by James Luceno
But Vader knew the truth.
Sidious wants to rub my masked face in the aftermath of the slaughter I spearheaded.
Though the corpses had been removed by stormtroopers and droids, most of the spilled blood washed away, scorch marks on the walls and ceiling attested to the surprise attack. Columns lay toppled, heritage tapestries hung in shreds, rooms reeked of carnage.
But evidence of a less tangible sort also existed.
The Temple teemed with ghosts.
What might have been the wind wending into holed hallways never before penetrated sounded like the funereal keening of spirits waiting to be avenged. What might have been the resonance of the footfalls of Commander Appo’s stormtroopers sounded like the beat of distant war drums. What might have been smoke from fires that should have gone out weeks earlier seemed more like wraiths writhing in torment.
Emperor Palpatine had yet to announce his plans for that sad shell of a place. Whether it was to be razed, converted into his palace, deeded to Vader as some sort of cruel joke, or perhaps left as a mausoleum for all of Coruscant to gaze on, a reminder of what would befall those who kindled Palpatine’s disfavor.
Most of Vader’s Anakin memories grew fainter by the day, but not Anakin’s memories of what had happened here. They were as fresh as this morning’s sunrise, glimpsed from the rooftop chamber in which Vader rested. True sleep continued to lie just out of reach, an object pursued in vain in an unsettling dream. He no longer had visions, either. That ability, that double-edged ability, seemingly had been burned out of him on Mustafar.
But Vader remembered.
Remembered being in thrall of what he had done in Palpatine’s office. Watching the old man plead for his life; listening to the old man promising that only he had the power to save Padmé; rushing to his defense. Sith lightning hurling an astonished Mace Windu through what had been a window …
Anakin kneeling before Sidious and being dubbed Vader.
Go to the Jedi Temple, Sidious had said. We will catch them off balance. Do what must be done, Lord Vader. Do not hesitate. Show no mercy. Only then will you be strong enough with the dark side to save Padmé.
And so he had gone to the Temple.
Instrument of the same resolute intent that had carried Obi-Wan to Mustafar with one goal in mind: death to the enemy.
In his mind’s eye Vader saw his and the 501st’s march to the Temple gates, their wrathful attack, the mad moments of bloodlust, the dark side unleashed in all its crimson fury. Some moments he remembered more clearly than others: pitting his blade against that of swordmaster Cin Drallig, beheading some of the very Masters who had instructed him in the ways of the Force, and, of course, his cold extermination of the younglings, and with them the future of the Jedi order.
He had wondered beforehand: could he do it? Still new to the dark side, would he be able to call on its power to guide his hand and lightsaber? In answer, the dark side had whispered: They are orphans. They are without family or friends. There is nothing that can be done with them. They are better off dead.
But this recalling, weeks later, curdled his blood.
This place should never have been built!
In fact, he hadn’t killed the Jedi to serve Sidious, though Sidious was meant to believe just that. In his arrogance Sidious was unaware that Anakin had seen through him. Had the Sith Lord thought he would simply shrug off the fact that, from the start, Sidious had been manipulating Anakin and the war?
No, he hadn’t killed the Jedi in service to Sidious, or, for that matter, to demonstrate his allegiance to the order of the Sith.
He had executed Sidious’s command because the Jedi would never have understood Anakin’s decision to sacrifice Mace and the rest in order that Padmé might survive the tragic death she suffered in Anakin’s visions. More important, the Jedi would have attempted to stand in the way of the decisions he and Padmé would have needed to make regarding the fate of the galaxy.
Beginning with the assassination of Sidious.
Oh, but on Mustafar she had worked herself into a state over what he had done at the Temple, so much so that she hadn’t heard a word he was saying. Instead she had made up her mind that he had come to care more about power than he cared for her.
As if one matters without the other!
And then cursed Obi-Wan had shown himself, interrupting before Anakin could explain fully that everything he had done, in Palpatine’s office and at the Temple, had all been for her sake, and for the sake of their unborn child. Had Obi-Wan not arrived he would have persuaded her to understand—he would have made her understand—and, together, they would have moved against the Sith Lord …
The rasp of Vader’s breathing became more audible.
Flexing his artificial hands did nothing to waylay his rage, so he hunched his broad shoulders under the armor pectoral and heavy cloak, shuddering.
Why didn’t she listen to me? Why didn’t any of them listen to me?
His anger continued to build as he neared the Temple’s archives room, where he parted company with Commander Appo and his stormtroopers, as well as with the members of the Internal Security Bureau who, Vader was given to understand, had their separate mission to perform.
He paused at the entrance to the library’s vast and towering main hall, shaken not by memory but by memory’s effect on his still-healing heart and lungs. The mask’s optical hemispheres imparted a murkiness to the normally well-lighted hall, which had once boasted row after row of neatly arranged and cataloged holobooks and storage disks.
Blood let here still showed in maroon constellations that marred large areas of the floor and speckled some of the few still-standing sculpture-topped plinths that lined both sides of the long hallway.
