Star Wars - Altered Path 1
And here's the first full chapter...
Chapter 1
Shockwaves
The sounds of battle were almost deafening, and the distance they had to travel from the Kashyyyk beach to the tree hut command post did little to mute them. But Master Yoda, Grandmaster of the Jedi Order and field commander of this particular battlefront, barely heard it, nor did he really see the violent battle that was playing out before him. The majority of his attention was fixed on something…other.
The Force was in turmoil. Crackling waves of energy pulsed through the air, so thick and powerful they were almost visible, almost tangible. He could feel it in his blood; in his tired, old heart; it shook the foundations of his soul. Something profound had just occurred.
Yoda shifted away from the edge of the tree-mounted platform and into the shelter of the frond-thatched roof where stray shots were less likely to hit him. Closing his eyes, the tiny Jedi focused deeper on the Force, trying to mine it for clues. But the rippling, swirling shockwaves from whatever had happened created too much interference to get much of a read on anything.
Giving up on it for the moment, he returned to the battle at hand. He didn’t forget about what he’d sensed, nor did he ignore it. He simply set the problem aside until later, perhaps when the time came to make his next contact with the High Council on Coruscant.
Or maybe he could find a quiet moment to reach out into the Force for advice from an old friend…
***
A blast of…something…hit Obi-Wan so hard he nearly toppled out of Boga’s saddle. The Varactyl, oblivious to his distraction, continued to tear over the rocky, uneven Utapaun landscape back towards the explosions of the main battle. It took Obi-Wan a minute to collect himself enough to signal the feathered lizard to stop so he could more properly sort himself out.
Clutching the saddle horn, Obi-Wan took a few deep breaths before plunging headlong into the currents of the Force in search of some kind of explanation. What he found was a chaotic mess. The flow of energy that he was used to feeling now churned like whitewater. It gave him a headache when he touched it instead of soothing him the way it usually did.
Something big has happened. Obi-Wan stroked his beard thoughtfully. But what? What could possibly cause this?
A nameless unease settled over him and he reached for the bond that he and Anakin shared. He was too far away to have any sort of meaningful contact with the young man, but at least he could assure himself of his friend’s general state of being. But what he found was…most worrisome.
Ordinarily, the bond that they shared was easy to touch; a silvery cord that even when stretched by great distance was still perceivable. What he found was not. It wasn’t a broken bond. He was intimately familiar with that due to Qui-Gon Jinn’s death. No, in this case the bond had gone…transparent, and thin, like the plastic line that sport fishermen favored.
And when he touched this altered bond he felt…nothing. No pain. No fear. No death. Just…nothing.
Something’s wrong, he realized numbly. Something’s very wrong. I need to get back to Coruscant as quickly as possible.
With a slap of the reins, he sent Boga careening back towards the battle so that he could wrap things up as soon as he could and be on his way back home.
***
Mace indulged in a minute of pure bewilderment before forcing himself back to the problem at hand. Three Jedi Masters lay dead near the front of the office, the Chancellor was most likely dead and down on the streets below, and he was the only one left standing. While he was injured, the wound was cauterized and could wait a little before it needed seeing-to by a Healer. There wasn’t much time and he had to move quickly before someone discovered him here and started jumping to conclusions.
“Master Ti,” he spoke into his comm-link, his voice tight with pain, “I need you to send several Jedi over to the Chancellor’s office. Kit, Agen, and Saesee are dead and the Supreme Chancellor is missing and presumed dead. We need to recover the bodies and investigate the scene. And go to the High Council chamber and check on Vader. If he’s up to it, bring him here.”
“I will get right on it,” Shaak Ti’s voice promised.
Hooking his comm-link back onto his belt, Mace paced around the disheveled office with his wounded arm tucked into his chest and worked through his memories of the assault on Palpatine. Specifically, he tried to recall just what had happened before the treacherous chancellor was knocked out the window. And he tried to figure out just what had exploded afterwards and how. Closing his eyes, he drew on the still-murky-feeling Force to enhance his recollections.
Sidious had reached out and Kit Fisto’s fallen hilt skittered into the room, over the floor, and into the Sith’s withered hand. The green blade sprang to life and Sidious swung it around towards him, slicing through his wrist. The Sith Master stood, smiled viciously, and prepared to finish him off, only to be interrupted-a blur of black and glowing blue collided with the Sith-Mace paused it there and worked to sharpen his brief glance of the intervening figure. The glowing blue…a lightsaber. The black blur…a Jedi dressed in dark-colored robes. Then the collision, running in slow-motion-the blue blade sunk into the side of the deformed Sith’s chest-inertia and gravity pulled them both down-an explosion of blue-white fire-
The beeping of Mace’s comm-link interrupted him. “Yes, what is it?”
“Mace, Vader is not in the High Council chamber,” Shaak Ti informed him. “Shall I search the Temple for him?”
“No,” Mace decided after a moment. “Just come here with the Jedi I called for. Make sure at least one of them is a code slicer, and bring a Healer.”
“All right,” Shaak agreed, “we shall be there in twenty minutes.”
Mace returned to the broken window and carefully peered down the side of the building. Zigzagging down the duracrete wall were ugly black scorch marks, like intense fire had clawed its way downwards into the shadowy canyons of Coruscant’s artificial urban under-story. Nearby lanes of traffic were still sluggish and disturbed from the explosion and some vehicles limped along as if damaged. A few sirens wailed in the distance as emergency vehicles raced towards the Senate, no doubt summoned by civilians who’d witnessed the spectacular explosion.
