A/N: So sorry it took me so long. I promise, I haven't forgotten this story. I've just been living in Japan for the last couple of months, which has really put a crimp in my writing schedule. Also, I know the situation with Padmé is confusing. It's supposed to be—you'll get all the answers soon, I promise. As soon as I manage to write them down. Whenever that may be.
Disclaimer: So not mine it isn't even funny.
Twenty-Five
Sidious smiled as he stared out across the stars. And so, after all this, his apprentice had come back to him, practically delivering himself into Sidious's waiting grasp. It had been pointless to resist all along, though perhaps Skywalker—Vader—did not yet realize it—such was the lure of the dark side. But the shadows were rooted in Skywalker's heart now; the paths once trod to darkness called with irresistible beckoning for their servant to succumb and follow them once again to the seductive power they held. Anakin Skywalker might think he had renounced Vader, that he had returned to the light, but all he had done was defy Sidious. The darkness remained, festering in his heart, and while the darkness remained, while Vader remained, Anakin was still his.
He turned away from the viewport, motioning for the clone troopers to continue their duties as he left the bridge and turned into the hallway leading to his private chambers. He had some items of business to conclude before his plans began to unfold in earnest. The door to his quarters hissed open at his approach, and Sidious stepped inside, then turned to the communication panel set into the wall. He activated the most secure channel with a flick of his hand. Immediately a face filled the screen before him, inky marks as jagged as teeth stood out livid and savage against pale skin. She had added to the tattoos that were her only ornament since she'd left Dooku, and the changes had left her stark face even more pitiless and cruel. It had been a great benefit, his rediscovering of Ventress like this, even if she was unsuitable for training as a true Sith. She was a deadly weapon nonetheless, and the promise of greater power kept her firmly in his grasp. She was one of the weapons Sidious intended to use against the most persistent vine-thorn in his side—Kenobi. The Jedi Master wasn't as much of a weakness for Skywalker as Amidala, but he was nearing that level. Sidious had felt Anakin shifting away from his own influence to cling tighter and tighter to Kenobi; he could feel how much Anakin needed the older Jedi's support and guidance at that moment. Regrettable perhaps, but nearly as useful. And Kenobi had placed himself almost in Sidious's grasp, even more neatly than he'd hoped for. "Bring the Jedi before me," he ordered, and Ventress's lips drew back in a sharp, feral smile. "As you wish, my lord," she answered. The screen flickered once and went black. Sidious couldn't prevent his lips from curving into another satisfied smile. That smile only widened as Ventress and the chained prisoner kneeling before her rose by lift into the center of the room. Sidious was waiting for them, his greedy gaze taking in all the myriad tiny signs of weakness, the little fissures in Quinlan Vos's struggling façade. And there were so very many of them—this proud, brave Jedi was ready to shatter, keeping his spirit intact only with a supreme effort of his own trembling will. Vos knelt, muscular shoulders slumped and head bowed, no longer fighting the electrochains Ventress held in her hands as he had the first several times Sidious had allowed him out of the solitude of the room he had been confined to—alone in his nightmares, free but unable to escape—to "spar" with Ventress. Nothing about the contests had been fair, but it had amused Sidious to see his two temporary servants snap and snarl and tear at each other, inflicting no serious injury through Sidious's control, but enough pain that when the end came they were both gasping and tired and shaking. A wild nek, indeed. The Jedi was useful for nothing else. Vos's wounds had been treated, of course, but only enough to tug him from the brink of death and give him a chance against Ventress. His eyes were smudged and bleary, hollow and bruised, his olive skin undercut with a pale, sickly gray that turned it sallow. The raised welt of a burn from Ventress's new lightsabers stood out pink and swollen on one thin cheek, and other similar burns marked the scarred flesh of his bare chest. Ventress was not marked with half as many, but then, the fights had hardly been fair. Vos raised his head only slowly to stare up at Sidious. His eyes were dull and expressionless, black pits of echoing, directionless pain, and Sidious had to hold back a smile. Vos was even more ready to carry out his part in this dejarik game than Sidious had dared hope. "What do you want with me, Sith?" Vos mumbled. His words were slurred and thick, as if he could barely force them from between bruised lips. "I want very little indeed," Sidious said, his voice soothing and even reasonable, and knew triumph when Vos winced away from his words, his wounded eyes showing the hit plainly even when his face held still and stoic. Ventress chuckled and laid her hand on the back of Vos's neck, her fingers curling tight around the vulnerable flesh and nails drawing blood like claws. The Jedi's eyes flashed, but he stayed still, silent, submissive. The dog