Even if he had killed Sidious, even if he had won the war single-handedly for the Republic, the Jedi would have fought him to the bitter end. They might even have insisted on taking custody of his and Padmé’s child, for their offspring would have been powerful in the Force indeed. Perhaps beyond measure! If only the High Council Masters hadn’t been so set in their ways, so deceived by their own pride, they would have grasped that the Jedi needed to be brought down. Like the Republic itself, their order had grown stale, self-serving, corrupt.
And yet, if the High Council had seen fit to recognize his power, had granted him the status of Master, perhaps he could have abided their continued existence. But to call him the Chosen One only to hold him back; to lie to him and expect him to lie for them … What had they imagined the outcome would be?
Old fools.
He understood now why they had discouraged use of the dark side. Because they had feared losing the power base they enjoyed, even though enslavement to attachment was what had helped pull down the Sith! The Jedi had been conspirators in their own downfall, complicit in the reemergence of the dark side, and as important to its victory as Sidious had been.
Sidious—their ally.
Attachment to power was the downfall of all orders, because most beings were incapable of controlling power, and power ended up controlling them. That, too, had been the cause of the galaxy’s tip into disorder; the reason for Sidious’s effortless rise to the top.
Vader’s heart pounded in his chest, and the respirator fed his heart’s needs with rapid breaths. For his own health and sanity, he realized that he would have to avoid places that whipped his anger into such a frenzy.
The recognition that he would probably never be able to set foot on Naboo or Tatooine tore an anguished moan from him that toppled the rest of the plinths as if they were dominoes, leaving their crowning bronzium busts sliding and spinning across the polished, blood-flecked floor.
Hollowed by the mournful outpouring, he supported himself against a broken column for what seemed an eternity.
The chirping of the comlink on his belt returned him to the present, and after a long moment he activated it.
From the device’s small speaker issued the urgent voice of the Internal Security Bureau
chief, Armand Isard, communicating from the Temple’s data room.
Someone, Isard reported, was attempting remote access of the Jedi beacon databanks.
In the dimly lighted corridor of a forlorn Separatist facility far across the stars, Shryne stopped to gaze at one of the niched statues that lined both walls.
Six meters high and exquisitely carved in the round, the statue was equal parts humanoid and winged beast. While it might have been modeled on an actual creature, the deliberate vagueness of its facial features suggested some mythical creature from antiquity. The indistinct visage was partly concealed by a hooded robe that fell to taloned feet. Identical statues stood in identical recesses for as far as Shryne could see in the wan light.
The complex of ancient, geometric structures the Separatists had converted into a communications facility had certainly stood on Jaguada’s moon for thousands of standard years; perhaps tens of thousands of years. Scanners classified the metal used in the construction as “unidentifiable,” and lightning fissures in the foundations of the largest buildings indicated that the complex had suffered the effect of the small satellite’s every tectonic shift and meteor impact.
The light of Shryne’s luma revealed details of the statue’s intricately rendered wings. Locally quarried, the worked stone matched the striated rock of the sheer cliffs that walled the complex on two sides, from which had been carved statues thirty meters tall, the gaze of their time-dimpled faces directed not down the narrow valley over which they stood silent guard, but toward the moon’s eastern horizon.
Based on similarities to holoimages she had seen of statuary on Ziost and Korriban, Starstone believed that the site could date to the time of the ancient Sith, and that the Separatists’ reoccupation of the complex was in keeping with the fact that Count Dooku had become a Sith Lord.
The moon was arid Jaguada’s sole companion in a desolate system slaved to a dying star, far from major hyperlanes. The fact that remote Jaguada should host a garrison of clone troopers in the desert planet’s modest population center struck Shryne as something of a mystery. But the troopers’ presence could owe to plans to salvage the Separatist war machines that had been left abandoned on the moon, as troopers were known to be doing in numerous Outer Rim systems.
This wasn’t the first time Jula and her band of smugglers had visited the moon, but the secrecy that had attended the recent arrival had less to do with prior knowledge of the terrain than to the Drunk Dancer’s jamming capabilities. The ship had inserted into stationary orbit on the moon’s far side without being detected by the Imperial troops on Jaguada, leaving Shryne, Starstone, and Jula, along with some of the crew members and Jedi, to ride down the well in the drop ship, slipping into the moon’s thin atmosphere like a sabacc card up a gambler’s sleeve.
Heaped with windblown sand, the facility’s retrofitted landing platform appeared not to have seen use in several years. Shryne’s estimate was borne out by the fact that the hundreds of deactivated droids that welcomed the drop ship party were early-generation Trade Federation infantry droids, of the sort controlled by centralized computers rather than super battle droids equipped with autonomous droid brains. As if the surfeit of silent war machines didn’t render the place ghostly enough, there were the fanged carvings affixed to each doorway lintel, and the kilometers of parched corridors studded with gruesome statuary.
Access to the structure that housed the communications center hadn’t been a problem, since whatever remote transmissions deactivated the droids had silenced the facility, as well. The power generators, however, were still functional, and Filli Bitters and Eyl Dix had been able to override the deactivation codes and bring some of the internal illuminators to life, along with the hyperwave transceiver the Jedi were intent on using to slice into the Temple beacon database.
