Coruscant, Jedi Temple
I hadn't planned for the eventuality of my Master knowing how the galaxy was slated to burn. I'd wondered plenty of times if I would ever see something break the seemingly impenetrable poise Dark Woman maintained despite the pain and regret I knew the Jedi Master continued to feel over the fate of Aurra Sing, yet hearing one sob she choked back as I watched one tear trickle into one of the lines about her still vibrantly blue eyes was somehow worse than witnessing a more complete breakdown. All the other facets of the grim future I'd outlined had been met with grim equanimity or simple resignation, but hearing how her beloved Jedi Order had essentially walked of it's own volition to the headsman's block, laid down it's head, and only realized the peril after the axe had fallen was a truth which had clearly cut her to the bone.
It wasn't going to turn out that way, this time. Something I'd been quick to point out, because she'd looked so pained and forlorn for several very long moments of silence. Dark Woman had been quick to put it all in sufficient perspective for her lifetime of self-discipline to assist in the regaining of her previous centered calm, but for me it had all been disturbingly revealing. Seeing what it was like for someone who'd made their entire life a matter of service to the Jedi ways and ideals as they faced up to the chinks in Order's armor, and the flaws in it's methodologies. Thankfully, the discussion hadn't needed to go on for much longer. Ending as my Master had bidden me return to my own quarters and prepare for our early morning departure. Presumably leaving her to meditate on everything she'd learned. I'd started for the door almost eagerly, because I was still not entirely reconciled to the fact I'd taken the most enormous of chances with the galaxy's fate, or that I'd done so not as part of a well reasoned out response to the threat posed by the Sith. It was all due to my not being able to stand lying to the one person I felt a genuine connection with any longer.
Just before I could make my escape, however, my Master lobbed a couple of final questions at me. Causing me to have to stop and consider something I truly hadn't put the enormous amount of thought into one might have expected.
"Has it all been a matter of reaching a point where someone would believe you about the Sith, Anakin? I'm not doing anything but stating a fact, when I say I've never seen a Padawan work harder than you do. Is it all a matter of your feeling beholden to the Force, or is there something more?"
I looked back over my shoulder rather than turning, because I didn't want this to become a protracted discussion of matters I simply wasn't ready to talk about. There were many ways I could have answered Dark Woman's questions, but ultimately I decided the personal details weren't as germane as what I wanted to accomplish, and what really drove me to continue when the pain and strain were more than I'd ever experienced.
"I want to do more than simply save the Jedi from being exterminated by the current Sith plot, Master. I want to help effect positive change in the Order's ways, but doing that peacefully means winning the respect of all the Jedi, and convincing them I know what I'm talking about. The Jedi are my heroes, but sometimes heroes need to be saved from themselves" I answered forthrightly after a moment to organize my goals into streamlined statements.
In spite of myself and the grim pall hanging over this conversation, I had to smile briefly, then, as another thought bubbled up. One which I thought might cheer the old woman still coming to terms with the disaster in need of preventing. "Besides, who wouldn't want to be a Jedi? Jedi Guardians get to roam the galaxy, combat evil directly, and right wrongs no one else can. All while enjoying a profound physical, mental, and spiritual connection to the wellspring of all life. It seems like a very rewarding way to spend my life."
The smile my comment elicited was weak yet genuine, so I inclined my head respectfully and slipped from the room. Allowing the door to hiss shut behind me, as I quickly padded to my own room kitty-corners to my Master's. My own smile had faded as I walked, because one series of thoughts kept bouncing about the inside of my head even after I'd reached my quarters and hurried inside.
"I took an unconscionable risk with the galaxy's future. It doesn't really matter that it turned out for the best, this time. I had, I have no right to put my personal needs ahead of the tens of trillions of people who will suffer and die if Palpatine becomes Emperor."
It didn't take me long to finish storing for travel both the trio of small droids and the control interface I'd been able to build over the last month. Being able to requisition credits and materials for an actual mission (once my Master approved my requests) had proven to be rather awesome. Opening up avenues of design and construction I didn't normally have access to when scrounging and working off of my own modest Padawan's stipend. Access to the Temple's machining division beneath the main hangar had permitted me to complete three recon-drones shaped like dragonflies the size of small hawks in the time it would have taken me to finish one of them on my own. Droid fabricators and component-printing eliminated a huge amount of the drudge work. Now, I had something to genuinely contribute to the mission. Damn those who looked at me like some kind of freak for being able to alter designs and construct complex technological devices at my tender age. It had to be some rare and poorly understood aspect of Force-sensitivity, because how these things went together, or should go together simply came to me.
