FicWad

As General Grievous straightens and rises from out of his very carefully penitential and submissive position in the floor - having knelt down on both knees, much closer to the ground than normal, to properly convey both his subservience to Master Sidious and his regret for having failed to obey all of Sidious' orders, during the meticulously choreographed attack on Coruscant - he is plagued by a feeling that is so disconcertingly unfamiliar that it is all but alien to him. If he could have, then, he would have been tempted to frown. Instead, as Grievous turns all of his considerable attention inwards, towards the identification of this strange sensation, his starkly yellow-gold eyes blaze with ferocious concentration, the cold, hard fire of their burning revealing his displeasure over this distraction at least as clearly as any facial expression once might have.

His initial analysis of the strange sensation - simple confusion - is obviously incomplete, and therefore incorrect. His second, more thorough attempt at analysis - confusion coupled with a nagging doubt as to the nature of Sidious' actual end goal beneath all of those convoluted dejarik-style lures within plots within carefully laid and planned traps, the final intent behind the Sith Lord's machinations suddenly far too oblique, despite what has always seemed to be imminently obvious motivations - is insufficient to account for the magnitude, and now steadily increasing strength, of Grievous' disturbance. However, despite two faulty conclusions, a more complete and coherent picture is beginning to form. And Sidious, at least temporarily the sole remaining Dark Lord of the Sith - an extremely powerful being whose breadth and depth of knowledge and wide-ranging influence has been absolutely vital towards the fulfillment of Grievous' ultimate goal, regarding the brutalization, humiliation, defeat, and eventual utter destruction of both the Jedi Order and their precious Galactic Republic - obviously lies at the heart of it. So whatever it might be, it is clearly not something that Grievous can afford to let drop or even to simply keep for a while, until a more opportune time for analysis presents itself. And so he swiftly and methodically redoubles his efforts to understand the strange sensation that is plaguing him.

Grievous is still working his way through the necessary comparisons and calculations when a seemingly stray memory intrudes. It is only a brief interruption - a small memory, only a snatch of conversation overheard along a decapitated droid's still active open comlink, when those two infernal Jedi, Kenobi and Skywalker, had been making their way through the ship to the place where Palpatine was being held captive, watched over by Count Dooku. Just before the two had been (unfortunately only temporarily) trapped in a sealed off generator room rapidly filling with leaking fuel, Kenobi had quietly, warningly, declared, "Anakin, I have a bad feeling about this. We cannot afford to allow ourselves to be herded along like this. Where there is one trap, there may very well be others." - but it is, surprisingly enough, quite telling. And helpfully informative. Because the strange sensation inspired within him by Sidious' communication can, apparently, be summed up with and explained by those very words. Grievous is suffering from confusion and concern over a bad feeling.

It is a bad feeling about things in general, given Sidious' rather uncharacteristic calm regarding the apparent frustration and ultimate failure of his plans, regarding the Separatist attack on Coruscant, and the part that General Grievous obviously played in the defeat of those schemes - plots that Sidious has now abandoned or else severely adapted with far too much ease, despite the fact that he obviously spent quite a bit of time and effort on arranging and setting them into motion in the first place, and in spite of the fact that none of Sidious' other allies who have so spectacularly taken part in (and arguably even been at least partially responsible for the outright botching of) any of Sidious' meticulously planned schemes with outcomes that have so obviously failed to achieve their intended ends have ever truly been given a second chance to reprove their worth or to otherwise make up for the mess they have (however inadvertently) helped to make of Sidious' overall plans, regarding the war. Grievous has undeniably failed Sidious, in regards to this mission, and quite spectacularly.

Surely, Sidious must know that Grievous' failure to escape from Invisible Hand with anything more than his life is a much a reflection upon the General's own failure to adequately control his crew - so that it would have been realized, soon enough to have bypassed the crew's futile and time-wasting efforts to attempt to ascertain whether or not the Jedi and the Supreme Chancellor had survived the loss of the ship's conning spire, which had been ripped away from the badly damaged craft and cast out of orbit into a long burning fall towards the planetary city's surface by centripetal force, that Palpatine's location beacon had never been deactivated by the Jedi, and all three men could have been captured and brought to Grievous before the ship began to deorbit - as it is upon Dooku's failure to defend himself against the Jedi. Though the death of Invisible Hand had been imminent from the moment the two Jedi first made their way aboard, General Grievous' own life had never been at risk, and Lord Sidious must know that. A specially designed escape module had been preprogrammed to take him directly to another ship, one safely out of the press of battle and already primed for jump. Mere seconds after being sealed within that module's heavily armored hull - a module that had been specifically meant to carry off both Grievous and the Supreme Chancellor, at the very least, though it also could have accommodated Dooku and up to two human prisoners - the module would have been taken aboard that fleeing ship, which would then have made a series of randomized microjumps to prevent it from being tracked before entering into the final jump to the secret base on Utapau.

Sidious had planned it all out very carefully. Grievous should not have been willing to go without the Supreme Chancellor, no matter how bad the odds looked. The operation had cost the Confederacy dearly in both ships and personnel; to leave empty-handed had been an even graver cost in prestige. Winning the war has always been more than half a matter of propaganda: much of the weakness of the Galactic Republic stems directly from its citizens' superstitious dread of the Separatists' seemingly inevitable victory - a dread meticulously cultivated and nourished by the CIS shadowfeed that constantly poisons government propaganda on the HoloNet. Up until the moment those two infernal Jedi returned to Coruscant with Palpatine safely in tow, the common masses of the Republic had believed that the Republic was losing the war; to see the legendary Grievous himself beaten back and fleeing a battle had given them hope that the war might be won - a hope that simply should never have been allowed to sprout. Unless Sidious no longer intends to win the way, the setback that they have suffered, because of Grievous' failure, is such that Sidious should be personally rending Grievous limb from limb, not genially giving him a second chance to prove himself. Thus, the sensation plaguing Grievous is also specifically a bad feeling about the notion that Darth Sidious' far too accepting attitude stems from the fact that the Sith Lord apparently does regard this entire war as nothing more than his own personal elaborate, galactic-wide game of dejarik.