Why? He stared down into the dark depths below and wondered. I told you to stay in the Council chamber. So why did you come here? Why did you do this?
***
Ferus Olin sighed as he picked his way through the refuse-strewn streets of lower Coruscant, roughly below the supreme chancellor’s office. He and Master Siri had been summoned by Master Shaak Ti, along with several other Knights and Masters, to accompany her to the Senate building. Upon arrival, Master Windu-injured, but alive and functional-had greeted them and then sent most of them away to scour the streets. Apparently there had been some sort of fatal struggle, so they were charged with finding Human remains, weapons, and anything else that might be connected with it.
“I really wish that Master Windu had been a bit more specific about this ‘fatal struggle,’” Master Siri complained as she nudged aside some broken speeder part with the toe of her boot. “And if it ties into that Dark surge that rippled through the Force.”
“Maybe he couldn’t be,” Ferus suggested calmly. “Battles are quick and chaotic; and he lost a hand. Surely he can be excused for not having all the details in order.”
“No, he knows more than he’s saying.” Master Siri brushed back a lock of blonde hair from her eyes. “It’s more of that ‘secret Council business,’ just like Quinlan Vos’s supposed turn to the Dark Side and sudden return to the Order. They’re hiding something about this.”
“Well, if they are, there must be a very good reason for it.” Ferus scratched at his neck, once again missing his Padawan braid.
“I don’t think so,” Master Siri countered. “They could just as easily be covering up a tragic mistake, or even something criminal.”
Ferus shot his former Master a nervous glance, squinting through the dim light. He’d grown worried about her lately. Vader’s secretive behavior concerning his myriad of scars hadn’t sat well with her, and she’d grown irrationally suspicious of him and Master Obi-Wan and the rest of the Council as well. Master Siri didn’t appreciate mysteries, especially mysteries lurking within the Jedi Order.
“I really don’t think that the Council would do anything remotely criminal,” Ferus cautiously responded. “Not unless they had no other choice and were truly justified in their actions.”
“They may think so,” Master Siri grumbled as she peeked into a dumpster. “But they could be wrong. The High Council is not some panel of demi-gods; they’re mortals just like the rest of us, and just as fallible and flawed too.”
Shifting uneasily on his feet, Ferus slipped over to the other side of the narrow street that they were searching. Kicking aside a pile of crumpled news-faxes, something shiny caught his eye. He crouched down and dug a lightsaber hilt out of the trash. It was gold-plated and black, and it gave him the chills just touching it. When he activated it to check its color, he got a much better idea about the nature of the struggle that Master Windu had mentioned so vaguely.
“They fought a Sith,” Ferus breathed, staring at the blood-red blade, horrified. No wonder there was that Dark shiver in the Force…
“Turn that off,” Master Siri ordered with a shudder.
Ferus gladly complied. “We should call Master Windu.”
“Let’s check in with the others first,” Master Siri decided grimly.
Unwilling to argue with his former Master, Ferus voiced no protest, even though he didn’t agree with her. She led the way back to their little rendezvous point: a porn shop that had recently gone out of business. A few of the other Jedi searchers were already there, examining what they had found.
“…found this two block south from here,” a male Twi’lek Knight was saying. He was holding a scorched scrap of clothing, something black with hints of red. “The burns on it are fresh and I found this ID chit in what was left of the pocket.” The green Twi’lek held up a half-melted square of metal and plastic. “I can’t read it, but maybe the analysis droids can do something with it.”
“I…I found Master Fisto’s lightsaber,” a Chadra-Fan Knight offered nervously. The short, furry alien Jedi produced the unique hilt and held it up for their inspection.
“That doesn’t make any sense,” an Ishi Tib Master grumbled. “Master Fisto’s body was nowhere near the broken window. How could his lightsaber end up falling out and down here?”
“I found shreds of a burnt Jedi cloak,” a Devaronian Knight offered, displaying scraps of a dark brown, almost black, cloak.
“So some other Jedi used Master Fisto’s lightsaber?” the Twi’lek postulated.
“Master Windu made no mention of a fourth Jedi casualty,” the Chadra-Fan chirped.
“He made no mention of a Sith either,” Master Siri scowled.
At a sharp gesture from her, Ferus nervously held up the golden lightsaber hilt for the group to see.
“Well, that certainly sheds new light on things,” the Devaronian Knight muttered. “That explains how three Jedi Council members were killed with such seeming ease.”
“We must report this find to Master Windu and Master Ti,” the Ishi Tib Master decided.
The green Twi’lek was about to place the call when a red Nikto Knight jogged up to them. “I caught a glitterstim addict trying to pawn this off to pay for his next fix,” the Jedi announced and held up a second Jedi lightsaber. Ferus felt his eyes try to pop out of his skull as he stared at it. “The addict claimed he found it in a gutter.”
“Whose is it?” the Devaronian asked, tilting his horned head as he studied the silvery hilt.
“It belongs to Knight Dar’ti Vader,” Master Siri announced with a scowl. “That’s probably his cloak that you found,” she added to the Devaronian. “Did anyone find any Human remains at all?”