believed he could trick the master, even now, after all this. What a fool this Jedi was, a fool who had yet to learn his place. "You may as well cease this pointless struggle," Sidious said. "It is only destroying you. Bit by bit, tendon by tendon, shard of that shattered mind by shard. Do you believe you would be of any use to the Jedi as you are now?" He let that sink in a moment before stepping closer and adding the inevitable reminder, "Supposing they still existed, of course. The only one left now is the Betrayer, and the one who has joined him, and the dried-up old husk of a little green Jedi master. What use would they have for you? What use would anyone have for you?" "I don't have to be of use to the Jedi," Vos rasped. He was panting for breath now. Ventress forced his head down further, and a low growl escaped the Jedi's throat. His chained, bloodied hands clenched. "All I have to do is . . . ." he broke off. His chest was heaving as he fought to take in air. Sidious increased the subtle Force-pressure against Vos's lungs, and Ventress's hand tightened at the same time. The Jedi's eyes were wild, fevered, confused. He was losing control over his thoughts, his emotions, the tight shields he'd fought so long to keep them under shattering as he fought to breathe. Feelings and emotions came spilling out from between the cracks, tumbling jumbled and razor-sharp and full of aching pain into Sidious's grasping fingers. He closed his mental hands around those feelings and pulled tight, and Vos jerked helplessly in Ventress's hold. "I control this galaxy now, Jedi," Sidious said. He reached out with the Force and tipped Vos's head back. Wide dark eyes, as trembling and liquid as those of a kath hound caught in a trap, stared startled and frantic into his. Ventress's hand curled enticingly around the strong muscles of that brown neck, the fluttering pulse at the fragile hollow of that working throat, her pale, icy skin an eye-catching contrast to Vos's dark warmth. What a fitting irony it was that the dark one should be as pale and pure as the snows of Mygeeto, while the struggling Jedi was already stained with darkness through his hair, his eyes, his skin. "What will happen to your wife and child now?" he prompted this second rogue Jedi. What was it that prompted all of them to make the same mistakes? So easily predicted, they were; how unoriginal those fools of Jedi Masters had made them, how desperate to feel anything at all that the dark side was always there, always waiting. Especially ones like this man and Skywalker, made for emotions and attachment and heroism, so that they could neither give up the life of a Jedi or the life of passion and feeling any more than they could give up the Force, or tell their lungs not to strain for air. "How will they fare, in a galaxy controlled by the Sith, controlled by my new Empire? A Force-sensitive half Kiffar child and his mother will be easy to find; they have no hope of hiding from me. I'm afraid they have very few choices left." Vos moaned, his mouth trembling as he strained against Sidious's control. It was so much easier to physically control the Kiffar, Sidious thought with satisfaction, the physical connection to the Force their bodies were so attuned to made it a simple thing to bend this recalcitrant Jedi's muscles to his will. "Shall I outline them for you?" Sidious continued. "One choice is that they will grow up in freedom and contentment and prosperity. You will choose the path of your own child, train him yourself, hold him in your arms, lift him as he falls, embrace his mother in the night—" Sidious shrugged and released his hold, letting Vos's head sag back down. The man let it hang there, gasping helplessly for breath. His shoulders were shaking visibly. "The other . . . ." he began. "I'm sure you don't require me to expand upon the details. You are an experienced man, you know the ways of the galaxy. You can imagine what I mean when I tell you that if you choose this path, the child will never know his father or his mother—one Khaleen Hentz, I believe?" He had the pleasure of seeing Vos's head snap up again at that. "You—you know about Khaleen?" he rasped. His voice was trembling. Broken, Sidious thought. Sidious laughed then, a thin, crackling sound that reverberated through the circular chamber as it bounced from wall to wall and back again. "You insult me, Jedi," he said, sneering the word. "Did you really imagine she would escape my notice? You fool, I am not a Dooku. You cannot play your games with me. I have no patience for novices, and that is all you are." He smiled. "Do you think your wife will last as long against me as you did?" he asked contemplatively as he reached out and patted Vos's burned cheek in a paternalistic fashion, smiling to himself as the Jedi flinched away. "I imagine your son will make a promising Sith." "No," Vos whispered. He squeezed his eyes shut, turned his face away. "No." His breath hitched. "Khaleen—" His sense in the Force was a roiling flood of emotion, all pain and fear and guilt and betrayal. "She trusts you," Sidious reminded him, keeping his voice deceptively gentle. "She believes in you, trusts that you will keep your promise and come back for her. Imagine her surprise, her pain, as the clones blast through the door, when they rip the child from her arms and she realizes that you have betrayed her after all. Just