If this is all just a game to Sidious, a game whose apparent ultimate goal now seems to be the successful sundering of the Kenobi and Skywalker team, the entrapment and destruction of Kenobi, and the winning of a new and better Dark apprentice for Sidious - an apprentice whose identity, however carefully not stated by Sidious, currently most logically appears to be Anakin Skywalker, the Jedi's Chosen One, himself - then how can General Grievous afford to continue to trust in Sidious' previously stated intent to defeat and destroy both the Jedi Order and the Galactic Republic, realistically speaking? How can he trust that Sidious won't, if necessary, just shrug and sacrifice, say, Grievous, in order to get Kenobi away from Skywalker long enough to win Skywalker over to his side? In truth, how can he even be sure that this Jedi trap of Sidious' isn't also intended to be a trap for Grievous, to get rid of the last living link between Sidious and the Separatists? Mustafar has been intended as a trap and a tomb for the remaining members of the Separatist government, from the very beginning, as Grievous is well aware. How can he be sure that the so-called Jedi trap of Utapau isn't also meant to be a trap and a tomb for the final remaining military leader of the Separatist movement? If all Darth Sidious truly wants is to get Obi-Wan Kenobi out of the picture so that he can safely claim Anakin Skywalker and mold him into his own apprentice . . .

General Grievous shakes his head. Obviously, Sidious can no longer be relied upon as a means by which to ensure the downfall of the hypocritical Jedi Order and their corrupt Republic. In almost taking Sidious' much too reasonable response to the failure of his stated plans for the attack on Coruscant at face value and, therefore, continuing to simply trust in Sidious' continued usefulness to him - based upon the convenient and surprisingly broad coincidence of much of the Sith Lord's avowed plans for the galaxy with Grievous' own overriding goal in life - the General has nearly made a seriously grave error. A mistake that potentially might have defeated his plans by prematurely ending his life in the trap that is Utapau.

Fortunately - though luck has rather much less to do with it than good planning does - Lord Sidious is not the only one who knows how to plan for possible setbacks, regardless of how foolproof a plan might seem. Unfortunately, in Grievous' experience, the fools inevitably almost always end up being far more resourceful than one initially plans for.

That's what second, contingency plans are for. And backup plans for those contingency plans. And - just in case, just to be on the safe side - contingency plans for the backup plans to the contingency plans of the original plan. If things go wrong badly enough and quickly enough to exhaust the possibility of redeeming a situation after falling back on four different sets of plans, the odds are that the particular circumstances that were being aimed for were never going to be achievable with the resources available to and allocated by those plans, in the first place.

Grievous originally allowed himself to be talked into becoming hired muscle for the InterGalactic Banking Clan because the IBC chairman, San Hill, obviously had little respect for the laws of the Galactic Republic, and the IBC had been willing to forgive all of the war debts that the Kaleesh had incurred over the course of the disastrous Huk War and to help repair the damage to Kalee as well as to help rebuild the planet's decimated infrastructure in return for Grievous' assistance. It had seemed the most logical place to start, in regards to his plans to revenge himself and his people on the Jedi Order and the Republic who had both ignored them while they were at war with the Huk and then humiliated them by forcing them to make reparations to their defeated enemy that had first bankrupted their already suffering planetwide economy and then utterly crushed the remaining will and spirit of a vast majority of the far too few surviving Kaleesh people. Though the work was far but honorable, Grievous had stayed with the IBC until he had learned that the Huk were once again vandalizing sacred burial grounds of the Kaleesh, and then he had summoned his Izvoshra warriors to him, so that they could come to the defense of Kalee. When Martyr, the troop shuttle carrying them towards a new war with the Huk, had crashed, killing all of the Izvoshra, Grievous had recognized San Hill's hand in the catastrophe, striking him down for daring to abandon his contract with the IBC. Yet, the offer of Geonosian technology had presented a way for him to survive the otherwise inevitably fatal damage inflicted upon him in that crash, and the offer of it had required a slight change of plans.

Because San Hill had made the operation possible, Grievous had acted with honor and made the decision to spare the wretched being's life. He had not, however, felt bound to Hill or the IBC. After successfully undergoing the procedure, Grievous had been introduced to Count Dooku of Serenno, a former Jedi Master who had willingly broken with the Jedi Order, and it had become plain to Grievous that here was a man who despised the hypocrisy of the Jedi Order and the corruption of the Galactic Republic almost as much as he did, a man who would make a much stronger and more formidable ally than San Hill and the IBC ever could. Grievous had, therefore, willingly and entirely shifted his allegiance from Hill to Dooku, agreeing to undergo specialized training that would, according to Dooku, better fit him to be able to stand against the Jedi, should he ever be forced to face one or more of them in battle.

In doing so, and in proving himself by excelling at his training, Grievous had won enough of Count Dooku's trust to eventually be told about the Count's second identity, as Lord Tyranus of the Sith, apprentice to the last of the Dark Lords of the Sith. His plans - and his loyalty - had, therefore, shifted again, as he learned of Darth Sidious and proved himself worthy of meeting the man. Although Sidious has always been quite careful to conceal his identity from all of his allies - except, of course, for his own Dark apprentice, Dooku/Tyranus - among the forces that would, eventually, become first the Separatist movement and then the Confederacy of Independent Systems, Grievous has never been overly bothered by the Sith Lord's apparent lack of trust. The Sith's detailed knowledge of the innermost workings of the Republic is such that it is obvious, to Grievous, that the man occupies a position of power within the Republic's government, most likely within the Senate. The man's obsession with anonymity is, therefore, understandable, to Grievous. The Sith Lord has certainly never tried to hide or even to truly downplay his implacable hatred of the Jedi and his determination both to utterly destroy the Jedi Order and to take down the corrupt government of the Republic that the Jedi are known to be guardians of - and probably also take over, either in the process or the aftermath of dismantling that government. The Sith Lord's intentions had seemed obvious, from the beginning, and Grievous had been certain that this, at last, was the perfect ally, the man with enough power, vision, and patience to see to it that Grievous' plans for revenge would be fulfilled, to the last letter.