“I…I found what was left of Master Windu’s hand still holding his lightsaber hilt,” a Zabrak Padawan, the lowest-ranking Jedi present piped up hesitantly. She tugged on her braid in a nervous gesture. “Does that count?”
The green Twi’lek (her Master?) shook his head.
“We must make our report to the Council members,” the Ishi Tib sighed. “They will be able to explain this.”
Master Siri turned to the Devaronian Knight. “Could you show me where exactly you found that cloak?”
***
Mace pinched the bridge of his nose with his remaining hand and sighed wearily as he sat on one of the chairs in the supreme chancellor’s office. The bodies of his three colleagues had been removed a good hour ago, back to the Temple to be preserved until there was time to honor them with a proper cremation service. Now he and Shaak Ti, the last two living Council members still on Coruscant, were stuck figuring out how to hold control of the Republic and explain the situation to the Jedi searchers who had just appeared in the office.
The searchers eyed Mace’s maimed right arm with varying levels of concern, but he ignored it as he had ignored Shaak Ti’s and the Healer’s urgings to seek treatment back at the Temple and leave the situation to her. There was no real risk of him bleeding to death and it would take several hours before he had to worry about infection setting in so he could hold off on a visit to the Halls of Healing for a little bit longer. The only thing that had interfered with his managing of the current crisis was the pain of his injury and that had been dealt with by a quick application of a nerve block done just below his elbow.
“What have you found?” he asked them.
Each Jedi stepped forward and presented whatever scraps they had located and sensed were important. Among the items was his lost lightsaber and the Zabrak Padawan that had found it eagerly offered it back to him. But then, after awkwardly clipping the returned hilt to his belt, Master Tachi stepped up, her presence in the Force tense and agitated.
“Master Windu,” Siri Tachi frowned. “How is it that Knight Vader came to be present here?” She pulled Vader’s lightsaber out from under her brown cloak. “Or did he just happen to lose his lightsaber near the Senate complex?” She then produced a damaged utility belt. “And his belt with his comm-link, ID, grappling hook, re-breather, and emergency mini-med-kit, too?”
He didn’t particularly care for her tone, but he left it alone as he had no interest in getting into an argument with her. Siri was a talented Jedi; however she was stubborn, argumentative, and at times a bit too aggressive. The only Masters on the Council that she truly respected were her former Master, Adi Gallia, and Master Yoda. With Adi dead at Greivous’s hands, and Yoda parsecs away on Kashyyyk, Mace and Shaak had to deal with her alone, and Mace held no illusions that Siri had any liking for him.
“How Vader came to be here is unknown,” Mace sighed. “I requested that he wait for our return in the High Council chamber, but it seems that he disobeyed and arrived here shortly after I and the other Masters did.”
Siri narrowed her stormy eyes. “Just what did go on here, Master Windu?”
“The Council has long been concerned about the Supreme Chancellor,” Mace replied. “After the outbreak of war, we only grew more wary of him for his personal involvement in the management of the war and for all the power he’s been drawing from the Senate. When the Senate granted Palpatine the authority to place a personal representative on the Jedi High Council as a liaison, the chancellor chose Vader, apparently as a thank-you for assisting in his recent rescue from General Grievous.
“Master Kenobi asked Vader to do the Council a favor and keep tabs on the chancellor’s dealings, and he agreed. Vader made several damning reports to us, culminating with his last one late in the afternoon. It confirmed our worst fears, and I, Master Fisto, Master Kolar, and Master Tiin continued on our way to inform the chancellor that Master Kenobi had destroyed Grievous. Palpatine refused to lay down the power that he had accumulated and resisted our attempts to arrest him. He killed Master Kolar and Master Tiin almost immediately, Master Fisto shortly after, and he might have killed me as well had Vader not unexpectedly appeared and knocked him out the window.”
“And what were your worst fears?” Siri inquired as her former apprentice and the other Jedi involved in the search shifted anxiously as they tried to absorb all this new information.
“The Council worried that the Sith Master-Count Dooku’s mentor and the mentor of the deceased Zabrak Sith-was exerting influence over Palpatine’s inner circle, and therefore playing both sides of the war,” Mace answered. “According to Vader’s report, not only was the Sith in Palpatine’s inner circle…the Sith Lord was Palpatine.”
That shocked all the Jedi in the room-except for Shaak Ti, who had already been informed earlier. They all stared open-mouthed at him, denial in their eyes. Mace couldn’t blame them. It didn’t seem possible that the Sith Lord that they had been hunting had been under the Order’s collective nose the entire time.
“Master Windu, how is that possible?” young Knight Olin, Siri’s former apprentice asked. “How did no one sense his true nature?”
“It is hard to say for certain,” Shaak Ti replied. “However, we must remember what we know of the Sith. One of their greatest skills is the ability to deceive. What greater deception is there than for a Sith to fool the greatest of the Jedi, to fool the entire Order into serving him? As the Sith Master, it was well within his ability to manipulate us all.”
“And the Sith were aided by our own complacency,” Mace unhappily admitted. “For centuries the Sith hid in the shadows and we foolishly assumed their extinction. It took the Blockade crisis on Naboo and the death of Qui-Gon Jinn for us to believe that the Sith had reappeared. We are unused to dealing with them, and the Sith took advantage of this.”
Siri fixed Mace and Shaak with a speculative look and asked the all-important question. “So what will we do now that the supreme chancellor is dead?”
