Coruscant, Jedi Temple 21.9 BBY (1 Month Later)
Hands held curved before my upper midsection as if grasping a sphere the size of a deflection-remote between them, I watched calmly as the shimmering blue-white pinpoint in-between my hands began growing. The tempo of the Force's song increasing as the escalating trill became a solid whine while the pinpoint swiftly expanded to fill the entire space between my hands. Slowly, gritting my teeth with the effort of remaining perfectly calm and focused, I drew both my hands an equal distance further apart as the bubble of telekinetic force continued to expand, and smiled fiercely to see it remain stable.
Continuing to compress the gathered energy, before beginning to uniformly reduce the compression as more energy was added to the bubble was the entire crux of the Force Burst technique, after all.
The shimmering bubble expanded to two meters in diameter, then three, and finally a full four meters across. Still, I sensed none of the intensifying instabilities which had plagued all but my most recent efforts. At five and a half meters, I recognized I was approaching the safe maximum for a detonation within a fairly confined chamber itself only twenty-five or thirty meters in diameter. This realization prompted me to relax my telekinetic grip on the translucent sphere's rearmost portion. Instantly, there was a flash as the great orb of compressed telekinetic force shot across the training-chamber with the speed of a blaster-bolt. Striking what appeared to be a four meter high, eight meter wide, meter thick wall of solid duranium. Buckling on impact as if an angry god had just thrust-kicked the wall's central portion, the barrier was folded into a sharp "V" like a book had been snapped shut. Until finally the ravening release of energy passed through the deepest circular impact-point completely. Splashing against a force-shield sheathing the interior wall of the room in an entrancing shimmer of iridescence. A moment later, what had been a devastated hard-light construct vanished. Leaving me not only my sixth success, but my first unqualified success with Force Burst at what I would call live combat speeds.
I should have been jubilant. Today was my twentieth life-day, yet I'd mastered one of the most difficult and devastating of all telekinetic techniques. Something the most famous practitioner of Force Burst, Satele Shan had been nearly thirty-three before accomplishing. It was an amazing achievement, and a likely sign of things to come.
Instead, my mind kept returning to the same bleak thought. "It's going to take years at this rate. Years, before I'll be able to match Palpatine." This grim realization rose up from the darkest recesses of my mind. Trying to adhere to me like my concern for the innocents presently imperiled, and the frustration I felt while considering the gulf in power separating me from the prime movers responsible for exacerbating of the imminent galactic holocaust could curdle and taint my spirit. I resisted these splinters of darkness with the increased poise and focus I'd discovered during the Trials, but there was no denying that my awareness of Palpatine's genius capacity for planning was a small torment to me. The man had been given years to pursue his winnowing of the Deep Core, Slice, and Unknown Regions. Trusting the assumption that his having used no more extreme a Dark Side technique than Essence Transfer prior to his being overthrown by a redeemed Anakin Skywalker meant he hadn't actually possessed any such examples of Dark Side lore would be the kind of blind complacency that had once resulted in Order 66.
"There's no telling when Sheev discovered how to create and control Force Storms, after all" I found myself thinking. Grimacing, as I remembered the time the reborn Sith Lord had snatched Luke off the surface of Coruscant with a wormhole like it was nothing.
Shaking my head sharply from side to side, I focused then let go of such useless concerns and frustrations. Releasing them into the Force, as I drew in the cool serenity of the Force to center myself.
"There's a very good chance I'm more naturally gifted than Palpatine, and I know I best Bulq in every possible point of comparison except experience. If I remain mindful of the present, the future will attend to itself" I murmured to myself. Forcing myself to believe the words, as I continued waging my endless war against unrealistic expectations of myself.
"You aren't an apprentice anymore, Anakin. It's good to see you're making real progress with letting go of your fears for the future" Dark Woman said from behind me. Yet the approval in her voice was palpably overshadowed by a whirling mix of concern and frustration I sensed as a raucous discordance in what was normally the stately march of her Force-presence. Before I'd Faced the Mirror, I likely wouldn't have been able to parse the layers of feeling in my mentor beneath recurring waves of strong emotion. Now, I also perceived the ambivalence the Jedi Master felt concerning the prospect of sharing her concerns, and even a persistent disquiet the reason for which I couldn't identify. All of this, I took in as I turned to face my former Master.
