Star Wars_ Rise And Fall Of Darth Vader Part 7

I won't let her die. I won't.

Soon after Anakin's meeting with Yoda, Palpatine confided to Anakin that he feared the Jedi Council wanted more control than they already had in the Republic. Anakin found this difficult to believe, but agreed to become Palpatine's personal representative on the Council. Because only Jedi Masters served on the Council, Anakin a.s.sumed that his appointment would guarantee his promotion to Master, and felt insulted when the Council insisted that he remain a Knight. After his first awkward meeting with the Council, Anakin learned from Obi-Wan that the Council wanted him to report on all of Chancellor Palpatine's dealings. It seemed that Anakin was the only Jedi who trusted Palpatine.

Palpatine suspects the Council is up to something, and the Council wants me to spy on Palpatine! Who should I trust? Anakin tried talking with Padme, but when she expressed her concern that democracy no longer existed in the Republic, he accused her of sounding like a Separatist. Is she turning against me too?!

Later that night, Palpatine summoned Anakin to meet him in the Chancellor's private box at the Galaxies Opera House. There, while watching a troupe of Mon Calamari perform a zero-gravity ballet within immense spheres of s.h.i.+mmering water, Palpatine informed Anakin that Clone Intelligence Units had discovered that General Grievous was hiding in the Utapau system. After dismissing his aides from the box, Palpatine further confided that he had come to suspect that the Jedi Council wanted to control the Republic, and was plotting to betray him.

Palpatine said, "They asked you to spy on me, didn't they?"

Squirming in his seat beside the Chancellor, Anakin replied, "I don't, uh .. . I don't know what to say."

"Remember back to your early teachings," Palpatine continued. "All those who gain power are afraid to lose it. Even the Jedi."

No, that's not true, Anakin thought. "The Jedi use their power for good," he insisted.

"Good is a point of view, Anakin," Palpatine said calmly. "The Sith and the Jedi are similar in almost every way, including their quest for greater power." That'snot true, either. "The Sith rely on their pa.s.sion for their strength," Anakin said. "They think inwards, only about themselves."

"And the Jedi don't?" Palpatine asked, lifting his eyebrows high to convey his belief that the answer was as plain as his face.

"The Jedi are selfless," Anakin countered. "They only care about others."

There was applause from the audience, and Anakin and Palpatine directed their attention to the performers. Palpatine said, "Did you ever hear the tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise?"

"No," Anakin admitted.

"I thought not," Palpatine said smugly. "It's not a story the Jedi would tell you. It's a Sith legend. Darth Plagueis was a Dark Lord of the Sith, so powerful and so wise he could use the Force to influence the midi-chlorians to create ... life." He slowly turned his gaze to Anakin before he continued. "He had such a knowledge of the dark side that he could even keep the ones he cared about from dying."

Anakin thought immediately of Padme, and of his most recent nightmares, and felt a tingling sensation along his spine. He said, "He could actually ... save people from death?"

"The dark side of the Force is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural."

Anakin thought about Darth Plagueis, wondering just how much of the legend might be true. He said, "Wh - What happened to him?"

Looking away from Anakin, Palpatine answered slowly, "He became so powerful, the only thing he was afraid of was losing his power, which eventually, of course, he did. Unfortunately, he taught his apprentice everything he knew. Then his apprentice killed him in his sleep. It's ironic. He could save others from death, but not himself."

Because the Chancellor was such a learned man and had discussed the ongoing hunt for Darth Sidious with members of the Jedi Council, Anakin wasn't curious about how he might have learned such a bizarre story about the Sith. Anakin only wanted to know one thing.

"Is it possible to learn this power?" he asked.

Raising his eyebrows, Palpatine turned to once again lock his gaze on Anakin and said, "Not from a Jedi."

INTERLUDE.

Twenty-three years after the end of the Clone Wars, Darth Vader had no difficulty recalling Anakin Skywalker's meeting with Supreme Chancellor Palpatine at the Opera House. Although he had not yet realized that Palpatine was really the Sith Lord Darth Sidious, it was at that particular moment that Anakin Skywalker decided he must learn the secrets of the Sith.

At the time, Anakin had convinced himself that he only wanted to gain the powers that would help him save his wife. He hadn 't wanted to take the path to the dark side. In fact, he had continued to behave n.o.bly after that meeting at the opera. When the Jedi Council insulted him yet again by selecting Obi-Wan to hunt down General Grievous on Utapau, Anakin apologized for his arrogance. And after he learned that Palpatine was the Sith Lord who had slain Darth Plagueis, and realized that the Chancellor had no intention of stepping down from his position of power after the death of General Grievous, Anakin reported his discovery to Mace Windu, who led a team of Jedi Masters to apprehend Palpatine. Anakin had done the right thing.