The rest of my belongings didn't take long to pack, then I was able to throw myself down on my bed. Sleep proved rather elusive, however, and this despite today having been a triple physical segment day. I was far enough along in my Matukai training to go without sleep for seven or eight days straight and suffer no ill effects, but doing so felt irresponsible when most of my visions came during slumber. I'd eventually split the difference and begun sleeping every third day, so I could squeeze in an extra forty hours of self-study each week during the night.
"Not my nighttime routine since we began our stay here in the Temple, but they were still hours and a monthly stipend exceptionally well-spent" I thought with cold black humor. Considering a saying a certain spymaster in Sidious's employ was desperately in need of hearing.
"Pride goeth before a fall, Kinman. I only wish I could be there to watch the master you've served with such obsessive devotion for all these years kill you when he discovers what you've missed. The irony being that you could have effortlessly won our little undeclared shadow war for control of the Temple's droids and the few audio-visual pickups you've managed to insinuate into the Temple. You have almost infinite financial and technical resources, after all. Nothing has challenged your dominance over the flow of information within the Temple in more than ten years, so you let yourself grow so complacent you aren't even checking to remain sure your subverted droid bug-carriers are still properly subverted. Just so long as those audio pickups keep feeding you intel, right?"
It had taken the half-dozen droids I'd built on Cophrigin V nearly four weeks with my assistance to create an information black hole concerning the mission to Mimban. I could have gone faster, but using Force-based shenanigans to ensure my droids weren't getting spotted or otherwise detected by the spymaster's surveillance took planning, patience, and an almost anal-retentive attention to detail. If I hadn't done four more full sweeps after I was "positive" I'd caught everything, I would have missed the bug under Yoda's favored meditation-seat in the Room of a Thousand Fountains. All of this had been greatly helped along by the fact that security in the Temple was actually nearly air-tight. Having just a couple of easy to address blind-spots which had been taken advantage of by Palpatine's ultimately self-taught spymaster. It hadn't all been me, either. Discretely pestering the Temple Guardians had eventually resulted in, as the irony of the century, the Jedi Knight who would be remembered as THE Inquisitor by a legion of Rebels fans realizing there really was a problem with the Temple's e-security. I had Dark Woman's backup (as usual) to thank for that one, but the thought of what was going to happen gave me a warm and fuzzy feeling as I settled in and got comfortable in my bed.
Not that I'd actually eliminated any of Kinman Doriana 's handiwork. Why do half the bastard's work for him and send up a red flag that things had changed, when I could simply ensure nothing about Yoda leading a Jedi contingent off-planet reached the bastard?
"I really won't be all that sorry about leaving the Temple behind though. The constant scrutiny, getting ostracized by four-fifths of my peers, and being constrained in my training has given me a new appreciation for what Anakin went through." These were my last coherent observations, before I was finally able to still my mind enough to drop off to sleep.
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(The Next Day)
The vessel we'd been waiting all these weeks for proved to be the Argent Bulwark. It was a heavily modified KR-TB "Doomtreader" . My pilot's eyes easily picked out the five additional military-grade deflector shield nodes running in sequence along the spine of the ship. The fuse-tempered durasteel sheath armor plating, and triple-redundancy repulsors to aid it's flight during adverse atmospheric conditions. There was also evidence the factory sub-light engines had been upgraded, but it was the two banks of rotating quad-laser batteries which had replaced the standard pair of forward and aft-mounted laser cannons which were the most overt changes to the ship's profile. Finally, there were the anti-missile and torpedo point-defense bubbles beneath each of the hammer-headed craft's broad wings. With it's Class 2 Hyperdrive, what had begun life as a light freighter as fast as it was robust had become a small flying fortress. One capable of enduring nearly anything it might encounter in-flight. At least long enough to escape into hyperspace.
"Impressive, even the stock Doomtreaders are extremely robust ships, but this refit could probably bull it's way through a field of sky-mines without suffering any major damage. All the extra inertial dampening provided by the after-market repulsor additions mean anyone on board would only perceive the simultaneous detonations of a half-dozen such mines as moderate turbulence. There's no atmosphere surrounding a planet that people can walk on unassisted that the Argent Bulwark couldn't handle effortlessly" I murmured to my Master as we walked side by side at the end of the Jedi contingent now boarding.