Summoning my lightsaber from a protected niche in the wall with an upward then inward flick of the fingers on my left hand. I clipped the weapon to my belt, then deactivated the force-field sheathing the training-chamber's interior with the same smooth downward gesture of my straightened index and middle fingers which Vader had used to close doors and cut off potential escape-routes for the surviving Separatist leadership on Mustafar. It was one of a million tiny ways I'd begun demonstrating to myself in the wake of the Trials I didn't need to be in a state of constant dissonance with everything about my predecessor to avoid his fate. I noted my mentor noticing the improvement in my fine control which was a consequence of the Trial of Skill, but elected not to provide a distraction from a conversation she was already reluctant to have for reasons currently eluding me.
Patiently remaining silent as I joined her in the corridor outside the training chamber, I observe the way my mentor seems to be weighing her options. It makes me wonder what in the name of the Force could have troubled a woman who considered extreme mortal peril nothing to lose her grip on her emotions over.
"Are you familiar with Senator Rush Clovis of Scipio by any chance? He's a high-ranking delegate of the InterGalactic Banking Clan" Dark Woman eventually explained. Her voice had regained it's usually poised diction, but I could sense a sliver of genuine trepidation join the concern she was already feeling beneath her outward show of self-control. The unease within my teacher is evident as I obligingly began to search my memory concerning this aristocrat from the homeworld of the Muuns, but I didn't know if I should bring my increased perceptiveness to my mentor's attention. It wasn't at all common for her to keep things from me in this way, after all.
The man's name was dimly familiar. Closing my eyes, I began breathing deep, deliberate, even breaths. Holding up my left hand index-finger up to indicate I needed a few moments, as I waited until my mind was as calm and still as I could make it. Engaging Force-assisted recall as soon as my awareness had become a channel conducive to the it's currents.
Flashes of foreshadowing disjointed and animated flit through my mind's eye. It's been more than twenty years at this point, so it takes several seconds before the realization of what I'm seeing begins to gel. Once it does, my fists clench slowly and unconsciously, as scenes from one of my all-time-favorite animated series grow increasingly coherent.
I focus on keeping my breathing even as I relax my hands while releasing the anxiety I'm experiencing into the Force. The now clearer-than-vision mental images of Clovis creeping on an uninterested Padme Amidala, coupled with the even more disturbing sight of my counterpart savagely beating and telekinetically manhandling another man in the grip of a jealous rage was something I'd found mildly unsettling when this was all simply fiction. Now, it threatened to upset a peace as newfound as it was hard-won.
"The High Council and S.B.I both believe Senator Clovis is working with the C.I.S. He was too canny to corner by the usual methods, so a wait and see methodology was adopted. Until someone learned he and Senator Amidala were romantically involved during their time as first-year Senators, and that said relationship didn't end on Clovis's account. Somehow, it was decided that using Senator Clovis's desire to resume that romantic relationship was the best way to gain evidence of his treasonous activities." It was my voice offering this summation in a perfectly peaceful and completely detached manner, but I almost felt like I was hearing the words as an outside listener. The tone had that strange listening to a recording of yourself undertone, or something akin to it.
Dark Woman shifted as she obviously sensed my growing disquiet, but it was her still-increasing frustration I focused on, as she replied "It never ceases to be unsettling. Your detailed knowledge of situations too small and complex for any possible precognitive event to account for. Yes, when apprised of the Republic's concerns, Senator Amidala agreed to act as an agent to both aid in determining if Clovis is guilty, and gain evidence which would support a verdict of guilt."
I nodded at hearing exactly what I'd expected, but still the Jedi Master's emotional upset continued to intensify. In my calmest, most level and reasonable tone, I inquired "Master Jinn and Obi-Wan have both worked closely with Senator Amidala on several occasions. Which one did the Council choose to send undercover as her pilot, servant, or bodyguard?"
Silence. When my expression shifted from calm to obviously expectant, I felt my mentor's upset finally pierce what remained of her calm. "I'm told the initial plan was to send Kenobi along as her pilot and bodyguard. Master Yaddle tells me they'd already sent him a holo-comm message requesting his presence, then, the Order decided to go in a different direction."