But because Anakin believed that the only way he could save Padme was by gaining Palpatine's arcane knowledge, he had been unable to let Mace Windu kill the Sith Lord. And so he had allowed Palpatine to unleash Sith Lightning on Mace Windu, and chose to betray all the Jedi on Coruscant, and pledged himself to Palpatine. As the Sith Lord's new apprentice, he had taken the name Darth Vader before he set out to kill every Jedi who remained at the Jedi Temple. Now, so many years later, Vader reflected on all the Jedi he killed that day. Remembering the stunned expressions of Mace Windu as he fell from Palpatine's office window and the screams of the Jedi younglings and their teachers, he felt no remorse. Just as he believed he had done his best to be a dutiful Jedi, he believed his actions as Palpatine's apprentice were even more righteous.

Smoke had been still billowing from the Jedi Temple when Vader traveled to the volcanic world ofMustafar to kill the Separatist leaders in their hideout. Meanwhile, Palpatine initiated an order for all off-world clone troops to kill their Jedi generals, and then informed the Senate that the Separatists had been defeated and the Jedi rebellion had been foiled. Joyous cheers had accompanied Palpatine's declaration that the Republic would be reorganized into the first Galactic Empire.

After killing all the Separatist leaders, Palpatine's new apprentice had stepped outside the mountain fortress on Mustafar to gaze at the blazing lava rivers below. He would not mourn for the lives he had taken. But for the loss of his former self, the boy who had dreamed of becoming a Jedi, he was unable to hold back the tears that streamed down his cheeks.

Anakin Skywalker was gone. Or was he? After all, Padme had fallen in love with Anakin, not Darth Vader. He had not antic.i.p.ated that Padme, traveling with C-3PO, would follow him to Mustafar and refute the righteousness of his actions. Nor had he foreseen that Obi-Wan would survive the Jedi purge, and that the deceitful Padme would bring him with her. Despite his powers and years of attunement to Obi-Wan, his rage had blocked his ability to sense his former Master's presence on Mustafar until he saw the Jedi standing in the hatch of Padme's star s.h.i.+p.

He also never imagined that Obi-Wan possessed the strength to bring him down so brutally.

CHAPTER 12.

"You were the Chosen One!" Obi-Wan shouted down at what was left of Anakin Skywalker, who writhed at the bottom of a slope of black sand at the edge of a lava river on Mustafar. Their exhausting duel had carried them far from the landing pad where Padme's s.h.i.+p had arrived, and where Anakin had used the Force to choke his seemingly treacherous wife.

But now the duel was over. With a single sweep of his lightsaber, Obi-Wan had severed his former Padawan's legs at the knees and also his left arm.

As Anakin straggled to raise his head from the smoldering sand, his eyes blazed with fury as he glared at Obi-Wan. I won't die like this! I'm still stronger than you!

"It was said you would destroy the Sith, not join them!" Obi-Wan continued. "Bring balance to the Force, not leave it in darkness!"

Feeling the intense heat permeating his torn tunic, Anakin sighted his fallen lightsaber lying a short distance away. Too stunned and dazed to focus his powers, he watched with rage as Obi-Wan bent down to pick up the lightsaber, then took it with him as he began walking up the slope.

"I hate you!" Anakin roared, keeping his eyes focused on the departing figure.

Obi-Wan stopped in his tracks and turned one final time to face the ruined, seething monster. "You were my brother, Anakin," Obi-Wan said. "I loved you."

Anakin's clothes caught fire, and he was suddenly engulfed in flames. His screams were filled with anger as well as pain, not unlike that of any entirely helpless creature. His instinct was to roll and put out the flames, but because of his wounds and the red-hot stones beneath his ravaged head and torso, all he could do was burn and burn.

Obi-Wan walked off, leaving Anakin to die. Somehow, through his agony, Anakin felt one last flicker of Obi-Wan's presence before the Jedi receded from view.

Anakin kept screaming.

The flames finally burned out. Anakin's mechanical right arm dug into the sand. He pulled, and slid a few millimeters up the slope. Again!

With each movement, hot volcanic shards sc.r.a.ped and tore at his roasted flesh. It took all of his concentration to s.h.i.+ft his scorched remains up the slope and away from the lava river.

He moaned. Only his powers kept him from blacking out.

Again!

Only his hatred for Obi-Wan made him want to live another day.

Anakin - he still thought of himself as Anakin - heard the engine of an arriving stars.h.i.+p travel over his position. He had no idea how much time had pa.s.sed before he heard a clone trooper's voice call out, "Your majesty, this way."

Then he heard Palpatine's voice, "There he is. He's still alive."