Convinced of Sidious' superior usefulness and the absolute necessity of cultivating and then keeping his support, as an invaluable ally in Grievous' quest for revenge against the Jedi Order and the Galactic Republic, or not, though, Grievous has not been foolish enough to simply place all of his trust and hope in only Sidious. With Dooku dead now, though, and the remaining leaders of the CIS reduced to a group of sniveling cowards hiding in a bunker on Mustafar - who are, thankfully, soon to be exterminated, like the nest of rats they are - Grievous' options are far more limited than he would like. He still has at least one other viable option, though, and so he's going to take it. Even if Sidious does happen to intend for Utapau to be Grievous' tomb, as well, and things happen to fall out so that he is not able to break free of this trap . . . well, the, at least he can see to it that others will continue to work towards the fulfillment of his life's goal.

After all, with as apparently as forgiving an attitude as the final Sith Lord has ultimately proven to have, Grievous can certainly no longer rely on Sidious for the absolute destruction of the Jedi Order and the complete dismantlement of the governing body of the Galactic Republic.

The proper production and management of Raith Sienar's creation, on the other hand . . .

If it were still possible for General Grievous to experience real pleasure - and to actually be physically capable of forming facial expressions any longer - then he might have smiled, at the thought. But he is no longer capable of feeling pleasure, and he is certainly not able to make his immobile cyborg face - little more than a mask of bleached ceramic armorplast, stylized to evoke the impression of a bare, bleached humanoid skull, built to make the most of his reptilian yellow-gold eyes and carefully fitted in place around the preserved remains of his Kaleesh brain - form true facial expressions. However, Grievous is still quite capable of feeling satisfaction, and contemplation of a way to see to that the fulfillment of his one true goal in life - the humiliation and destruction of his most hated enemies and the two organizations most directly responsible for the perpetuation of their hateful kind - will become inevitable, regardless of the continuance of his own life, gives rise to a certain gloriously hate-filled gloating sort of primal satisfaction that not only approximates but clearly surpasses anything so mundane and petty as mere pleasure. In fact, it is a source of joy - if it is in any way appropriate to equate the emotion of joy, as felt by beings of flesh and of spirit, with the overwhelmingly adrenaline-fueled and all but euphoric sensation, as experienced by a hybridized being much more machine than flesh or spirit, of eminent gratification resulting from the contemplation of an orgy of pain, death, and destruction.

The notion might seem repugnant, even perverted, to beings of frail flesh and spirit, but to Grievous the idea shines with a coldly logical sort of beauty, in the sense that beauty and truth are often thought (though largely by biologicals, to be sure) to be one and the same thing. After all, as he exists, now, hate is the sole force that drives him and rage is the one fuel that powers his hate; thus, the contemplation of his purpose, his goal, the target of all his hatred and the cause of all of his rage, is as close as Grievous can ever get to pleasure, any longer. It approximates joy because it allows him to dwell upon thoughts of the many gloriously different possible ways of violation and eventual annihilation of that target, that goal that is his true purpose. It surpasses joy because joy is an extraneous emotion, a sensation both unnecessary and unhelpful to the actual pursuit of that goal, while gloating ever so lovingly aids in the cultivation of more and more rage, which in turns leads to a greater and stronger hatred. Grievous could almost, in the most purely abstract sense, find it within him to comprehend the need that so many biologicals feel to cultivate such an ultimately wasteful and ultimately pointless emotion as gratitude, while in the grips of such a powering and powerful sensation. However, it is doubtful that Raith Sienar would appreciate such a gesture, originating from such a source as the Supreme Commander of the Droid Armies of the Separatists - and now also, by default, given the defeat and destruction of Count Dooku, the de facto head of government of the remains of the Confederacy of Independent Systems.

After all, Raith Sienar is - unlike Sidious, Count Dooku, all of the other various tools and Dark Adepts of the Sith Lord and his now former apprentice, and the sundry CIS officials and actual Separatists - neither a man who despises and wishes to destroy the Jedi Order nor who feels the need to topple the government of the Galactic Republic. Instead, Sienar is that most potentially dangerous creature of all: a bored man of sensational intellect and talent, thoroughly in love with money and his own comforts and pleasures, and in the final analysis, utterly amoral when it comes to the pursuit of said money, comforts, and pleasures. Grievous is well aware of the fact that Raith Sienar is single-mindedly and ruthlessly devoted to the pursuit of money, just as he is aware of the fact that Sienar's motivation originates from the fact that the man is in love with his own comfort and wishes to be able to indulge himself in the various pleasures that can be found by challenging himself, the extent of his genius, in the constant envisionment, perfection, and production of myriad exceptional and profitable projects. However, Grievous is also aware of the fact that Sienar is, despite his particular trade, not a man who enjoys the actualities involved in violence or who is even particularly comfortable with abstract notions of violence. The man prefers theoreticals - detailed plans, schematics, and technically functional but either practically unworkable or else quite small-scaled and therefore extremely low-powered models - to actually having to get his hands dirty. If Grievous were to ask Sienar to actually see to it that one of his particular theoretical plans were put into motion, it is entirely possible that the man would balk.

Fortunately, though, the plans for this particular project have already been so thoroughly and meticulously prepared, tested, and detailed that it is no longer a practical necessity for Sienar to physically work on or even oversee the project's progress in order to guarantee it's eventual functional completion. Grievous has seen to that himself, as a precaution. Just in case his other plans fell through - as they now patently seem to have done. And, as they say, Sienar can't protest what he doesn't know. All in all, then, the plan should prove to be a viable one. He has certainly put enough time and effort into the cultivation of this plan to make it so. Grievous had recognized the potential usefulness of Sienar's particular genius almost immediately upon making the man's acquaintance. That had been literally right before the war began, with the Battle of Geonosis. He had been present on Geonosis for most of the crucial events leading up to the fight, and although Sidious and Dooku had been quite careful to keep his existence a secret from both the two Jedi interlopers and that meddlesome bitch of a Senator, Amidala, he had been allowed to sit in on most of the planning responsible for triggering the battle. Dooku had invited two very important visitors to the plant on Geonosis, just prior to the arrival of first Kenobi and then Skywalker and Amidala, and Grievous had been on hand to meet both of these men.