as you have betrayed everyone else, time and time again." A single tear slipped free of Vos's hold and trickled down his raw cheek. "Khaleen is strong." His voice broke. "You will not find her." His eyelids lifted, and his eyes flashed with painful fire. "And I will not serve you." The last was barely a whisper, barely a sound, but it was enough when he had managed to find those words inside himself out of the blackness of nothing. Sidious slammed a wave of Force-energy into the helpless Jedi, and Vos groaned as he was slammed bodily backward against Ventress. The woman smiled and tangled one hand in his hair, pulling his head back, and ignited her lightsaber so that the red blade thrummed and glowed just beneath the Jedi's chin, filling the room with the stink of ozone. Dark energy rippled blue along Vos's body, playing over his muscles and making him twitch and gasp, writhing at Sidious's will, his flesh coming dangerously close to the red light of the lightsaber. Then Sidious clenched his fist, cooling his anger and making it useful, allowing the lightning to dissipate. "You can tell that to Kenobi," he snapped. "I'm sure he will enjoy your defiance." Vos's breath caught, his eyes widened. "Obi-Wan?" he asked frantically. There was fear in that voice, true, shivering fear as there hadn't been even for his beloved wife and child. Simply fear for a friend, or fear for the fate of that friend's companion and thus the fate of the Jedi? "Here?" "Yes," Sidious breathed. "Here. It is pointless to resist, my dark Jedi. There is no escape for any of you now." Ventress lowered her lightsaber, and released her grip on Vos's hair, and he simply let his head drop. His heaving breaths sounded like sobs. "What do you ask of me?" he asked brokenly. It was enough for now, Sidious thought.
Anakin took a deep breath and held the ship steady, struggling to bury the impulse to glance uselessly out the viewport for the escape pod Obi-Wan was using to reach the Victory Star Destroyer. It was on the other side of the ship and looking would do nothing but distract him when he needed to stay focused, but that didn't change how much he needed to be certain they'd managed to make the connection, to know they had succeeded in that much at least. He blew his breath out slowly. Come on, Skywalker, he told himself firmly. Obi-Wan can take care of himself. You know that. Get a grip on yourself and do what he's counting on you to do. You can't let Palpatine—Sidious—get his hands on you again. Because—because I—I'm not ready, I don't know what I'll do, I'll fall again, I know I will, I'll let everyone down, and everything, all of this, will be for nothing— He pushed the panicking thoughts from his mind with an effort and concentrated on holding the ship steady for just one moment more, steadfastly ignoring the green splashes of light as lasers impacted the ship's shields. They were still above half strength. They'd hold.
The thought snuck in unbidden anyway
—At least Padmé will be safe, no matter what happens.Anakin gritted his teeth, fired at the lower half of the VSD, once, twice, three times, and then swung the ship away in a wide arc that would take him around over the VSD's central control tower. He couldn't think about Padmé now. He needed to focus on what he was doing. This was going to be tricky enough already, and he still wasn't entirely accustomed to the controls of Onasi's ship. He fired twice more at the tower and peeled off again before their turbolasers could get a good lock on him.
Obi-Wan would be all right. He had to be. They'd been through a thousand situations that had been worse than this. Hadn't they? Obi-Wan was the Negotiator, hero of a thousand battles and a thousand more missions. It was absolutely impossible for him to die here. He was being stupid, worrying about nothing. But—he could feel . . . feel him. There on the edges of his consciousness, just waiting, like a gigantic shell spider who knew his prey would fall into his web sooner or later, his darkness simmering around the edges of Anakin's mind. No. He wasn't going to think about that. He didn't have to think about him, what he wanted or demanded from him, anymore. Anakin rolled the ship on its side to escape a barrage of laser fire, then rolled it over and under again to come out on the far side of the smaller cruiser on the VSD's wing. Space them, anyway. Space Sidious, and his clone army, and their manipulations and the lies and the truths and all of it. Palpatine had set a trap for him and baited it with the one lure he would never, could never, resist, and he had walked into it like a stupid nerf and done exactly what the Sith had wanted him to do. Anakin fired two missiles into the communications blister on the side of the smaller cruiser, where the shields would be weaker since right now they were still angled toward the battle and away from him. He followed them with a quick but intense burst of laser fire and felt a rush of satisfaction as the shields flickered in the wake of the missiles and the lasers raked across the blister, leaving explosions and melted slag in their wake. That at least would cut down on coordination between the two ships and decrease the likelihood that reinforcements would arrive before Obi-Wan finished and they could escape. He was readying the ship for another volley when a crackle from the comm console caught his attention.