The inflection shift when my teacher had said "the Order" was subtle enough that anyone who hadn't spent literal years listening intently to her voice might have missed the disapproving bite packed into those two words. Fark, I might have missed it anyways, if the shift hadn't been accompanied by a long, drawn-out surge of the most intense anger I'd ever felt from my master. Emotion she was making as little effort to hide as the now bitterly disapproving cast of her pinched cheeks and pursed lips. It was an expression accompanied by the slow, side-to-side shake of her head, as she palpably denied any involvement with the accusation she could sense shifting and rising in me with all the inevitability of a magma column in a super-caldera.
I wasn't forced to connect what I already knew with what the Jedi Master opposite me had just implied. I wanted to be absolutely certain concerning what had happened in this instance, so my power reached out and strained the knowledge from the galaxy at large like a filter skimming detritus from an engine intake.
In my mind's eye, I saw Yoda seated on a meditation-cushion. His large eyes were closed, and the Grandmaster was obviously meditating. The glowing Kaiburr Crystal hovering in the air before him making that much abundantly clear. Suddenly, the tiny, wizened green alien's huge eyes sprang open. The wheel shaped Force-relic's internal white fire was suddenly extinguished as the crystal began to drop. Only for a small three-fingered hands to reach out and adroitly snag the artifact in one smooth motion as he hopped down off his cushion. A few moments later, the ancient Jedi Master had scurried to a holo-comm unit set against the right wall of the chamber he'd been meditating within and made a call.
A surprised looking, bluish-white, holographic Mace Windu appeared a few seconds later. His overall expression and unusually vague demeanor giving the impression he might well have been deeply asleep only a few instants earlier. Seeing who it was on his private comm-frequency, the Jedi Master inclined his head respectfully and immediately inquired as to what was amiss.
"Senator Amidala, enlisted for it's purposes, the High Council has. Obi-Wan Kenobi, with her, you would send. With Senator Clovis, to Senator Lott Dod's palace on Cato Neimoidia, Amidala must go. Accompany her, no Jedi must. Of the utmost importance, this is" Yoda decreed in the same grim and steely way he'd never spoken of a battle on Geonosis being no victory.
Immediately, and to his credit, Windu had demurred. "If the Baron of Scipio or any of his traitorous business partners discover Senator Amidala's real reason for being present, she'll be killed! The Senator is a resourceful, determined, and highly principled woman, but she's no Mandalorian or Echani trained to fight her way free of a Neomoidian purse-world on her own. Furthermore, she's one of the Order's most vocal supporters in the Senate, and a close personal friend of Chancellor Organa besides. What possible reason could there be to put her life in such jeopardy?"
Yoda's voice lost what little warmth it had left, as he responded "Above the needs of the individual, the needs of the community are placed. Resourceful, the Senator is, you say. If this is true, without us, Amidala may yet find success."
His handsome features made harsh by consternation, Mace tried a different tack. "I'm owed favors by some highly capable people who don't belong to the Order. Several of them are beings I would trust with an Initiate's life. Let me reach out to and persuade one of them to act as the Senator's bodyguard."
"No." Yoda said simply, but with real resolve. His eyes widened fractionally when he saw the other Jedi Master bristle and stiffen, then appeared to think better of such a peremptory refusal.
"The veil of the Dark Side, the Crystal has parted. Warnings of disaster, in it, I have seen. The war we may well begin, if to Cato Nemoidia, a Jedi we now send. Against this war, always Padme Amidala strives. On her behalf, begin it, never would she ask. In her courage and resourcefulness, we should trust." Yoda's voice sounded simultaneously sad and hopeful, with a tinge of admiration as he said all this.
I didn't care in the slightest. Looking into my former Master's lined, weathered, yet still hale and handsome features, I had only one question. "You knew I was going to find out about this one way or another. Did you come to defuse an explosive, or help me do the right thing, Master?"
"They call us Jedi Guardians for a reason, Anakin." The reply was simple and to the point, but the small smile of solidarity which accompanied it soon faded. Replaced by an expression of guarded concern, as Dark Woman continued "Master Yoda's Far Sight remains more than formidable while he continues to hold the Kaiburr Crystal, and his precognition is every bit it's match. There won't be any hiding our intent to interfere with the High Council's will, and they could easily expel us for doing this. You ready to accept that as a possible consequence of our choice?"