By some quirk of chance, Raith Sienar of the immensely powerful and profitable Sienar Systems conglomerate and Commander Tarkin of the Republic Outland Regions Security Force so closely resemble each other that they could easily be mistaken for brothers. Both men are slim and wiry, with dark hair, high-arcing bony brows, piercing blue eyes, aristocratic features, and attitudes to match. Both men had been in their early forties when they made their visit to the plant on Geonosis and General Grievous had first made their acquaintance. Moreover, both men had - despite the nature of their business on Geonosis - been wearing robes of senatorial favor, all but flaunting what had been deemed extraordinary service to the Republic Senate in recent years. Yet, despite their close resemblance to one another - Sienar is just noticeably taller, Tarkin just noticeably thinner, but the two men are both from old monied Coruscanti families, and it is entirely possible that, at some point in the distant past, the same root stock gave birth to the lines that have culminated in both of their families - Grievous has never had any difficulties in telling the two men apart. The minds and outlooks of the two men are distinctly dissimilar. Tarkin is a military man who strictly endorses the school of brute force, a coldly ruthless power-monger who apparently honestly believes that honor is something that can be bought, with enough personal power, and a bald-faced human-elitist without an original or imaginative bone in his body. Sienar, on the other hand, is a man who respects and rewards talent, ability, and results over such things as species or family bloodlines, and although he has apparently limited and even compromised the nature of his genius, in the pursuit of specific order or tasks for certain well-paying and connected clients, the fact remains that Sienar is a true visionary, a luminary in the realms of transport design and weaponry.

Although Tarkin had managed to claim the lion's share of approbation, by claiming that he was the one responsible for making knowledge of a particular set of design plans known to Sidious, by taking a risk on Sienar and seeking to enlist him in their cause, it had been obvious to Grievous that Raith Sienar was solely responsible for the existence of the "Expeditionary Battle Planetoid" plans - which had so thoroughly entranced Sidious that he is still, as far as Grievous knows, seriously planning on seeing to it that the plans are followed and the combination weapon and transport is successfully built - in the first place. It had also been quite obvious to Grievous, from the way Sienar inevitably involuntarily reacted with disfavor or discontent to any favorable mention of those plans that Sienar thought that the plans were overrated. Intrigued by a man who could so thoroughly dismiss such an undeniably powerful creation - a creation of his own mind, no less - Grievous had sought to discover the reason behind Sienar's dissatisfaction with that particular weaponized ship. It had soon become clear that Raith Sienar is a man who - much like Count Dooku - prefers restrained elegance, artful finesse, and pinpoint expressions of power over the more melodramatic bombast of size and brute force. Sienar had considered another of his as yet not fully fulfilled pet projects a far more worthy and potentially insidious undertaking, one that actually revealed both ingenuity and some care in execution: a landing pod that was designed to invade the metal-bearing asteroids of an unexploited star system and set up shop, making small invasion droids out of the raw ore in the asteroids.

Through careful probing, Grievous had eventually discovered that Sienar had actually attempted the plan, once; however, even though the mining equipment had been very well made, the unit had ultimately failed in the finesse of its droid factories, in that less than one out of a hundred of the droids produced had proven functional. Despite this early failure, though, Sienar had continued to think about this approach - creating a machine to make more machines, all of them programmed to carry out offensive strategies - quite often. Unfortunately, as Sienar had explained it, the Galactic Republic had too many scruples and concerns about the possibilities of machine intelligence to show much interest in such weapons, and his corporation's other big customers - such as, for example, the Neimoidian leaders in the Trade Federation - had rejected them out of hand as impractical. Not much imagination there, at least as of a few years ago, as Sienar had put it . . . Hence, the man's initial openness to Tarkin, when the Commander had approached him to sound him out for Dooku (and therefore, in all truth, for Darth Sidious, since Sidious' wishes took precedent over Dooku's preferences). Although uninterested in becoming a public member of the Separatist movement, Sienar's fascination with the Geonosians' work, in the creation of Grievous, and the possible implications for and even applications of some of their theories in the realm of droid production had been sufficient to make him an unofficial supplier of even more advanced weaponry and ships for the Separatist cause. And Grievous, meanwhile, had carefully encouraged Sienar's particular personal obsession and kept track of the man's progress on the project. Just in case.

It was Sienar - and his interest in increasing the intelligence and, thus, the functionality of certain types of droid units - who had been largely responsible for the creation of the General's personal bodyguards, the IG-100s, back when Grievous was still a Kaleesh warrior working for the IBC. It was that practical breakthrough - in the creation of a droid capable not only of linearly processing raw data but of learning holistically during the acquisition of new knowledge, a droid capable of adapting in order to successfully complete programmed orders, one fashioned to have a conform to a specific personality type and to vigorously pursue a range of activities associated with that personality - in combination with Sienar's unique perspective on the data gathered from the mostly successful transferral of Grievous to his cyborg body, that had finally allowed Sienar to solve the problems that had doomed his original endeavor to failure. However, it had also been that success - and Sienar's subsequent extreme discomfort with the all too human machismo, aggression, and predilection for violence exhibited by the IG-100s, after Grievous had been allowed to train them to his specifications - that had prompted him to essentially drop the project. By that time, though, Grievous had been aware of the fact that the project was workable. Sienar might have been content to leave the project unfinished, but Grievous had been all too aware of the plan's potential usefulness to him to simply abandon it. The Republic might not have been interested in the idea because its puny and small-minded citizens distrusted the notion of intelligent machines, and the Separatists may not have known anything about it because Lord Sidious preferred the idea of creating one overwhelming terror-inducing superweapon. However, being more than half machine, himself, Grievous could not fail to see the potential usefulness of a foe as implacable and potentially numerous as that of an army of self-creating and rapidly self-replicating, aggressive, elitist, anti-Jedi, anti-Republic (and, if necessary, anti-biological) droids, if Sidious' war ended up failing to destroy the Jedi and Republic for any reason.