“We are working on that now,” Mace sighed. “What we need you to do is keep what you have learned here to yourselves, the public must not know what happened here.”
“We’re going to lie?” Ferus squeaked, understandably horrified.
“How do you think the public will react when they learn that a Jedi killed their beloved chancellor and that the Order will assume temporary leadership over the Republic until the situation stabilizes enough to hold a proper election?” Mace asked.
“They won’t be happy, that’s for sure,” Siri muttered grimly.
“There could be rioting if this got out,” the Twi’lek Knight mused.
“That would be the last thing we’d need. Even as the war winds down we can’t afford such a distraction,” the Ishi Tib Master grumbled.
“What about the security feeds?” the Chadra-Fan asked. “No matter what story we concoct, it will be contradicted by the digital record.”
“I’ve already set a Jedi with slicing skills to acquire the recordings and corrupt the originals,” Mace replied calmly. “In less than an hour, there will be nothing to refute whatever cover story we piece together.”
“I don’t like this one bit,” Siri retorted with a frown. “Not only is it risky, it’s a terrible position to put ourselves in. We are Jedi, not politicians. We have no business assuming control of a government.”
“At this point we have no choice,” Shaak shrugged. “Without a functioning government, the Republic will crumble, the half-ruined Confederacy of Independent Systems will prey upon the remains of the Republic, and chaos and suffering will reign. Do you want that?”
Siri looked away uncomfortably. “No.”
“I assure you, Master Tachi, that the Council has no desire to increase it’s responsibilities to running the Republic in addition to managing the Jedi Order,” Mace snorted. “At most, our tenure over the Senate will last one Standard year-no longer.”
“How is the Council going to function with four members lost?” The Devaronian wondered.
“We will select new members as soon as possible,” Mace assured him. “Hopefully before the end of the week, if we can manage it.”
The assembled Jedi nodded in acceptance of this plan of action. None of them were particularly happy about it, some more so than others, but they wouldn’t fight it. This was a tremendous relief to Mace. He didn’t wish to fight his own colleagues while simultaneously trying to keep the Republic from self-destructing.
“What are we to do now?” The Twi’lek Knight asked.
“Place the evidence you collected in that box,” Shaak indicated with a pointed finger. “You are free to return to the Temple for the night. Please have your reports ready by 1100 tomorrow.”
“You are to tell no one, not even other Jedi, of what has occurred here,” Mace added. “We will inform the rest of the Order about these events after the empty Council seats have been filled.”
“Yes, Masters,” the Jedi murmured in reply and moved to do as they were told, even less happy at the heavy secrecy laid upon them.
Mace watched in silence as the cluster of Jedi carefully placed what they had collected into the box and filed out of the disheveled office. Only when they were gone did Mace relax. He closed the lid of the box and glanced around at the late Supreme Chancellor Palpatine’s-Sith Lord Darth Sidious’s-office.
“I will check in on Knight Dacci and see how his slicing is going,” Shaak Ti offered.
“Have him set up some kind of secure remote access to Palpatine’s computers and charge him and all his slicer companions with cracking his databases,” Mace ordered.
“What are we to tell security?” Shaak asked. “Several members of the Senate Guard have already gathered outside of the lower offices. It is only a matter of time before higher ranking officers appear and demand entry.”
“Tell them that there was an incident here, some fatalities, and that this office is a sealed crime scene,” Mace instructed. “Due to Jedi involvement there will be no need to call in the Guard; we will manage the investigation. We will make some sort of official statement tomorrow afternoon regional time.”
“It will be done,” Shaak bowed her horned head and started to leave. She paused in the doorway. “What about Vader? Will we continue to search for him?”
Mace sighed deeply. “No, not tonight. He was most likely incinerated along with Palpatine in that strange explosion. But with all the chaos in the Force, it’s impossible to be certain. If he has survived, he will most likely return to the Temple on his own-that is, if he’s still physically able to.”
“We can only hope.” Shaak Ti shook her head, making her striped head tails quiver. “May the Force be with us,” she murmured as she left.
Mace nodded in agreement and awkwardly gathered up the box of evidence, tucking it under his maimed, half-numb arm. As he left the office, he used the Force to attach a magnetic lock to the doors that overrode the controls. Only a member of the Jedi High Council, or a Jedi with their approval, would be able to enter the offices so long as it was connected and functional.
That should keep unwanted prying eyes out, Mace thought as he wearily trekked back towards the Jedi Temple to drop off the box and finally seek out the Healers. Now all we have to do is keep the Republic from imploding when it learns that its leader is dead. May the Force be with us, indeed!
***
He couldn’t feel anything. Somehow he got the idea that that was a bad thing. Worse, he had the odd sensation of being smothered, like his ethereal self was being squeezed by a prickly, black blanket. The Darkness coiled and oozed around him, trying to find a foothold, a place to take root. He didn’t like the Darkness and did his best to bat it away, but he was just so tired…
It is pointless to resist me.
He didn’t like the voice. It was ice cold and oily. It hissed like a serpent and growled like a dragon. He did his best to ignore it.
You are the culmination of Darth Plagueis’s great work. You are my greatest creation. And one way or another, you will serve me!
He shivered at the declaration, but kept shoving at the Darkness. Every time a tendril of it started to stick, he unstuck it. He would not serve the Darkness, no matter what it claimed. He was…he was…
…Who was he?
You are Darth Vader, Dark Lord of the Sith, and soon your young, healthy body will be mine.
