Page 11