Anakin's blackened torso went completely limp as he finally allowed darkness to sweep over him.

Anakin awoke on an operating table, surrounded by droids. The recently appointed Emperor Palpatine had brought him to a surgical reconstruction center on Coruscant, and the droids were busily attaching robotic limbs to his quivering torso, which was strapped to the table by strong metal belts. The droids were working fast to maintain the precious midi-chlorians that existed in Anakin's blood and tissue. To prevent the midi-chlorians from becoming thinned by intrusive chemicals, the droids were working without anesthetics.

Anakin felt everything.

He felt each cold metal blade that sliced into his hideously scarred flesh to allow more tools to probe and stabilize his damaged internal organs. He squirmed as shattered bones were replaced by plastoid, and cringed as lasers grafted the new limbs into place. At some point, he overheard a surgical droid explaining to Palpatine that he would require a special helmet and backpack to cycle air in and out of his damaged lungs.

Despite this damage, throughout the entire procedure, he never stopped screaming.

Finally stabilized, Anakin lay quietly on the table to which he was still secured. He was clad in a gleaming black life-support suit with a lighted control function panel set across his chest. He watched as a robot mechanism above his head slowly lowered a black mask with oval vision receptors and a triangular respiratory vent over his face, while another mechanism placed a helmet over his skull. The helmet and mask locked onto each other as they simultaneously bolted to the armored ring that wrapped around his neck. Fully encased within the pressurized suit, he heard a labored, mechanical rasp, then realized it was the sound of his own breathing.

The table tilted, raising Anakin's restrained body to a standing position. From the shadows of the operating room, the hooded Emperor stepped forward and said, "Lord Vader. Can you hear me?"

Vader? That's right. . . I'm Darth Vader. Anakin is gone.

Vader exhaled, then said, "Yes, Master." The mask's vocabulator had transformed his voice into a commanding baritone. He still felt weak, so it was with some difficulty that he slowly turned his head, adjusting his vision through the helmet to better see the Emperor. The Emperor's face was gnarled and twisted, deformed by the Sith lightning that had been briefly deflected by Mace Windu during their battle.

"Where is Padme?" Vader said in his new voice. After everything that had happened, he was still concerned for her, still loved her, still wanted to save her life. "Is she safe? Is she all right?"

In his most sympathetic tone, Palpatine said, "It seems, in your anger, you killed her."

"I? I couldn't have," Vader said with disbelief. 7 loved her! I did everything I could to save - his mind's voice sounded strange to him, weaker than the synthesized roll of thunder that emitted from his mask. He recalled choking Padme on Mustafar, watching her body crumple and fall on the landing pad.

I didn 't mean to...

Vader snarled, "She was alive. I felt it!"

Palpatine took a cautious step backward as Vader moaned with grief and rage. Around the laboratory, equipment and droids began to rapture and burst as Vader lashed out in all directions with his Force powers. There was a loud snap of metal as he tore his left arm free from the table, then his right. He lurched forward on alloy legs that were fitted into c.u.mbersome boots until he stood at the edge of the surgical floor. And somehow, through all his anger, he suddenly sensed at least one truth: Padme was dead, along with their unborn child.

"No!" he bellowed so loud and long that his cry echoed off the walls. Behind his mask, he squeezed his eyes shut in an effort to hold back the tears that he was physically unable to wipe away.

But no tears came. He didn't know whether the surgical droids had altered or removed his tear ducts, and he was beyond caring. All he knew for certain was that Padme was gone from him forever... and that there were more than a few Jedi still waiting to be killed.

Devoid of love for anyone, and unable to feel the touch of anything through his gloved, cybernetic fingers, Darth Vader was finally ready to fully embrace the dark side.

And so he did.

CHAPTER 13.

Darth Vader's earliest missions involved tracking down the Jedi who had survived the purge. He investigated every reported sighting, traveled to many remote worlds to hunt his quarry, and killed every Jedi he found. No reports led to Obi-Wan or Yoda, but Vader remained ever vigilant.

With every pa.s.sing day, Vader distanced himself from the Jedi he had been. Where Anakin Skywalker had been influenced by traumatic circ.u.mstances, Vader shaped himself by inflicting pain on others. Unfortunately, because of his artificial arms, he was unable to conjure Sith Lightning or be invulnerable to it. He would always be weaker than the Emperor.

Few people were aware of what had become of Anakin Skywalker, but it was not long before nearly everyone in the Galactic Empire had heard some rumor or stray fact about Palpatine's new servant. One month after Palpatine became Emperor, a story circulated that Vader had tracked down a nest of fifty Jedi traitors and killed every one of them by himself. Eyewitnesses described him as a wraithlike being who seemed to possess Jedi powers and wielded a lightsaber, but he was definitely not a Jedi. After all, the Jedi may have attempted to overthrow the Republic, but they had never been known to strangle their opponents.