Grievous had, therefore, taken his meticulous records of all of Sienar's findings and plans - all very carefully secretly gathered and verified - and preserved them as a reserve backup plan, in the event that his alliance with Lord Sidious and the coincidence of his own personal goals and views with those of Count Dooku both ever fell through. Given the fact that Dooku is gone and the failure of Sidious' war now seems imminent, it would be logical to see to it that the necessary steps are taken to ensure that this backup plan is put into motion, and that Grievous' version of Raith Sienar's project can be launched before the Jedi invade Utapau and spring Sidious' trap.

Nodding once, decisively, General Grievous turns about to face the control center, and then reaches out to activate a very specific comlink channel. "IG-103? Bring the other MagnaGuards and report to the viewport for new orders. There's been a change of plans."

***

The endless nightscape of Coruscant is still burning.

Coruscant at night has always been an endless galaxy of light. Though no stars are visible from the surface of Coruscant, light in aplenty has always shone from the trillions of windows of the billions of buildings that reach kilometers into the sky, with navigation lights and advertising and the infinite streams of the running lights of various ships and speeders coursing through the seemingly endless rivers of traffic lanes overhead and in amongst those buildings. On this night, however, various power outages have swallowed up ragged swathes of the city into vast nebulae of darkness, a darkness broken only by the malignant red-dwarf glares of innumerable still furiously burning fires and the smouldering remains of crashed debris and smashed buildings, sullenly glowing like the cindery remains of burnt out supernovae. The entire planet looks damaged. Broken by battle. Irreparably stained with darkness.

Depowered lampdisks are little more than rings of ghostly gray floating in the gloom that overlooks the broken cityscape. The badly ravaged and still burning shimmering jewelscape of Coruscant haloes the knife-edged shadow of the lone occupied chair in the private office of the Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic. For the two Jedi responsible for the Chancellor's safe return to this office, there would be a new harmonic resonance, an odd and almost accidental seeming echo of memory, at work within the curving viewing wall that throws the Chancellor's single large chair into razor sharp silhouette. Anyone who has been within the General's Quarters of Invisible Hand would understand why, though.

Palpatine's private office is arrayed in much the same fashion as that room once was.

And within the shadow of that single chair there currently sits another shadow: deeper, darker, formless, and impenetrable, an abyssal umbra so profound that it drains light from the room around it.

And from the city.

And the planet.

And the galaxy.

The shadow waits. The shadow is always waiting. For a change, a chance to strike at a suddenly revealed chink in another's armor, a moment of weakness to take advantage of, a sign that the many long years of quiet, behind the scenes manipulation and masterful Machiavellian machinations will soon bear the ultimate fruit.

The Coruscant nightfall is swiftly spreading throughout the known galaxy. Soon, it seems, it will engulf the galaxy whole. But neither the physical darkness nor the metaphysical taint of darkness upon the Force is a hindrance to the shadow within the Chancellor's office. The shadow is darkness. Wherever darkness dwells, the shadow can send perception. In the shrouding night, the shadow feels the anguish that drenches the city-planet, and it is good. The shadow feels the grim determination of obstinate and obsolete Jedi who have their eyes fixed so firmly upon the future that they cannot see the danger of their present position, snared thoroughly within a dark trap of the shadow's devising. This, too, is good. As a small Jedi shuttle settles onto the landing deck outside, the shadow sends its mind caressingly within the far deeper night within one of the several pieces of sculpture that grace the sanctity of this private inner office: an abstract twist of solid neuranium, so heavy that the office floor had to be specially reinforced to bear its weight, so dense that more sensitive species might, from very close range, actually perceive the tiny warping of the fabric of space-time that is its gravitation. Neuranium of more than roughly a millimeter in thickness is impervious to sensors; the standard security scans undergone by all equipment and furniture to enter the Senate Office Building had therefore, naturally, shown nothing at all. If anyone had thought to use an advanced gravimetric detector, however, they might have discovered that one smallish section of the sculpture massed slightly less than it should have, given that the manifest that accompanied it, when it had been brought from Naboo among the then-ambassador's personal effects, had clearly stated that it was a single piece of solid-forged neuranium. That manifest was a lie, though. The sculpture is not entirely solid, and not all of it is neuranium. Within a long, slim, rod-shaped cavity around which the sculpture had originally been forged, there rests a device that has lain, waiting, in absolute darkness - darkness beyond darkness - for decades.

Waiting for night to fall on the Republic.

Waiting, like the shadow itself waits.

The darkness within the sculpture whispers of the shape and the feel and every intimate resonance of the device it cradles. With but a twist of will, the shadow could trigger the device. The shadow longs to trigger the device. It has been waiting to trigger the device for much longer than it has ever dreamed that it would have to wait.

And yet the shadow simply continues to wait. Like the generous dark, the shadow is patient and inevitable. It can afford to be generous with its patience. It can afford to keep waiting for a little while longer, until true darkness, true Dark, has fallen. The shadow has already successfully seeded cruelty into justice, dripped contempt into compassion, poisoned love with grains of doubt. Why should it not simply wait? The slightest drop of rain will cause those seeds to sprout. And the rain will come, inevitably, just as those seeds will sprout, for dark is the soil in which they have been planted and dark is the shadow that will feed them as they grow. Darkness it is in the clouds above them, and darkness that waits behind the stars that give them light, give them life.

The shadow's patience, like the dark's, is infinite.

Eventually, even stars burn out.

Inevitably, the shadow, like the darkness, will win, as always.

After all, darkness always wins, since it is everywhere.

It is in the wood that burns in the hearth, and in the kettle on the fire; it is under the chair and underneath the table and beneath the sheets on the bed. Walk in the midday sun and the dark will, as ever, follow, attached to the soles of one's very feet.

The brightest light casts the darkest shadow.

And the night that even now holds the brilliance of the Jedi Temple within its dark embrace will soon become the darkness of eternity.

Or so the shadow firmly believes.

But the shadow does not see everything.

The shadow does not see everything because it cannot see clearly.

The shadow cannot see clearly because it is blinded by the dark dazzle of future plans.

The shadow, wrapped within the dark, rapt, is blind to the dangerous light of the present.

The dark may very well be patient, and generous, and it may even always win . . . but in the very heart of its strength lies its greatest weakness: the light of one lone candle is enough to hold it back.

Love is much more than a candle. Love can ignite the stars.

And even stars that have gone dead can be made to burn.