Oh, kriff, not now, he thought, and then he heard the voice struggling to reach him through the static, and everything inside him froze into sudden stillness.
"Anakin," came Padmé's voice, the tinny and metallic overlay rendered by the comm channel obscuring the warm sweetness of her voice. "Anakin, do you . . ." a crackle of static. "Anakin . . . read me . . . not sure if I'm getting through . . . important . . . ." As if in a dream, Anakin felt himself reach out with one hand and flick the comm channel to open, toggling it to greater reception, and pushed the button to record the message as he guided the ship with one hand. A small, translucent blue image of Padmé formed above the transceiver, and Anakin swallowed hard and forced himself to tear his eyes away long enough to guide the ship underneath the smaller transport and lift until the top of the ship was nearly scraping the cruiser's shields. The lower guns couldn't target him here due to their angle, and he'd nearly disappear into the larger ship's shadow on the clone pilots' sensors. He should be safe enough here until the message was complete. He turned his attention back to Padmé. It was nearly impossible to discern anything about how she was doing from the small, grainy holo, but it looked like she was wearing one of her flowing robes and had her hair up in an elaborate style that Anakin's eyes couldn't even attempt to follow in miniature as it was, so he figured she had to be feeling better, at least. The thought left him limp with relief, but he tensed again as soon as Padmé's voice coalesced into clarity and she began to speak. "Anakin," she said. "Obi-Wan, Commander Onasi. I can only hope that you receive this message. The matter is an urgent one." She paused, and Anakin swallowed hard. Urgent? "Due to unforeseen circumstances, Master Yoda thinks it best that we do not make for the assigned rendezvous point. Instead, we will be waiting for you to join us on the asteroids of Polis Massa. Senator Organa has contacted us; he is waiting for us there. We will remain there for five standard days upon reaching it and then go with him to Alderaan. We will transmit the coordinates to you, but like this message, they will be under a triple-encrypt only Commander Onasi's ship computer should be equipped to break." Her face softened; Anakin wasn't sure how he could tell, but he knew. "Be safe, Anakin," she said. "All of you. Obi-Wan, Shian says take care of yourself, don't push yourself too hard, and rest when you need to; she's thinking about you and she'll never forgive you if you collapse from exhaustion again." Anakin bit his lip, but was distracted from his renewed worry for Obi-Wan as Padmé reached up with her other hand and closed it over something around her neck. The japor snippet he'd given her, Anakin realized. His throat felt thick, and it suddenly hurt to swallow. "I know you'll be all right," she said. "I love you, Anakin. I'll be waiting for you. Don't you dare let me down." She brought her closed fist to her lips and kissed her knuckles, then stretched the hand out in his direction. Blowing him a kiss, Anakin thought, and pressed his gloved fingers to his lips to kiss it back. "Be safe, my love," she said again, and the image went still. Anakin reached out and touched the fingers of one trembling hand to the shimmering image, as insubstantial as cloud beneath his hand. "Padmé," he whispered, and the hoarseness of his voice surprised him. " The ship shuddered, and Anakin was thrown to the side. His hand swept through the holo as he flailed for a handhold and he slammed up against the side of the console. Pain sparked through him, exploding behind his eyes and up his side and back along half-healed wounds with liquid heat, but he clenched his hands into fists and shoved it back, reaching recklessly for the Force to steady him and clear his vision. The starfield before him came back into focus and he realized the cruiser above him was moving, causing its shields to slam into his smaller ship and jolt it to the side. Anakin pushed himself back up away from the console and grabbed hold of the controls to swing the ship out from under the cruiser and back into the battle. "Break time over," he muttered, tracking a nearby fighter with his eyes as he readied his lasers. "Try this on for size." He fired and was already climbing as the lasers ripped the fighter apart. He suppressed the brief flare of guilt it left in his chest—it didn't matter that he'd been fighting alongside these very clones less than a week ago, no matter how wrong it felt. They were his enemies now. He kept climbing, shunting his shields aft, before he leveled and spun, presenting the VSD with his back as he sprayed the fighter before him with laser blasts. He didn't like to be a pessimist, but there sure were a lot of them. And while he was definitely good, definitely better than any of the pilots out there—and Obi-Wan thought he was the best pilot in the galaxy; the warm glow of pride and recognition those words had left hadn't quite dissipated yet—he still didn't know how long he could keep this up.
Well, he thought stubbornly, it'll just have to be long enough, that's all.
But another part of him was thinking, Master, if you're taking your time about this, I'm going to be annoyed.
"All right," Anakin said, narrowing his eyes at the fighters. "Bring it on. Let's see how good you really are."