Star Wars_ The Dark Lord Trilogy - James Luceno [246]
But because he is Mace Windu, he takes this blow without a change of expression.
Because he is Mace Windu, within a second the man of sand is stone once more: pure Jedi Master, weighing coldly the risk of facing the last Dark Lord of the Sith without the chosen one—
Against the risk of facing the last Dark Lord of the Sith with a chosen one eaten alive by fear.
And because he is Mace Windu, the choice is no choice at all. “Anakin, wait in the Council Chamber until we get back.”
“Wh—what? Master—”
“That’s an order, Anakin.”
“But—but—but the Chancellor—” Anakin says desperately, clutching at the Jedi Master’s hand. “What are you going to do?”
And it is the true measure of Mace Windu that, even now, he still is telling the truth when he says, “Only as much as I have to.”
In the virtual nonspace of the HoloNet, two Jedi Masters meet.
One is ancient, tiny, with skin of green leather and old wisdom in his eyes, standing in a Kashyyyk cave hollowed from the trunk of a vast wroshyr tree; the other is tall and fierce, seated before a holodisk in Coruscant’s Jedi Temple.
To each other, they are blue ghosts, given existence by scanning lasers. Though they are light-years apart, they are of one mind; it hardly matters who says what.
Now they know the truth.
For more than a decade, the Republic has been in the hands of the Sith.
Now, together, blue ghost to blue ghost, they decide to take it back.
APOCALYPSE
The dark is generous, and it is patient, and it always wins.
It always wins because it is everywhere.
It is in the wood that burns in your hearth, and in the kettle on the fire; it is under your chair and under your table and under the sheets on your bed. Walk in the midday sun and the dark is with you, attached to the soles of your feet.
The brightest light casts the darkest shadow.
THE FACE OF THE DARK
Depowered lampdisks were rings of ghostly gray floating in the gloom. The shimmering jewelscape of Coruscant haloed the knife-edged shadow of the chair.
This was the office of the Chancellor.
Within the chair’s shadow sat another shadow: deeper, darker, formless and impenetrable, an abyssal umbra so profound that it drained light from the room around it.
And from the city. And the planet.
And the galaxy.
The shadow waited. It had told the boy it would. It was looking forward to keeping its word.
For a change.
Night held the Jedi Temple.
On its rooftop landing deck, thin yellow light spilled in a stretching rectangle through a shuttle’s hatchway, reflecting upward onto the faces of three Jedi Masters.
“I’d feel better if Yoda were here.” This Master was a Nautiloid, tall and broad-shouldered, his glabrous scalp-tentacles restrained by loops of embossed leather. “Or even Kenobi. On Ord Cestus, Obi-Wan and I—”
“Yoda is pinned down on Kashyyyk, and Kenobi is out of contact on Utapau. The Dark Lord has revealed himself, and we dare not hesitate. Think not of if, Master Fisto; this duty has fallen to us. We will suffice.” This Master was an Iktotchi, shorter and slimmer than the first. Two long horns curved downward from his forehead to below his chin. One had been amputated after being shattered in battle a few months before. Bacta had accelereated its regrowth, and the once maimed horn was now a match to the other. “We will suffice,” he repeated. “We will have to.”
“Peace,” said the third Master, a Zabrak. Dew had gathered on his array of blunt vestigial skull-spines, glistening very like sweat. He gestured toward a Temple door that had cycled open. “Windu is coming.”
Clouds had swept in with the twilight, and now a thin drizzling rain began to fall. The approaching Master walked with his shaven head lowered, his hands tucked within his sleeves.
“Master Ti and Gate Master Jurokk will direct the Temple’s defense,” he said as he reached the others. “We are shutting down all nav beacons and signal lights, we have armed the older Padawans, and all blast doors are sealed and code-locked.” His gaze swept the Masters. “It’s time to go.”
“And Skywalker?” The Zabrak Master