I shrugged with a casualness I didn't feel, as I wheeled and started marching in the direction of my quarters to collect all the equipment and the "someone" I'd need for the small war which might break out on Cato Neomoidia. Calling back over my shoulder in a voice tightly controlled to keep the anger trying to turn my blood to fire in my veins out of it. "Padme Amidala was one of those leading the counter-protests before the very steps of the Temple when word of Sifo-Dyas's actions broke on HoloNet News! If the Grandmaster would have me believe being a Jedi is about standing by as those who uphold us in our duty are cut down, then he can have my resignation and lightsaber. I'll just build a better one with a crystal from Mestare, and go see if Masters Dooku, Sifo-Dyas, and Bnar have a Chosen One-shaped niche in their organization."
I could feel the disquiet in my Master as she glided along quickly in my way for a change, but I could also sense the resolve which had been kindled and that now roared as an open flame within her. A belief the Jedi should in part be about nurturing a protecting the "great lights of each generation" had been a central tenet of Dark Woman's teachings the entire time I'd known her. Generally, I'd found when centralized doctrine ran counter to her teachings, doctrine didn't tend to rate much consideration. Her true superior was and always had been the Living Force.
Put another way, Dark Woman didn't kriffing care that Padme Amidala was a powerful political ally of the Jedi Order, because the Jedi Master didn't even agree with the Order being nearly so invested in or integrated a part of the Republic. She cared because Padme was a very good person, doing the right thing, at extraordinary risk to life and limb. Had Dark Woman been Grandmaster, a Jedi would be descending rapidly to ground via drop-pod anywhere that virtue resisted evil. The bigger the evil, the more drop-pods, and the more extensive the starfighter cover sent along. Hers was a simple, easy to come to grips with philosophy of serving good by defeating evil whenever and wherever one could.
It was just one of the reasons I'd eventually come to love her. After I'd got over hating her guts for humiliating me, making me puke, bleed, cramp, shake, and outright collapse thousands of times, of course.
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My heart was still hammering away inside my chest as I marched through the door to my room as it hissed open. While I began loading grenades into their carry-bag with the belt I wore them on, I waited for the door to hiss shut behind my teacher, then called out loudly "It's time to get going. We've got a mission, IG-D1!"
For five hundred and twenty pounds of phrik-cortosis alloy, IG-D1 was incredibly light on his feet. He's nearly seven feet tall and moves like exactly what he was designed to be, however. The Magna-Guard prototype was built as part of a tactical-tradeoff unit concept. Expend him along with two to four more of his experimental brethren, and get one dead Jedi Master. It took several trips to my Mirialan slicer friend to ensure both of IG's processors were squeaky clean, then began the week-long process of getting him reprogrammed, and returning his knowledge of the Forms. I took over from there with all the hardware, and essentially cannibalized his defunct compatriot in the process of carrying out a refit which ended his expendable nature due to heat-death of his components. IG-D1 was only capable of a two hundred forty minute window of maximum performance before needing time for his heat-sinks and the venting system I'd created to bleed off excess heat, but it was a source of continuing pride I'd basically outdone the Secessionists despite their comparably infinite manpower and resource advantage. There were days even I thought being Anakin Skywalker was farking ridiculous.
None of which did anything to cool the simmering righteous anger I was experiencing. I was as angry at myself as I was at Yoda, if you wanted to get to the heart of things.
"I should have remembered Yoda was the same Jedi Master who tells people to sacrifice everyone they care for to achieve the greater good. This is all just mathematics to the eight hundred and fifty year old Grandmaster. Just need the balanced number of midge-flies in all the appropriate places, and everything will be perfect!" I muttered dangerously as Dark Woman looked on.
"I don't agree with Master Yoda's decision in this case, but your characterization of him isn't fair either. You're taking this entire situation extremely personally given we're talking about someone you actually resorted to using the Force to avoid meeting on one occasion. Would you like to tell me why you're behaving as if Padme Amidala is your paramour rather than a near-total stranger who might be in danger?" The Jedi Master asked in her quiet yet exceedingly blunt manner.
She was so blunt, in point of fact, her question drew me up short. The confusion as I floundered a bit in search of an answer stole some of my anger as the silence stretched out, but it didn't last long.