"That's why it took so long for the factors of the High Council to negotiate the Argent Bulwark's acquisition. The Order's need to purchase the vessel from it's own seldom tapped savings. as opposed to a budgeted-for requisition from the Republic, meant we couldn't use government suppliers. Not when any of them might be taking a page from the Republic Sienar Systems/Legends playbook to install surveillance devices" Dark Woman quietly murmured back. Favoring me with a meaningful glance which seemed to say "See? We might be blind at times, but the Jedi aren't fools."
We boarded the ship, and I soon got my next surprise. The interior was nearly all colored the same dull silver as the outside of the ship, and had obviously undergone just as extensive a refit as the exterior components of the vessel had. All the way fore were durasteel blast double-doors protecting the pilot's compartment, and to either side of those were advanced communication and scanning stations that had been added from the ground up to a freighter which would otherwise possess only rudimentary versions of each. For security reasons, droids were manning both stations. Running the length of the two-abreast walkway, there were two compartments on the left, and one on the right because of what I recognized as a secondary fusion reactor linked to the redundant repulsors taking up a chunk of the bulkhead down aft and to the right. I didn't see any of the other Jedi besides my Master at my side and Yoda. Who was standing in front of the door on the right as he looked intently up at me.
"With me, young Skywalker, you will bunk. Answers, we each from the other might glean. The wisdom or folly of silence, included." Other than the announcement about the sleeping arrangements, the rest was much more invitation than command.
I glanced helplessly at my Master. Who only shrugged slightly as she pointed out "This is his expedition, and he is the Grandmaster. You'll notice the sass I lob the High Council's way is never directed toward Master Yoda, so I suggest you make your peace with the idea rapidly. Besides, you really need to begin internalizing the notion you can open up to someone beyond me, Anakin."
With that she glided gracefully toward the compartment furthest fore and to the right. Disappearing through the silver door without a glance backward as soon as it opened. Once it hissed shut, I was alone with the oldest and most powerful Jedi in existence. Trying to figure out what I should do about him all but announcing he knew I was hiding things.
The tap-tap-tapping of Yoda's walking stick sounded like the ticking detonator of a bomb to me, as the ancient Jedi hobbled through the open cabin door to disappear within. Left with no other viable choices, I followed him inside the minimalistically appointed compartment. Noting the small cot with simple white sheets and a gray comforter in the room's far left corner. The circular meditation seat at the foot of said cot, and the padded armchair standing opposite that seat. A glance to my right from my position just inside the doorway revealed a larger bunk. One with a small bucket full of round gray meditation stones at it's foot. The door to the cabin's fresher stood closed a couple steps past the bucket, but it was the large table in the middle of the room and it's built-in comm unit that stood out the most of the room's furnishings. I noticed a few other details, like a small food-refrigeration unit immediately left of the door, with it's plate and cutlery storage just above it, but these were in passing things. It was the Grandmaster's gaze I could feel on me like a palpable contact. All but forcing me to meet his gaze and acknowledge him.
"You knew I was nudging you toward leading this mission, but you not only went along with it. You brought my Master and I with you. Why, Master Yoda?" I'd decided I wasn't getting out of this without some measure of disclosure, so now was as good a time as any to begin.
Obviously not surprised by the speed of my confession. The diminutive green alien climbed up onto his meditation seat, settled himself, then lifted his walking stick to point it's tip at the chair opposite him. Once I'd dropped into the chair without taking my eyes off the riddle wrapped in an enigma sitting across from me, Yoda replied in a quiet, forthright manner "When more than eight hundred and fifty years old, you are. Shatterpoints without a natural talent, you too will perceive."
I felt my cheeks grow warm, as I belatedly grew aware of just how arrogant I'd been. Believing I could put one over on Yoda of all people. Still, there was a reason he hadn't had my braid ripped off for something like Assault With a Metaphysical Weapon. Meaning it only made sense that learning this reason would explain why the incredibly powerful Jedi seemed amused rather than outraged. Before I could ask a question to that effect, he seemed to change the subject. It wouldn't be until I considered the totality of this conversation later, that I'd realize he was answering my question before I'd asked it.