Some suspected Darth Vader was a droid engineered to carry out the Emperor's will. Others suggested that he might have once been a professional gladiator or bounty hunter. There was even speculation that he might be a well-known public figure who had a.s.sumed the name "Darth Vader" and wore his face-concealing helmet to hide his true ident.i.ty.

Vader himself did nothing to reveal his personal history. As far as he was concerned, the only thing people had to know about him was that he answered only to the Emperor.

As the Emperor's lieutenant, Vader carried out his Master's directives with lethal precision. Besides hunting Jedi, he supervised the expansion of the Imperial Navy and enforced every new law - many of which promoted the hatred of nonhumans - to bring greater power to the Empire. Those who opposed or disappointed Vader wound up dead or enslaved, and even Palpatine' s most ardent supporters regarded the masked, shadowy cyborg with dread. In a short time, his very name became synonymous with terror.

The Emperor reorganized the Galactic Senate as the Imperial Senate, so he could continue to monitor and manipulate the representatives of the worlds he now controlled. Vader accompanied the Emperor to the more important Senate functions, which were often attended by Senator Bail Organa of Alderaan, among others. During the Clone Wars, Anakin Skywalker had, for a time, shared Senator Amidala's regard for Organa as a rare, honorable politician, but to Darth Vader, the man was as insignificant as a common insect. Like most people, Organa directed his gaze elsewhere when Vader was present.

After allocating the more mundane responsibilities of government to paranoid administrators, the Emperor made fewer public appearances, which allowed him to devote more of his time to studying the dark side of the Force in his palace on Coruscant. In time, Vader's looming form became the ultimate icon of Imperial authority. But the Emperor never let Vader forget who was in charge. Over time, they had many variations of the same conversation, which usually began with the Emperor's taunting question: "Are you afraid of death, Lord Vader?"

"No, Master."

"Then why do you go on living?"

"To learn to become more powerful, Master."

"Do you seek such power so you might try to strike me down?"

"You are my path to power, Master. I need you."

"Yes, my apprentice. Remember your place, and that you have much to learn."

Vader eventually created his own private retreat, Bast Castle, on the storm-scoured planet Vjun, where Count Dooku had once taken refuge during the Clone Wars. On Vjun, Vader conducted his own studies of the dark side. He had no doubt that the Emperor knew what he wanted more than anything: the power to kill his Master. But because Palpatine was so incredibly powerful, and despite several attempts, Vader learned that he had no reason to believe he could ever defeat the elder Sith Lord.

As the years pa.s.sed, the Empire expanded by conquering more worlds. While cloned soldiers were still utilized for the Imperial Navy, humans also began serving as enlisted officers or were conscripted into duty as technicians, pilots, and stormtroopers.

Although Anakin Sky walker had never had any personal exchanges with the bounty hunter Jango Fett, Darth Vader did become familiar with Fett's cloned "son," Boba Fett, who had inherited his father's armor, weapons, and stars.h.i.+p. As Boba Fett gained a well-deserved reputation as the best bounty hunter in the galaxy, it was inevitable that Vader would occasionally retain him for clandestine a.s.signments.

Vader also supervised secret operations on numerous worlds. To enlist deadly Noghri warriors to his cause, he came to the aid of their planet after he had covertly poisoned it with life-inhibiting toxins. When an Imperial research station accidentally released a lethal bioagent on the planet Falleen, Vader commanded his soldiers to fire turbolasers at the contaminated world, killing over two hundred thousand Falleen natives.

Of all the operations that Darth Vader oversaw, the most important was the construction of the Death Star, a moon-sized battle station that, when finished, would be equipped with a superlaser capable of destroying entire planets. Conceived by one of the Empire's highest-ranking officers, Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin, and originally designed on Geonosis, the Death Star promised to be the Empire's ultimate weapon. As part of Tarkin's doctrine of Rule by Fear, the battle station would strike such terror throughout the galaxy that no world would dare defy or disobey an Imperial command.

As Palpatine had foreseen, the Empire did have its enemies. One particular underground movement - the Alliance to Restore the Republic, more commonly known as the Rebel Alliance - proved to be the most irritating. Although Imperial officials were certain that the Rebels had established a secret base, the base's location remained unknown.

Nineteen years after the end of the Clone Wars and the birth of the Empire, the Rebel Alliance attacked an Imperial convoy in the Toprawa system in the Outer Rim. Darth Vader immediately realized that it had been a diversionary tactic, and that the Rebels' real goal was to infiltrate an Imperial research station on Toprawa.

The Rebels had stolen the plans for the Death Star.