Shryne had left the slicers, Starstone, and some of the other Jedi to what he regarded as their business, and had been wandering the aged corridors ever since, thinking through his dilemma.
Even this deep into the complex, the ceramacrete floors were covered with sand and bits of other inorganic debris carried in by the moon’s constant, nerve-racking winds. To Shryne, the combination of wind and gloom couldn’t have been more apropos to puzzling out whether his coming to Jaguada was in accord with the will of the Force, or merely symptomatic of a deep denial of the truth. Yet another attempt to convince himself that his actions had some import.
Perhaps if he hadn’t recognized in Starstone and the other Jedi a powerful need to believe—a need to hold on to something in the wake of all that had been snatched from them—he might have tried harder to discourage them. But their need wasn’t enough to keep him from asking himself whether this was the way he wanted to spend the rest of his days, hanging on to a dream that the Jedi order could be reassembled; that a handful of Jedi could mount an insurgency against as formidable an enemy as Emperor Palpatine. He couldn’t escape the feeling that the Force had thrown him a curious curve once again. Just when he thought he was through with Jedi business, and that the Force had deserted him, he was in deeper than ever.
Roan Shryne, who had lost not one but two learners to the war.
Jula’s words about reconnecting with family kept replaying themselves. Perhaps he wasn’t so far gone that he couldn’t actually benefit from attachment, if only as a means of making himself more human. But never to use the Force again … that was the bigger issue. His ability to sense the Force in others was so much a part of his nature that he doubted he would simply be able to set it aside, along with his robes and lightsaber.
He suspected that he would always feel like a freak among normal humans, and the idea of exiling himself among aliens with similar talents for telepathy held little appeal.
For the time being he was willing to remain with Starstone, if not mentor her. That was an entirely different problem: Starstone and the others were looking to him for leadership he simply couldn’t provide, in part because leadership had never been his strength, but more because the war had eroded whatever measure of self-confidence he had once possessed. With any luck the attempts at locating surviving Jedi would lead eventually to a Jedi of greater Mastery than Shryne, to whom he could surrender the lead and gracefully bow out.
Or perhaps there would be no returns from the Temple beacon database.
Archived HoloNet images he had accessed while aboard the Drunk Dancer had showed smoke pouring from the Jedi Temple in the aftermath of the troopers’ attack. So it was certainly conceivable that the beacon had been damaged or destroyed, or that the databases had been hopelessly corrupted.
Which would cause an abrupt end to the search.
And to the dreaming, as well.
He had begun to move deeper into the corridor when Jula appeared out of the gloom, a luma in hand, and fell into step beside him.
“Where are the guides when you need them?” she said.
“Just what I was thinking.”
She had her jacket folded over her arm, a blaster holstered on her hip. Shryne wondered for a moment what her life might have been like had he remained in her care. Would her marriage to Shryne’s father have endured, or would what seemed an unquenchable thirst for adventure have placed Jula just where she was now? Save with Roan at her side, part of her crew, her partner in crime.
“How are they doing back there?” he asked, nodding with his chin toward the communications room.
“Well, Filli’s already sliced into the beacon. No surprises there. Now I suppose it’s a matter of worming into the database itself.” She regarded Shryne while they walked. “You’re not interested in being there when they start downloading the names and possible whereabouts of your scattered confederates?”
Shryne shook his head. “Starstone and Forte can see to that. My credits aren’t on their succeeding, anyway.”
Jula laughed. “Then you won’t get any side action from me.” She looked at him askance. “Olee and Filli are two of a kind, don’t you think?”
�
��I did for a while. But I figure she’s already found her life partner.”
“The Force, you mean.” Jula forced an exhale. “That’s dedication of a scary sort.”
Shryne stopped walking and turned to her. “Why’d you say yes to taking us here, Jula?”
She smiled lightly. “I thought I’d made myself clear. I’m still hoping to convince you to join us.” Scanning his face for clues, she asked: “Any movement at all on that front?”
“I don’t know what I’m thinking.”
“But you’ll keep me updated?”
“Sure I will.”
Shortly they reached the end of the corridor of winged statues and turned the corner into an intersecting corridor lined with smaller carvings.
In the bobbing light of the lumas, Shryne said: “How did Filli know about this place?”
“We made a couple of runs here six or so years back. Communications hardware for the hyperwave transceiver. And before you go all patriotic on me, Roan, we didn’t realize that the facility would eventually be used to eavesdrop on Republic transmissions.”
“That would have stopped you—knowing that a war against the Republic was brewing?”
“It might have. But you have to understand, we were hungry, like a lot of other freelancers in the outlying systems. It still amazes me that Coruscant remained in the dark about what was going on out here after Dooku formed the Separatist movement. Weapons buildup, Baktoid Armor Workshop installing foundries on dozens of worlds … Back then, there was a lot to be said for free and unrestricted trade.”
“I would have figured that would be bad for business.”
“Yes and no. Free trade invited competition, but it also meant we didn’t have to worry about being chased by local system defense forces or Jedi Knights.”
“Who hired you to bring in the comm hardware?”
“Someone named Tyranus, although none of us ever met him face-to-face.”
“Tyranus,” Shryne repeated, in uncertain recollection.
“Ring a bell?”