"A report from Ossus, I received. Knowledge of the happenings there, I need not explain, hmm?" The statement coupled with the follow-up question couldn't possibly have been more leading. Announcing without actually saying so that he knew it had been me who persuaded Masters Dooku and Sifo-Dyas to have the area immediately northeast of the place where the Great Library checked out by a Jedi. It had taken getting my Master involved, but eventually the pair were convinced to reach out to an old friend of Sifo-Dyas's in the Exploration Corps.
"Doing my best to ensure Master Bnar would be rescued was the right thing to do" I replied evenly. Keeping my answer simple and direct, because the idea of lying to the ancient Jedi Master was laughable. I'd hoped that Master Dooku and Sifo-Dyas might be able to keep my name unconnected to the rescue, but realized that had been a vain hope from the very beginning.
"I really shouldn't be surprised the members of the various Jedi Service Corps lack the unquestioned freedom of movement that Jedi Knights and Masters possess." It was a reasonable state of affairs, because most members of the Service Corps weren't highly trained combatants. The Order needed to know where they were, else where would a Sentinel begin looking, if trouble befell them?
Ever perceptive, Yoda seemed to sense my disappointment. He cocked his head to the side quizzically, as he observed in a very neutral manner "Pleased, many a Padawan would be. By the knowledge their actions would be recognized. Anonymous, you hoped to remain. Why?"
I took a deep breath, but this was an easy one. "I was taught to do the right thing because it's the right thing to do" I said it simply. Realizing it was probably one of the best, truest sentences I'd ever spoken. Noticing Yoda seemed to be waiting for something more, I couldn't help admitting "I would prefer being known for the character traits behind my choices, rather than having people think they know me because they can recall my most easily sensationalized decisions."
The smile on the small Grandmaster's lined face was brief and followed by another hmm, but I felt as if I'd passed some kind of test.
"The bunk behind you, yours is. Time for my meditation, it is" Yoda suddenly and rather abruptly stated. It was a clear dismissal that momentarily threw me, but I quickly rose from the chair and moved to the bunk. I'd recently begun levitating eight to ten stones like the ones in the bucket at the foot of the bed like the older Padawans as I meditated, but I was having a difficult time getting started. Unanswered questions rattled around in my head, but I resolutely began setting them aside. Even as I wondered if this was another test.
My first attempt to raise all ten stones in a stable, sustainable manner was a failure. Three of the hard spheres clattering to the deck plating as errant questions intruded on my focus. Gritting my teeth, I began again. Conscious of a certain Jedi Master's silent amusement as I did so. Something I supposed I'd earned, because I never stopped pushing myself. A practice I didn't believe my cabin-mate was a big believer in.
"You've already had something like nine centuries to go slow and steady, Grandmaster. I need to be able to out-fight Dark Jedi Weaponmasters before my twenty-fifth life-day. Not a necessity leaving a lot of room for an easygoing training schedule" I silently growled. Focusing with the drive that sustained me when nothing else did to get those stone up and steady around me. If the galaxy burned about me, it wasn't going to be because I hadn't done everything I possibly could to stop it.
Eventually, I succeeded as my breathing deepened and my thoughts were submerged in the low humming of the Force. There'd be time for curiosity and continued questions later. Right now, there was as always the never ending Training Itinerary.
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Coruscant, Republic Executive Building (Same Day)
The man the galaxy knew as the dignified, often amiable, and always articulate Chancellor of the Republic was as tense as he was coldly, collectedly furious, but these feelings were not new. They'd been with him, and intensifying, ever since events had begun to deviate from the carefully orchestrated design he and his thankfully deceased teacher had been meticulously creating for years. The new day, with it's intense demands of both his personas, would begin in only a few hours. Yet as he paced the confines of the expansive bedroom like a caged Vorn tiger and considered these deviations with icy deliberation, Palpatine dismissed sleep as impossible.
With the exception of his assassin's untimely loss, events up to and including the elimination of Plagueis on the eve of his ascension to the Chancellorship could not have proceeded more perfectly. With naught but a handful of softly spoken words, fools all about him were persuaded to consign themselves to destruction on a regular basis. Only after their collective utilities had been appropriated, of course. Maybe that was it, he reflected sourly. Could he be growing complacent, as those weak, blind fools, the Jedi? The thought wasn't dismissed for it's repugnance, because he seldom allowed emotion to enter into his calculations. It was abandoned because it didn't fit. He was keenly aware how vulnerable he would remain until he solved the conundrums brought on by the deviations.