***

For what seems like the hundredth time since their plans were finalized back at the Temple, Anakin twitches, frowns, fidgets with the leather glove that is hiding the fact that the Force has restored his arm, and plaintively asks, "Are you sure this is a good idea? I know it must be tonight, but - "

"Everything will be alright, Anakin. Do please stop fretting," Obi-Wan sighs. "You know that the Chancellor has the entire place wired. Masters Dooku and Qui-Gon will trip the holorecordings and the audio and then burn out the switches so that he cannot disconnect them and there will be no way of tampering with the evidence. Then we will go in: together. He will doubtlessly try to sway you to his side, Anakin, and to turn me against you by informing me of your 'secrets.' As long as we remain calm and do not allow him to goad us, we will retain the upper hand. He will not understand why he cannot set us upon each other and it should distract him sufficiently that we ought to be able to save Master Windu when he arrives. Since Dooku and Qui-Gon's manifestation will doubtlessly provoke him into providing us with any remaining evidence that we might need, the confrontation can be ended as soon as Master Windu is safe. If it is at all possible, it will be a swift blow to the head instead of a killing blow, and then the strength of the four of us combined will be more than enough to sever his connection the Force. If he fights, then we will simply have to do better than he does. We will burn away his darkness, one way or the other. For Sidious, it ends here, tonight. You know that it must. And it will. We must not fail and so we will not."

"I know that Master. Truly, I do. I just . . . worry. He's very powerful."

"Anakin . . . " A soft sigh and a long-drawn breath, and then Obi-Wan is turning around and placing his left hand gently over Anakin's cheek, the gesture only slightly marred by the automatic twitch of fingers towards a braid that no longer dangles beside the curve of that beloved face. "I am no longer your Master, love. I have no desire to be your Master, all things considered. And you have already earned the right to claim that title yourself, in my mind. Please, call me Obi-Wan."

Anakin's smile is blazingly bright, even if his gaze is suddenly shy as the long fringe of his lashes falls across his eyes. "I know that, Obi-Wan. Truly. And I understand. I just," he shrugs, and then covers Obi-Wan's hand with his own, "I like to call you that. And I like it when you slip and call me Padawan. It reminds me that I'm yours and you're mine."

Obi-Wan's laughter is low and almost husky. "Oh, Anakin. Love, soon none will be left who will dare to doubt that, no matter what we call one another. And besides, I like to hear you call my name."

Anakin's smile is almost a smirk. "Is that a pun, Obi-Wan? Because if it is - "

"What? You'll," Obi-Wan raises a suggestive eyebrow and suddenly steps very close, purposefully invading Anakin's personal space, so close that they are almost touching all along their fronts, only the barest sliver of space between their bodies, "groan?"

"Master!" Anakin gasps, shocked. "I thought you said - "

"But I have listened to others, Anakin. I believe I understand how it is done, this," another eyebrow goes up, and Obi-Wan's smile so closely resembles Anakin's trademark smirk that it is clear he has spent quite a bit of time studying it, "flirting."

Chuckling, Anakin presses Obi-Wan back into the shadow of a great pillar stretching up into the greater darkness that leaks through the vaulted roof of transparisteel over the Atrium of the Senate Office Building, near the archway from the Supreme Chancellor's private - yet, also, conveniently, given specific clearance for Anakin Skywalker - landing platform, backing him up until Obi-Wan meets the pillar itself and Anakin can cover his slighter form with his own body. Their arms are around each other then, Obi-Wan's face automatically turning up towards Anakin even as he leans down, and their mouths find each other's as the universe becomes, for a few long breathless moments, perfect.

After an all too brief eternity of bliss, the kiss ends as their lips part. Smiling, relaxed and no longer a fidgeting, anxious mass of twitches and repetitive questions, Anakin whispers, his mouth so close to Obi-Wan's ear that it is almost touching it, almost kissing it, "I believe that you understand very well, Obi-Wan. And you will hear me cry your name many, many, many times," he promises, laughing.

"Good. Because I look forward to learning how to make you groan and cry for me."

The promise in Obi-Wan's heavy-lidded eyes leaves Anakin breathless. Several more too short eternities and kisses later, Anakin groans and allows his head to fall against the pillar, pressing his forehead against its smooth, chill surface. "I think - I think I am distracted enough to cease worrying now. Any more distraction, and we might not get any further than this pillar tonight, Obi-Wan."

Smiling over Anakin's shoulder, Obi-Wan merely hums with pleasure for a moment, so relaxed that he feels as if his bones have dissolved within him. After a moment, though, his arms release their hold around Anakin's neck and slide loosely down his back to encircle his waist. "Alright then, love. No more distractions. We will go on."

"Together."

"Always."

***

[The following is a transcript of an audio recording presented before the Galactic Senate on the afternoon of the first Amnesty Day, the identities of all speakers verified and confirmed by voiceprint analysis]

PALPATINE: Anakin, my dear boy! Do come in.

OBI-WAN KENOBI: I am afraid that I am not Anakin, but I shall come in.

PALPATINE: I'm sorry? Forgive me, General Kenobi, when I saw the shuttle land I assumed that it was Anakin. What brings to my office at this hour? Is there something that I can do for you?

[sound of a chair being rolled]

OBI-WAN KENOBI: You can cease playing games.

PALPATINE: I beg your pardon, Master Jedi?

[sound of a drawer being shut]

ANAKIN SKYWALKER: You heard what he said. You can cease playing games. We know who you are. We know what you are. We are here to take you into custody.

[sound of a door being firmly shut]

PALPATINE: I - I beg your pardon? What I am? My dear boy, when last I checked, I was the Supreme Chancellor of the Republic that you are both sworn to serve. I hope I misunderstand what you mean by /custody/, Anakin. It smacks of treason. I know that Obi-Wan was your Master and you are loyal to him, but -

ANAKIN SKYWALKER: That is neither here nor there. I am a Jedi Knight: I am sworn to defend the Galactic Republic. It is because of these things that I am here.

OBI-WAN KENOBI: You are under arrest. Surrender to us now and things will go easier for you. If you resist, we will fight.