Chapter 1
Shockwaves
The sounds of battle were almost deafening, and the distance they had to travel from the Kashyyyk beach to the tree hut command post did little to mute them. But Master Yoda, Grandmaster of the Jedi Order and field commander of this particular battlefront, barely heard it, nor did he really see the violent battle that was playing out before him. The majority of his attention was fixed on something…other.
The Force was in turmoil. Crackling waves of energy pulsed through the air, so thick and powerful they were almost visible, almost tangible. He could feel it in his blood; in his tired, old heart; it shook the foundations of his soul. Something profound had just occurred.
Yoda shifted away from the edge of the tree-mounted platform and into the shelter of the frond-thatched roof where stray shots were less likely to hit him. Closing his eyes, the tiny Jedi focused deeper on the Force, trying to mine it for clues. But the rippling, swirling shockwaves from whatever had happened created too much interference to get much of a read on anything.
Giving up on it for the moment, he returned to the battle at hand. He didn’t forget about what he’d sensed, nor did he ignore it. He simply set the problem aside until later, perhaps when the time came to make his next contact with the High Council on Coruscant.
Or maybe he could find a quiet moment to reach out into the Force for advice from an old friend…
***
A blast of…something…hit Obi-Wan so hard he nearly toppled out of Boga’s saddle. The Varactyl, oblivious to his distraction, continued to tear over the rocky, uneven Utapaun landscape back towards the explosions of the main battle. It took Obi-Wan a minute to collect himself enough to signal the feathered lizard to stop so he could more properly sort himself out.
Clutching the saddle horn, Obi-Wan took a few deep breaths before plunging headlong into the currents of the Force in search of some kind of explanation. What he found was a chaotic mess. The flow of energy that he was used to feeling now churned like whitewater. It gave him a headache when he touched it instead of soothing him the way it usually did.
Something big has happened. Obi-Wan stroked his beard thoughtfully. But what? What could possibly cause this?
A nameless unease settled over him and he reached for the bond that he and Anakin shared. He was too far away to have any sort of meaningful contact with the young man, but at least he could assure himself of his friend’s general state of being. But what he found was…most worrisome.
Ordinarily, the bond that they shared was easy to touch; a silvery cord that even when stretched by great distance was still perceivable. What he found was not. It wasn’t a broken bond. He was intimately familiar with that due to Qui-Gon Jinn’s death. No, in this case the bond had gone…transparent, and thin, like the plastic line that sport fishermen favored.
And when he touched this altered bond he felt…nothing. No pain. No fear. No death. Just…nothing.
Something’s wrong, he realized numbly. Something’s very wrong. I need to get back to Coruscant as quickly as possible.
With a slap of the reins, he sent Boga careening back towards the battle so that he could wrap things up as soon as he could and be on his way back home.
***
Mace indulged in a minute of pure bewilderment before forcing himself back to the problem at hand. Three Jedi Masters lay dead near the front of the office, the Chancellor was most likely dead and down on the streets below, and he was the only one left standing. While he was injured, the wound was cauterized and could wait a little before it needed seeing-to by a Healer. There wasn’t much time and he had to move quickly before someone discovered him here and started jumping to conclusions.
“Master Ti,” he spoke into his comm-link, his voice tight with pain, “I need you to send several Jedi over to the Chancellor’s office. Kit, Agen, and Saesee are dead and the Supreme Chancellor is missing and presumed dead. We need to recover the bodies and investigate the scene. And go to the High Council chamber and check on Vader. If he’s up to it, bring him here.”
“I will get right on it,” Shaak Ti’s voice promised.
Hooking his comm-link back onto his belt, Mace paced around the disheveled office with his wounded arm tucked into his chest and worked through his memories of the assault on Palpatine. Specifically, he tried to recall just what had happened before the treacherous chancellor was knocked out the window. And he tried to figure out just what had exploded afterwards and how. Closing his eyes, he drew on the still-murky-feeling Force to enhance his recollections.
Sidious had reached out and Kit Fisto’s fallen hilt skittered into the room, over the floor, and into the Sith’s withered hand. The green blade sprang to life and Sidious swung it around towards him, slicing through his wrist. The Sith Master stood, smiled viciously, and prepared to finish him off, only to be interrupted-a blur of black and glowing blue collided with the Sith-Mace paused it there and worked to sharpen his brief glance of the intervening figure. The glowing blue…a lightsaber. The black blur…a Jedi dressed in dark-colored robes. Then the collision, running in slow-motion-the blue blade sunk into the side of the deformed Sith’s chest-inertia and gravity pulled them both down-an explosion of blue-white fire-
The beeping of Mace’s comm-link interrupted him. “Yes, what is it?”
“Mace, Vader is not in the High Council chamber,” Shaak Ti informed him. “Shall I search the Temple for him?”
“No,” Mace decided after a moment. “Just come here with the Jedi I called for. Make sure at least one of them is a code slicer, and bring a Healer.”
“All right,” Shaak agreed, “we shall be there in twenty minutes.”
Mace returned to the broken window and carefully peered down the side of the building. Zigzagging down the duracrete wall were ugly black scorch marks, like intense fire had clawed its way downwards into the shadowy canyons of Coruscant’s artificial urban under-story. Nearby lanes of traffic were still sluggish and disturbed from the explosion and some vehicles limped along as if damaged. A few sirens wailed in the distance as emergency vehicles raced towards the Senate, no doubt summoned by civilians who’d witnessed the spectacular explosion.