"Bringing me back to square one." Here in the unquestioned privacy of a bedroom swept for all manners of surveillance twice each day and twice a night, for that matter, he allowed his lips to draw back in an uncharacteristic snarl of discontent at the thought.
The temptation to blame it all on the damnably intractable Cloners almost seduced him. His every effort (through intermediaries he was artfully shielded from being connected to, of course) to persuade the Kaminoans that, as the inheritor of the accounts drawn on to fund their largest and most elaborate commission, he should be allowed to modify said commission continued to fail. It wasn't a matter of credits or favors, at least not directly. In much the same way that bankers held the privacy of their account-holders sacrosanct not on any moral basis, but due to their fear that failing to do so would undermine clientele confidence and cause the collapse of their edifice. The highly regimented powers of the flooded world had become convinced no one would wish to trust them with commissions this ambitious in future, if it were ever revealed they'd allowed a commission to be modified without the appropriate proofs. In their minds, since Jedi Master Sifo-Dyas's thumbprint and biometric scan was attached to the commission-authorization documentation, then only Sifo-Dyas or a duly designated representative acting on his behalf could order modifications to the ongoing commission.
"Netherworld of the Force, it's taken my agents half a standard year of negotiations just to get them to agree that the Jedi Order are the actual holders of the commission, and that as such, Sifo-Dyas was merely the agent of the Order in this matter" Palpatine muttered under his breath. Which brought him straight to the second thorn in his heel.
Dooku. The aging Jedi from Sorenno had seemed to have his feet squarely planted on the first night-black stones of the Dark Path. Only for something to suddenly cause him to draw back and seem to reconsider his present course. It had been such an unexpected development and rare miscalculation with regards to human nature, the Sith Lord had felt himself seized by the desire to scream in frustration for the first time since shortly before that wonderfully cathartic orgy of violence which had done away with his loathsome parents. He'd been leading the Jedi Master and the Kaminoans down converging paths that would have simultaneously solved the problem of getting the inhibitor-chips implanted into the Fett-clones, then this latest setback had stalled those plans. Once he'd persuaded Dooku to kneel, it would have been a simple matter to induce him to betray his long-time friend in such a way as to see that the Cloners were satisfied as to their damnable proofs-of-commission. Now, the man had been most recently tracked to Ossus of all places. Where it seemed he'd played a part in recovering from hibernation an ancient Jedi. One of Dooku's primary weakness was a hunger for new Force-lore. Meaning this new, or rather very old, Jedi might inadvertently be the one to feed Dooku's hunger in a manner not at all helpful to the furtherance of the Grand Plan. Something not lost on the Sith for an instant.
"It's the boy and his damnable visions. A thousand years of strengthening the Dark Side on the part of every Sith since Bane to create a shroud capable of blinding the Jedi, and Plagueis's overly ambitious meddling seems to have given the fools sight when I most need them to remain blind." Sidious thought to himself. He couldn't (yet) prove it, but he had no doubt young Anakin Skywalker was responsible for leading the Jedi to their ancient compatriot. Momentarily, he considered placing a contract on the apprentice's life, but dismissed the idea as both premature and horrifically wasteful. There was time yet, and the boy seemed to warm to him well enough.
Besides, Palpatine reminded himself to regain the icy, crystal clear clarity of purpose which was his greatest strength. There were plenty of other portions of the Plan advancing as beautifully as could be hoped. His new apprentice was in many ways far superior to Maul. Being in many ways an ideal blending of the Zabrak's ferocious tenacity and incredible athleticism, with Dooku's skill, cunning, focus, and persuasiveness as a statesman. Darth Ximshak, with the vast Bulq family assets at his disposal, was even comparable to the might-be Count of Sorenno on that front. His efforts with the disparate groups which would eventually be welded into an organized secessionist movement had been as exemplary as they were as-yet well-concealed, and the project just begun on Saleucami beneath his personal direction showed exceptional promise.
A few setbacks, even one as troubling as the difficulties with the Kaminoans, didn't justify this anxiety bordering on, yes, he could admit it, fear. It was almost as if the shadows within the darkness were whispering a warning he'd been all but deafened to, but what could it be?
Decisively, he went to a console and summoned both Kinman and Pestage to his secret complex in the Works. He was missing something, but possessed enough insight from the Force to know what he was missing, one of the two men could direct him to. It wasn't a deeply buried truth. Just one which had somehow eluded him, and he would know it within the day. This, he grimly vowed as he prepared to slip from the building.