PALPATINE: Really, Master Kenobi, you cannot be serious! On what charge? Anakin -

OBI-WAN KENOBI: You are an enemy of democracy who has committed unspeakable crimes against the Republic you swore to protect and serve, and you are under arrest. Your reign of darkness is over, Lord.

PALPATINE: I - ?! Anakin Skywalker! What do you think you are doing here, standing with this man, against me? I am your friend!

ANAKIN SKYWALKER: You are a Sith Lord.

. . .

PALPATINE: Am I? Even if that is true, I am still your friend, Anakin. I am still the man who has always been here for you. I am the man you have never needed to lie to. I am the man who has steadfastly kept all of your secrets. And I am the man who wants nothing from you but that you follow your conscience. If that conscience requires you to commit murder, simply over a . . . a philosophical difference . . . then I will not resist you.

OBI-WAN KENOBI: Murder? You must be hard of hearing. I said that you are under arrest. That means that you will be given a fair trial.

PALPATINE: A fair - ! For what? My philosophical outlook is a personal matter. It is hardly a crime! In fact - the last time I read the Constitution, anyway - the Republic had very strict laws against this type of persecution. So I ask you again: what is my alleged crime? How do you expect to justify your mutiny before the Senate? Or do you intend to arrest the Senate as well?

OBI-WAN KENOBI: For a man who says that he will not resist, you are doing a fair job of trying to prevent your arrest. We are not here to argue with you.

PALPATINE: No, you're here to imprison me without trial and for no reason! Without even the pretense of legality. So this is the plan, at last: the Jedi are taking over the Republic. I should have known that it would happen this way!

[sound of a fist crashing down against a solid surface, possibly a desk]

ANAKIN SKYWALKER: Don't be ridiculous. We have said that you are under arrest and that you will be given a fair trial. You are the only one who speaks of murder and persecution. I suppose I ought to expect nothing else. You are a Sith Lord, and treachery is the way of the Sith.

PALPATINE: Anakin, when I told you that you could have anything you want, did you believe that I was excluding my life? Do you not think I would lay down my life to protect you? To protect those you love? To protect -

OBI-WAN KENOBI: Really, I must insist. This verbosity feels an awful lot like a delaying tactic.

PALPATINE: I was not speaking to you!

OBI-WAN KENOBI: I am aware of whom you were speaking to. It will do you no good.

PALPATINE: Unlike some, Master Jedi, Anakin Skywalker is a good and loyal man with a warm and caring heart! Anakin! You will not let this happen to me! You will not allow this -

ANAKIN SKYWALKER: I intend to do much more than allow. I intend to aid in your arrest!

PALPATINE: Oh, Anakin, Anakin, why didn't you listen to me on the ship? You must know that I only have your best interests at heart, my boy! Didn't I tell you that we should stop pretending? Didn't I tell you that the final crisis was approaching, that our only hope to survive it would be for us to be completely, absolutely, ruthlessly honest with each other and ourselves? Didn't I tell you that what is at stake is nothing less than the fate of the galaxy? Anakin, Anakin, listen to me now! You are not like them, Anakin! You're a man/, not just a Jedi. You've been trained to never question what the Jedi tell you to do, to be. They've never given you a choice at all. But you are /different/, Anakin. You had a real life, outside the Jedi Temple. You /have a life, outside of the Jedi Temple, if only you will be brave enough to remain true to your heart and take it! You can break through the fog of lies that the Jedi have pumped into your brain, Anakin. Anakin, remember what I asked you on the ship! My offer still holds. My generosity can be even more powerful than my loyalty, Anakin. Have I not been loyal to you? Have I not -

OBI-WAN KENOBI: You really don't know when to shut up, do you?

PALPATINE: I am not speaking to you, Jedi traitor! I am speaking to /Anakin Skywalker/, who would rather die than to hurt or betray a friend! Who would -

ANAKIN SKYWALKER: You are no friend of mine.

PALPATINE: Anakin! Anakin, what are you /saying/? Of course I am your friend! Have I not always been here, a willing ear in which you could safely pour your problems? Have I not always listened to you and given you advice and striven to see you excel? Have I not always kept your secrets, even your most terrible -

OBI-WAN KENOBI: You really can't wait to spill these so-called /secrets/, can you? Well, come on then, out with them! We really haven't got all night to listen to your filibustering.

PALPATINE: They are Anakin's secrets! How dare you ask me to tell you of them! Anakin, I would never -

ANAKIN SKYWALKER: Oh, Sith hells, you might as well tell him! I can see you'll never shut up unless you're allowed to speak of these deep, dark secrets of mine you've supposedly been keeping - though how you've kept anything a secret when you so obviously love to talk is entirely beyond me!

PALPATINE: I - I - Anakin! You can't mean -

ANAKIN SKYWALKER: Don't presume to tell me what I do and do not mean. I know exactly what I am asking of you. And I say to you again: you may as well get it over with and tell the man. Obviously, you're dying to tell, and we won't get you to be quiet or to act reasonably unless we let you get this out of your system. So go ahead. Do it. Tell him.

PALPATINE: But Anakin - !

ANAKIN SKYWALKER: Really. I insist. Go ahead and tell him.

PALPATINE: But - !

ANAKIN SKYWALKER: Tell him, by the Force, or I shall do it for you!

[sound of a body collapsing into a chair]

PALPATINE: I - I - I - Very well, then. If that is what you want. If that is what it will take for me to prove my loyalty to you, then I will tell him. Master Kenobi, I am afraid that I have some grave news. Your former Padawan learner is a murderer.

OBI-WAN KENOBI: Oh, really? This is news? In case you haven't noticed, Anakin is a Jedi and we have been fighting a very nasty war for the past three years.

PALPATINE: No, no, no! That's not it at all! I did not say that the boy has killed: I said that he was a /murderer/! When he was thirteen -

OBI-WAN KENOBI: If you're about to tell me of the death of the Blood Carver Ke Daiv - who was sent by one of your operatives, to secure one of the living Zonama Sekot ships, at any cost, even the life or lives of the ship's pilot or pilots - then allow me assure you that I know all about it. Anakin has felt unwarranted guilt over this for years. Naturally. It was his first kill in direct combat. But it was also purely in self-defense.