Why? He stared down into the dark depths below and wondered. I told you to stay in the Council chamber. So why did you come here? Why did you do this?
***
Ferus Olin sighed as he picked his way through the refuse-strewn streets of lower Coruscant, roughly below the supreme chancellor’s office. He and Master Siri had been summoned by Master Shaak Ti, along with several other Knights and Masters, to accompany her to the Senate building. Upon arrival, Master Windu-injured, but alive and functional-had greeted them and then sent most of them away to scour the streets. Apparently there had been some sort of fatal struggle, so they were charged with finding Human remains, weapons, and anything else that might be connected with it.
“I really wish that Master Windu had been a bit more specific about this ‘fatal struggle,’” Master Siri complained as she nudged aside some broken speeder part with the toe of her boot. “And if it ties into that Dark surge that rippled through the Force.”
“Maybe he couldn’t be,” Ferus suggested calmly. “Battles are quick and chaotic; and he lost a hand. Surely he can be excused for not having all the details in order.”
“No, he knows more than he’s saying.” Master Siri brushed back a lock of blonde hair from her eyes. “It’s more of that ‘secret Council business,’ just like Quinlan Vos’s supposed turn to the Dark Side and sudden return to the Order. They’re hiding something about this.”
“Well, if they are, there must be a very good reason for it.” Ferus scratched at his neck, once again missing his Padawan braid.
“I don’t think so,” Master Siri countered. “They could just as easily be covering up a tragic mistake, or even something criminal.”
Ferus shot his former Master a nervous glance, squinting through the dim light. He’d grown worried about her lately. Vader’s secretive behavior concerning his myriad of scars hadn’t sat well with her, and she’d grown irrationally suspicious of him and Master Obi-Wan and the rest of the Council as well. Master Siri didn’t appreciate mysteries, especially mysteries lurking within the Jedi Order.
“I really don’t think that the Council would do anything remotely criminal,” Ferus cautiously responded. “Not unless they had no other choice and were truly justified in their actions.”
“They may think so,” Master Siri grumbled as she peeked into a dumpster. “But they could be wrong. The High Council is not some panel of demi-gods; they’re mortals just like the rest of us, and just as fallible and flawed too.”
Shifting uneasily on his feet, Ferus slipped over to the other side of the narrow street that they were searching. Kicking aside a pile of crumpled news-faxes, something shiny caught his eye. He crouched down and dug a lightsaber hilt out of the trash. It was gold-plated and black, and it gave him the chills just touching it. When he activated it to check its color, he got a much better idea about the nature of the struggle that Master Windu had mentioned so vaguely.
“They fought a Sith,” Ferus breathed, staring at the blood-red blade, horrified. No wonder there was that Dark shiver in the Force…
“Turn that off,” Master Siri ordered with a shudder.
Ferus gladly complied. “We should call Master Windu.”
“Let’s check in with the others first,” Master Siri decided grimly.
Unwilling to argue with his former Master, Ferus voiced no protest, even though he didn’t agree with her. She led the way back to their little rendezvous point: a porn shop that had recently gone out of business. A few of the other Jedi searchers were already there, examining what they had found.
“…found this two block south from here,” a male Twi’lek Knight was saying. He was holding a scorched scrap of clothing, something black with hints of red. “The burns on it are fresh and I found this ID chit in what was left of the pocket.” The green Twi’lek held up a half-melted square of metal and plastic. “I can’t read it, but maybe the analysis droids can do something with it.”
“I…I found Master Fisto’s lightsaber,” a Chadra-Fan Knight offered nervously. The short, furry alien Jedi produced the unique hilt and held it up for their inspection.
“That doesn’t make any sense,” an Ishi Tib Master grumbled. “Master Fisto’s body was nowhere near the broken window. How could his lightsaber end up falling out and down here?”
“I found shreds of a burnt Jedi cloak,” a Devaronian Knight offered, displaying scraps of a dark brown, almost black, cloak.
“So some other Jedi used Master Fisto’s lightsaber?” the Twi’lek postulated.
“Master Windu made no mention of a fourth Jedi casualty,” the Chadra-Fan chirped.
“He made no mention of a Sith either,” Master Siri scowled.
At a sharp gesture from her, Ferus nervously held up the golden lightsaber hilt for the group to see.
“Well, that certainly sheds new light on things,” the Devaronian Knight muttered. “That explains how three Jedi Council members were killed with such seeming ease.”
“We must report this find to Master Windu and Master Ti,” the Ishi Tib Master decided.
The green Twi’lek was about to place the call when a red Nikto Knight jogged up to them. “I caught a glitterstim addict trying to pawn this off to pay for his next fix,” the Jedi announced and held up a second Jedi lightsaber. Ferus felt his eyes try to pop out of his skull as he stared at it. “The addict claimed he found it in a gutter.”
“Whose is it?” the Devaronian asked, tilting his horned head as he studied the silvery hilt.
“It belongs to Knight Dar’ti Vader,” Master Siri announced with a scowl. “That’s probably his cloak that you found,” she added to the Devaronian. “Did anyone find any Human remains at all?”
“I…I found what was left of Master Windu’s hand still holding his lightsaber hilt,” a Zabrak Padawan, the lowest-ranking Jedi present piped up hesitantly. She tugged on her braid in a nervous gesture. “Does that count?”