"I trusted Master Yoda to be not just a figure of temporal authority, but as a source of moral authority. Choosing to seriously endanger the life of one person unqualified to meet the peril they're being asked to confront alone, because you don't want to chance a potential risk to many more lives? That's an evil which hides behind the same four words to justify things some Sith Lords would shy away from. For. The. Greater. Good! It's exactly the sort of thing I would expect Palpatine to peddle, and I'm disappointed in myself for knowing better but believing in our Grandmaster anyways!" My answer wasn't heated, not really. I was beginning to get a handle on my anger and upset, but it was still hard.
IG-D1 had already run his electro-staff through a power-up/power-down test cycle, so now the droid was standing at the doorway as I picked the latest refits of my recon and slicing droids into a second bag. My third bag full of bacta-patches, bact-aid, stims, and general first-aid gear was already ready to go, so I slung the droid-pack onto my back, and was shouldering the other two bags when Dark Woman finally responded.
"The galaxy is spiraling out of control, Anakin. Tens of trillions of sentient beings are about to die, at a bare minimum! Cities, entire worlds, the work of centuries of striving is going to burn everywhere sentient beings have built. Can you truly find it in your heart to call evil his inability to toss a lit tinder-stick onto the galaxy's pyre? If I thought what he was doing was right, I wouldn't be helping you defy him, but judging him for this as if you could never flinch back from such? It demeans you as a man, and as a Jedi. Yoda has been tirelessly fighting the good fight for more than forty-two generations! In a galaxy which contained any justice whatsoever, he would have been allowed to spend his final years teaching the younglings as he loves to do. Instead, he's going to feel hundreds if not thousands of his Jedi die hopeless and in terrible pain. No punishment your outraged ethics could demand be levied against him will exceed what he's going to suffer." Her voice was quiet, direct, and to the point. She wasn't trying to persuade me as to the things she'd just said. It was simply the truth as she saw it.
It did bring me to a halt long enough to really consider what she'd said. Ultimately, I did what I always did when really pressed. I told the truth, and let the credits settle wherever they might. "Yoda disappointed me in a way I don't believe I'll ever completely get over. This hesitance to act in what he considers a precipitous manner? It helped kill 99.9% of you, and made my incarnation necessary. Maybe I can understand, and even sympathize to a degree, but if the only thing holding off war is the blood-sacrifice of truly great individuals?"
I paused, drew in a deep breath, then declared "Let there be war rather than the death of everything worth fighting over. Padme Amidala is worth protecting. Every innocent life is worth protecting, and I understand that truth is what's become a trap for Yoda and so many other Jedi. Yet you not only can't buy peace with the death of the great, you shouldn't be able to, even if you could figure out a way to manage it."
Before my mentor could respond, I told her "We, the Jedi, shouldn't even be in this position! Set against our predecessors desperate wish to believe Ruusan was the end of the Sith stands all of recorded history! Always, the Sith either collapse due to infighting, or we bring the vast majority of them down at ruinous expense. Only for either a handful of survivors, or a Dark Jedi convert to reconstitute them. I'll leave the Force Wars alone as an ambiguity. Still, The First Great Schism, fighting the Order of the Terrible Glare during the Pius Dea Crusades, the Second Great Schism becoming the Hundred-Year Darkness. Most of these began with our failures, but still serve to emphasize my point. From the time of the Great Hyperspace War, to the New Sith Wars, the Jedi Order saw the Dark Side rise again and again and again. Only people so desperate for the nightmare to be over they were willing to ignore what tens of thousands of years worth of history was telling them could have believed Ruusan was the end of it. About every one thousand to sixteen hundred years this happens, so how could the fact we find ourselves here on the bring of galaxy-torching war once more due to Sith imperialism shock anyone!"
"Come on IG-D1. Let's go save the heroine from the jaws of moral compromise" I ordered just because I was still feeling testy and more out of sorts than I'd been at any time since the Crystal Caves. Rather than argue with me, Dark Woman glided along in mine and the droid's wake on the way to the hangar.
Updated A/N: Replaced the stupid cold-med/insomnia/pain/stress induced "Kill all the Dark-Siders, let the Force sort them out" rant with something rather more coherent, I think. See what you think, if you like.