Part 40 (2/2)
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 Ken.o.bi?”
”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 adjusted the angle of his blade against his belt.
He draped his robe across his shoulders.
With reverence, with grat.i.tude, without fear, and without anger, Yoda went forth to war.
A silvery flash outside caught Darth Vader's eye, as though an elegantly curved mirror swung through the smoke and cinders, picking up the s.h.i.+ne of white-hot lava. From one knee, he could look right through the holoscan of his Master while he continued his report.
He was no longer afraid; he was too busy pretending to be respectful.
”The Separatist leaders.h.i.+p is no more, my Master.”
”It is finished, then.” The image offered a translucent mockery of a smile. ”You have restored peace and justice to the galaxy, Lord Vader.”
”That is my sole ambition. Master.”
The image tilted its head, its smile twisting without transition to a scowl. ”Lord Vader-I sense a disturbance in the Force. You may be in danger.”
He glanced at the mirror flash outside; he knew that s.h.i.+p. In danger of being kissed to death, perhaps . . . ”How should I be in danger, Master?”
”I cannot say. But the danger is real; be mindful.” Be mindful, be mindful, he thought with a mental sneer. Is that the best you can do? I could get that much from Obi-Wan . . . ”I will, my Master. Thank you.” The image faded.
He got to his feet, and now the sneer was on his lips and in his eyes. ”You're the one who should be mindful, my 'Master.' I am a disturbance in the Force.”
Outside, the sleek skiff settled to the deck. He spent a moment rea.s.sembling his Anakin Skywalker face: he let Anakin Sky-walker's love flow through him, let Anakin Skywalker's glad smile come to his lips, let Anakin Skywalker's youthful energy bring a joyous bounce to his step as he trotted to the entrance over the mess of corpses and severed body parts.
He'd meet her outside, and he'd keep her outside. He had a feeling she wouldn't approve of the way he had ... redecorated . . . the control center.
And after all, he thought with a mental shrug, there's no arguing taste . . .
The holding office of the Supreme Chancellor of the Republic comprised the nether vertex of the Senate Arena; it was little more than a circular preparations area, a green room, where guests of the Chancellor might be entertained before entering the Senate Podium-the circular pod on its immense hydraulic pillar, which contained controls that coordinated the movement of floating Senate delegation pods-and rising into the focal point of the chamber above.
Above that podium, the vast holopresence of a kneeling Sith bowed before a shadow that stood below. Guards in scarlet flanked the shadow; a Chagrian toady cringed nearby.
”But the danger is real; be mindful.”
”I will, my Master. Thank you.”
The holopresence faded, and where its huge translucency had knelt was now revealed another presence, a physical presence, tiny and aged, clad in robes and leaning on a twist of wood. But his physical presence was an illusion; the truth of him could be seen only in the Force.
In the Force, he was a fountain of light.
”Pity your new disciple I do; so lately an apprentice, so soon without a Master.”
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