The green Twi’lek (her Master?) shook his head.
“We must make our report to the Council members,” the Ishi Tib sighed. “They will be able to explain this.”
Master Siri turned to the Devaronian Knight. “Could you show me where exactly you found that cloak?”
***
Mace pinched the bridge of his nose with his remaining hand and sighed wearily as he sat on one of the chairs in the supreme chancellor’s office. The bodies of his three colleagues had been removed a good hour ago, back to the Temple to be preserved until there was time to honor them with a proper cremation service. Now he and Shaak Ti, the last two living Council members still on Coruscant, were stuck figuring out how to hold control of the Republic and explain the situation to the Jedi searchers who had just appeared in the office.
The searchers eyed Mace’s maimed right arm with varying levels of concern, but he ignored it as he had ignored Shaak Ti’s and the Healer’s urgings to seek treatment back at the Temple and leave the situation to her. There was no real risk of him bleeding to death and it would take several hours before he had to worry about infection setting in so he could hold off on a visit to the Halls of Healing for a little bit longer. The only thing that had interfered with his managing of the current crisis was the pain of his injury and that had been dealt with by a quick application of a nerve block done just below his elbow.
“What have you found?” he asked them.
Each Jedi stepped forward and presented whatever scraps they had located and sensed were important. Among the items was his lost lightsaber and the Zabrak Padawan that had found it eagerly offered it back to him. But then, after awkwardly clipping the returned hilt to his belt, Master Tachi stepped up, her presence in the Force tense and agitated.
“Master Windu,” Siri Tachi frowned. “How is it that Knight Vader came to be present here?” She pulled Vader’s lightsaber out from under her brown cloak. “Or did he just happen to lose his lightsaber near the Senate complex?” She then produced a damaged utility belt. “And his belt with his comm-link, ID, grappling hook, re-breather, and emergency mini-med-kit, too?”
He didn’t particularly care for her tone, but he left it alone as he had no interest in getting into an argument with her. Siri was a talented Jedi; however she was stubborn, argumentative, and at times a bit too aggressive. The only Masters on the Council that she truly respected were her former Master, Adi Gallia, and Master Yoda. With Adi dead at Greivous’s hands, and Yoda parsecs away on Kashyyyk, Mace and Shaak had to deal with her alone, and Mace held no illusions that Siri had any liking for him.
“How Vader came to be here is unknown,” Mace sighed. “I requested that he wait for our return in the High Council chamber, but it seems that he disobeyed and arrived here shortly after I and the other Masters did.”
Siri narrowed her stormy eyes. “Just what did go on here, Master Windu?”
“The Council has long been concerned about the Supreme Chancellor,” Mace replied. “After the outbreak of war, we only grew more wary of him for his personal involvement in the management of the war and for all the power he’s been drawing from the Senate. When the Senate granted Palpatine the authority to place a personal representative on the Jedi High Council as a liaison, the chancellor chose Vader, apparently as a thank-you for assisting in his recent rescue from General Grievous.
“Master Kenobi asked Vader to do the Council a favor and keep tabs on the chancellor’s dealings, and he agreed. Vader made several damning reports to us, culminating with his last one late in the afternoon. It confirmed our worst fears, and I, Master Fisto, Master Kolar, and Master Tiin continued on our way to inform the chancellor that Master Kenobi had destroyed Grievous. Palpatine refused to lay down the power that he had accumulated and resisted our attempts to arrest him. He killed Master Kolar and Master Tiin almost immediately, Master Fisto shortly after, and he might have killed me as well had Vader not unexpectedly appeared and knocked him out the window.”
“And what were your worst fears?” Siri inquired as her former apprentice and the other Jedi involved in the search shifted anxiously as they tried to absorb all this new information.
“The Council worried that the Sith Master-Count Dooku’s mentor and the mentor of the deceased Zabrak Sith-was exerting influence over Palpatine’s inner circle, and therefore playing both sides of the war,” Mace answered. “According to Vader’s report, not only was the Sith in Palpatine’s inner circle…the Sith Lord was Palpatine.”
That shocked all the Jedi in the room-except for Shaak Ti, who had already been informed earlier. They all stared open-mouthed at him, denial in their eyes. Mace couldn’t blame them. It didn’t seem possible that the Sith Lord that they had been hunting had been under the Order’s collective nose the entire time.
“Master Windu, how is that possible?” young Knight Olin, Siri’s former apprentice asked. “How did no one sense his true nature?”
“It is hard to say for certain,” Shaak Ti replied. “However, we must remember what we know of the Sith. One of their greatest skills is the ability to deceive. What greater deception is there than for a Sith to fool the greatest of the Jedi, to fool the entire Order into serving him? As the Sith Master, it was well within his ability to manipulate us all.”
“And the Sith were aided by our own complacency,” Mace unhappily admitted. “For centuries the Sith hid in the shadows and we foolishly assumed their extinction. It took the Blockade crisis on Naboo and the death of Qui-Gon Jinn for us to believe that the Sith had reappeared. We are unused to dealing with them, and the Sith took advantage of this.”
Siri fixed Mace and Shaak with a speculative look and asked the all-important question. “So what will we do now that the supreme chancellor is dead?”
“We are working on that now,” Mace sighed. “What we need you to do is keep what you have learned here to yourselves, the public must not know what happened here.”
