Star Wars_ The Dark Lord Trilogy - James Luceno [272]
“I hadn’t forgotten what it was, Threepio,” she said distantly.
“Thank you. I was … reminding myself of the boy who gave it to me.”
“My lady?” If she hadn’t forgotten, why would she ask? Before C-3PO could phrase a properly courteous interrogative, she said, “Contact Captain Typho. Have him ready my skiff.”
“My lady? Are you going somewhere?”
“We are,” she said. “We’re going to Mustafar.”
From the shadows beneath the mirror-polished skiff’s landing ramp, Obi-Wan Kenobi watched Captain Typho try to talk her out of it.
“My lady,” the Naboo security chief protested, “at least let me come with you—”
“Thank you, Captain, but there’s no need,” Padmé said distantly. “The war’s over, and … this is a personal errand. And, Captain? It must remain personal, do you understand? You know nothing of my leaving, nor where I am bound, nor when I can be expected to return.”
“As you wish, my lady,” Typho said with a reluctant bow. “But I strongly disagree with this decision.”
“I’ll be fine, Captain. After all, I have Threepio to look after me.”
Obi-Wan could clearly hear the droid’s murmured “Oh, dear.”
After Typho finally climbed into his speeder and took off, Padmé and her droid boarded the skiff. She wasted no time at all; the skiff’s repulsorlifts engaged before the landing ramp had even retracted.
Obi-Wan had to jump for it.
He swung inside just as the hatch sealed itself and the gleaming starship leapt for the sky.
Darth Vader stood on the command bridge of the Mustafar control center, hand of durasteel clasping hand of flesh behind him, and gazed up through the transparisteel view wall at the galaxy he would one day rule.
He paid no attention to the litter of corpses around his feet.
He could feel his power growing, indeed. He had the measure of his “Master” already; not long after Palpatine shared the secret of Darth Plagueis’s discovery, their relationship would undergo a sudden … transformation.
A fatal transformation.
Everything was proceeding according to plan.
And yet …
He couldn’t shake a certain creeping sensation … a kind of cold, slimy ooze that slithered up the veins of his legs and spread clammy tendrils through his guts …
Almost as though he was still afraid …
She will die, you know, the dragon whispered.
He shook himself, scowling. Impossible. He was Darth Vader. Fear had no power over him. He had destroyed his fear.
All things die.
Yet it was as though when he had crushed the dragon under his boot, the dragon had sunk venomed fangs into his heel.
Now its poison chilled him to the bone.
Even stars burn out.
He shook himself again and strode toward the holocomm. He would talk to his Master.
Palpatine had always helped him keep the dragon down.
A comlink chimed.
Yoda opened his eyes in the darkness.
“Yes, Master Kenobi?”
“We’re landing now. Are you in position?”
“I am.”
A moment of silence.
“Master Yoda … if we don’t see each other again—”
“Think not of after, Obi-Wan. Always now, even eternity will be.”
Another moment of silence.
Longer.
“May the Force be with you.”
“It is. And may the Force be with you, young Obi-Wan.”
The transmission ended.
Yoda rose.
A gesture opened the grating of the vent shaft where he had waited in meditation, revealing the vast conic well that was the Grand Convocation Chamber of the Galactic Senate. It was sometimes called the Senate Arena.
Today, this nickname would be particularly apt.
Yoda stretched blood back into his green flesh.
This was his time.
Nine hundred years of study and training, of teaching and of meditation, all now focused, and refined, and resolved into this single moment; the sole purpose of his vast span of existence had been to prepare him to enter the heart of night and bring his light against the darkness.
He