PALPATINE: Master Jedi -

OBI-WAN KENOBI: And yes, I know that he used the Force to kill the Blood Carver. Since he had been taken prisoner and Ke Daiv was threatening to kill the Magister's young daughter, Jabitha, he really had no other choice.

PALPATINE: If you do not wish to listen, then you will not hear. But on Tatooine, before the Battle of Geonosis -

OBI-WAN KENOBI: What, the Tusken Raiders? They tortured and murdered Anakin's mother, Shmi Skywalker Lars. That particular tribe had already raided several moisture farms in the surrounding area, killing and looting as they went, and they often kidnaped and then brutalized to death members of settlements that were strong enough to offer up resistance. They did not seek to surrender and they would not stopped their raiding, even if Anakin alone could have safely disarmed them all and then forced them to surrender. It was a regrettable incident and I fear that Anakin was not in the proper frame of mind to be entirely nonjudgmental, but he had no other choice. He could not have escaped with Shmi's body undetected. And his actions protected the lives of many other innocents who would have otherwise perished at the brutal hands of those Tusken Raiders.

PALPATINE: Count Dooku -

OBI-WAN KENOBI: Count Dooku/? /Really! You're truly reaching, considering the fact that you ordered Anakin to cut the man down in cold blood after he had been disarmed and had already cried out for mercy!

ANAKIN SKYWALKER: I am truly amazed. You honestly thought that I had secrets from Obi-Wan, didn't you? You honestly believed that I could keep anything a secret from the man who has been my Master and my one true friend and companion for the past thirteen years!

[sounds of disbelieving laughter]

PALPATINE: I know of at least one secret you have kept from Obi-Wan, my boy! You have to have kept it from him, or there is no way that you could still be a member of the Jedi Order. The High Council would never allow anyone - even the Chosen One - to remain an active member of the Jedi Order after he had broken such a rule. General Kenobi! I am afraid that I must inform you that your former Padawan learner has been living a double life. Furthermore, I fear I must inform you that his life within the Jedi Temple has been little more than an empty sham, a /lie/, even. Anakin Skywalker has been married to Padmé Amidala Naberrie almost ever since this war began. He married her after the Battle of Geonosis and -

[sounds of incredulous laughter]

OBI-WAN KENOBI: Married? Married! And to a Senator, no less! Honestly, Sidious, Anakin loathes politics! There are very few politicians that he can stand at all and I assure you that none of them are sharing his bed!

[sound of a distinctive snort]

OBI-WAN KENOBI: Married indeed . . .

PALPATINE: Master Jedi, I assure you -

ANAKIN SKYWALKER: No. I assure you/, Lord Sidious. I am no more /married than Master Windu is your secret sex slave.

[sound of a distinctive snort and then a brief grumbling mutter, too low for any words to be clearly identified]

PALPATINE: You secretly wed Padmé Amidala Naberrie after Geonosis, in Theed, when you returned her to her planet! Master Kenobi, you can go and ask the girl yourself if you do not believe me! The two -

OBI-WAN KENOBI: I most certainly can not ask that poor child anything/! You sick, pathetic, murderous monster! Senator Padmé Amidala Naberrie was /murdered in the attack on Coruscant. She died because she remained behind with Senators Mon Mothma and Bail Organa to try to determine where you were and whether or not you were safely out of range of danger from the attack, seeing as how you had not followed your evacuation procedure - since, of course, you masterminded the entire attack as a way to set up and betray Count Dooku so that the Jedi would do your dirty work and kill him for you. While you simply waited in your office, those brave Senators delayed to speak to Masters Stass Allie and Shaak Ti about your possible whereabouts and to help them try to determine where you could be, and because of that they were caught up in the attack, and a vulture droid crashed into their skimmer. Padmé was killed, Bail Organa was so seriously injured that he was almost assumed dead, and as for Mon Mothma, well, I can only assume that the only reason she did not stay in the hospital herself was due to the fact that she thought someone more seriously injured than she deserved the bed.

PALPATINE: There are - there are records -

ANAKIN SKYWALKER: There are no records. I am not /married/. You are delusional.

[sounds of incoherent sputtering]

OBI-WAN KENOBI: Now then, you've had your chance to talk. You are going to come with us, Darth Sidious. Now.

PALPATINE: I shall do no such thing! If you intend to murder me, you can do so right here.

OBI-WAN KENOBI: Do try not to be so tiresome! How many times must we tell you this: you are under arrest. We are here to arrest you so that you may be put on trial for your treason. Please, don't resist. We will fight if you force us to.

[sounds that have been identified by frequency resonances to be the ignition of several lightsabers]

PALPATINE: Resist? How could I possibly resist/? This is /murder/, you Jedi /traitors/! How can /I be any threat to you?

[sounds of scuffle; crackling explosion, as of a lightning strike]

OBI-WAN KENOBI: Dooku - !

COUNT DOOKU OF SERENNO, JEDI MASTER: [garbled; possibly "It doesn't hurt, young one" (?)]

[sounds of scuffle]

PALPATINE: Help! Help! Security - someone! Help me! Murder! Treason!

COUNT DOOKU OF SERENNO, JEDI MASTER: Oh, cease your ridiculous dramatics, Sidious! This is most certainly not murder, nor is it treason! It was treason when you ordered Jedi Master Sifo-Dyas to place the order for the clone armies and then ordered me to murder him so that he could not report on the success of his secret mission for you to either the Jedi High Council or the Galactic Senate; it was treason when you plotted with the Trade Federation to blockade and then invade Naboo; it was treason when you plotted with me to create the Confederacy of Independent Systems and then sought to sacrifice the life of Senator Amidala to win the Senate's approval to seize control of the clone armies in the name of the Republic and begin these Clone Wars; and it was most certainly treason when you ordered General Grievous to assemble the Separatist fleets and attack Coruscant. This/, on the other hand: /this is /justice/.

JEDI MASTER QUI-GON JINN: A justice that you have escaped far too long, Lord Sidious. Surrender! Drop that lightsaber or by the Force I will see to it that you know what it feels like to be skewered upon one, just as your earlier apprentice, Darth Maul, once skewered me, on Naboo!

[recording ends]

***