“We’re going to lie?” Ferus squeaked, understandably horrified.
“How do you think the public will react when they learn that a Jedi killed their beloved chancellor and that the Order will assume temporary leadership over the Republic until the situation stabilizes enough to hold a proper election?” Mace asked.
“They won’t be happy, that’s for sure,” Siri muttered grimly.
“There could be rioting if this got out,” the Twi’lek Knight mused.
“That would be the last thing we’d need. Even as the war winds down we can’t afford such a distraction,” the Ishi Tib Master grumbled.
“What about the security feeds?” the Chadra-Fan asked. “No matter what story we concoct, it will be contradicted by the digital record.”
“I’ve already set a Jedi with slicing skills to acquire the recordings and corrupt the originals,” Mace replied calmly. “In less than an hour, there will be nothing to refute whatever cover story we piece together.”
“I don’t like this one bit,” Siri retorted with a frown. “Not only is it risky, it’s a terrible position to put ourselves in. We are Jedi, not politicians. We have no business assuming control of a government.”
“At this point we have no choice,” Shaak shrugged. “Without a functioning government, the Republic will crumble, the half-ruined Confederacy of Independent Systems will prey upon the remains of the Republic, and chaos and suffering will reign. Do you want that?”
Siri looked away uncomfortably. “No.”
“I assure you, Master Tachi, that the Council has no desire to increase it’s responsibilities to running the Republic in addition to managing the Jedi Order,” Mace snorted. “At most, our tenure over the Senate will last one Standard year-no longer.”
“How is the Council going to function with four members lost?” The Devaronian wondered.
“We will select new members as soon as possible,” Mace assured him. “Hopefully before the end of the week, if we can manage it.”
The assembled Jedi nodded in acceptance of this plan of action. None of them were particularly happy about it, some more so than others, but they wouldn’t fight it. This was a tremendous relief to Mace. He didn’t wish to fight his own colleagues while simultaneously trying to keep the Republic from self-destructing.
“What are we to do now?” The Twi’lek Knight asked.
“Place the evidence you collected in that box,” Shaak indicated with a pointed finger. “You are free to return to the Temple for the night. Please have your reports ready by 1100 tomorrow.”
“You are to tell no one, not even other Jedi, of what has occurred here,” Mace added. “We will inform the rest of the Order about these events after the empty Council seats have been filled.”
“Yes, Masters,” the Jedi murmured in reply and moved to do as they were told, even less happy at the heavy secrecy laid upon them.
Mace watched in silence as the cluster of Jedi carefully placed what they had collected into the box and filed out of the disheveled office. Only when they were gone did Mace relax. He closed the lid of the box and glanced around at the late Supreme Chancellor Palpatine’s-Sith Lord Darth Sidious’s-office.
“I will check in on Knight Dacci and see how his slicing is going,” Shaak Ti offered.
“Have him set up some kind of secure remote access to Palpatine’s computers and charge him and all his slicer companions with cracking his databases,” Mace ordered.
“What are we to tell security?” Shaak asked. “Several members of the Senate Guard have already gathered outside of the lower offices. It is only a matter of time before higher ranking officers appear and demand entry.”
“Tell them that there was an incident here, some fatalities, and that this office is a sealed crime scene,” Mace instructed. “Due to Jedi involvement there will be no need to call in the Guard; we will manage the investigation. We will make some sort of official statement tomorrow afternoon regional time.”
“It will be done,” Shaak bowed her horned head and started to leave. She paused in the doorway. “What about Vader? Will we continue to search for him?”
Mace sighed deeply. “No, not tonight. He was most likely incinerated along with Palpatine in that strange explosion. But with all the chaos in the Force, it’s impossible to be certain. If he has survived, he will most likely return to the Temple on his own-that is, if he’s still physically able to.”
“We can only hope.” Shaak Ti shook her head, making her striped head tails quiver. “May the Force be with us,” she murmured as she left.
Mace nodded in agreement and awkwardly gathered up the box of evidence, tucking it under his maimed, half-numb arm. As he left the office, he used the Force to attach a magnetic lock to the doors that overrode the controls. Only a member of the Jedi High Council, or a Jedi with their approval, would be able to enter the offices so long as it was connected and functional.
That should keep unwanted prying eyes out, Mace thought as he wearily trekked back towards the Jedi Temple to drop off the box and finally seek out the Healers. Now all we have to do is keep the Republic from imploding when it learns that its leader is dead. May the Force be with us, indeed!
***
He couldn’t feel anything. Somehow he got the idea that that was a bad thing. Worse, he had the odd sensation of being smothered, like his ethereal self was being squeezed by a prickly, black blanket. The Darkness coiled and oozed around him, trying to find a foothold, a place to take root. He didn’t like the Darkness and did his best to bat it away, but he was just so tired…
It is pointless to resist me.
He didn’t like the voice. It was ice cold and oily. It hissed like a serpent and growled like a dragon. He did his best to ignore it.
You are the culmination of Darth Plagueis’s great work. You are my greatest creation. And one way or another, you will serve me!
He shivered at the declaration, but kept shoving at the Darkness. Every time a tendril of it started to stick, he unstuck it. He would not serve the Darkness, no matter what it claimed. He was…he was…
…Who was he?
You are Darth Vader, Dark Lord of the Sith, and soon your young, healthy body will be mine.