Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Shadow Part Nine [SWJ:FO/SI]
The Tomb was swarming with Imperial soldiers. He kept to the shadows, and avoided the Purge Troopers that were battling with renewed vigor the Tomb's own guardians.
"You could help the Stormtroopers," the voice came to him once more, and he turned to stare into the face of the Emperor himself, looking at him with quiet contemplation on his face.
"Why would I even do that?" Cal asked, holding still behind a bunch of overgrown roots, while a ray of brilliant energy cut over his head and scorched the stone, two Purge Troopers battling the construct and slamming their electro-weaponry into it.
"They are living beings, the construct is just an old droid without an off switch," the Emperor said. "Shouldn't a Jedi preserve life?"
"I'm not a Jedi," Cal said.
"That is quite the interesting statement," the Emperor's lips twitched upwards. "Yet you are helping reform the order, are you not?"
"How do you know that?" Cal asked, blithely turning to look at the figure who was merely shaking his head at his question.
"Cordova was one of the few Jedi I called a friend, Cal," the Emperor said. "He knew a great darkness was coming, and took steps to preserve the order. Sifo-Dyas did the same. They prepared, they planned, they acted..." he hummed, "And in the end, they failed. I tried the same, and failed also."
"What do you mean?" Cal asked, turning back to where the battle was coming to a conclusion, the Purge Troopers both looking winded and tired, and the construct not really looking all that worse for the wear.
"What I mean is-" the apparition disappeared just as one of the construct's fists slammed into a Purge Trooper, sending him to hit the wall nearby and fall on the ground, hopefully unconscious. The other snarled, and thrust the electrostaff into the construct's rotating energy generator.
The resulting explosion briefly threw the old droid's core out of its socket, floating in mid-air under the pulsating magnetic field that still held it close by. Cal capitalized on that, throwing his lightsaber in a spin in the air and slicing through the core.
As it detonated, he ran past the half-dazed Purge Trooper to recover his lightsaber that now rested unlit on the ground. He spun while wielding the weapon in his hands, but the weaponless enemy simply cradled his right wrist, the dark plastoid armor of the gauntlet badly charred if not outright melted.
They stared at one another for a brief moment.
"This is TK-133, temple droid got SN-645; I took it down but my right arm's busted," his voice came through clearly, and Cal stared at the Purge Trooper for another long moment, unsure of what he was seeing.
"We're sending a Medic over; MH-905, do you copy? Medivac requested by TK-133-"
The Trooper inclined his head to the side, indicating a nearby hole in the wall that Cal could fit through.
BD-1 beeped from his back, and just like that, he deactivated his lightsaber and quietly began to crawl through the crack, emerging in a long and dusty hallway that was filled with burning urns and statues of the Zeffo staring down with judgmental eyes at him.
BD-1 beeped again, and Cal sighed. "I don't know BD. I-I wasn't expecting this."
BD-1 beeped once more, and Cal chuckled in reply. "I guess I'd be no better than the Empire if I acted like them," he answered back.
BD-1 beeped in agreement. Cal climbed over large, stone steps that had probably been meant for the larger-built Zeffos, and as his fingers gently touched the side of the wall, he felt the Force within the place. It was a wrong feeling, but he couldn't understand what it meant.
"The Force exists in hues," he stumbled on his next step, the figure of the Emperor reappearing just as he came on a ledge, under which a group of Stormtroopers were holding their ground behind the cover of rocks, a Zeffo Droid firing his laser-bombs in their directions. "What you are feeling is the instinctive knowledge that this place wasn't used just for Kindness and Everything Nice."
Cal frowned, "Why are you here? What makes me so important?"
"Nothing, really," the Emperor answered. "I meditate a lot; my attention is turned to the vast corners of the Galaxy and you're something new for now," he glanced down the ledge, and hummed. "They're pinned down."
"I'm not helping the Empire ransack this place," Cal grumbled back.
"I'm not asking you to," the Emperor said. "I can however feel your doubts," he added. "And I wonder why you have not done the obvious thing, and asked me about them."
Carl snorted, "Because you'd answer me honestly?"
"Maybe," the Emperor chuckled, "But you would have some answers; then, you could ask other people, and they'd give you different answers. Once you have enough answers, you could seek out their common ground, and form your own opinion."
Cal crouched over the ledge, looking down at the Stormtroopers now returning fire, the blaster bolts impacting the hardened alloy of the droids, leaving behind scorch marks that didn't apparently perturb the construct.
"The Empire takes away people's freedom, their lands, their lives-" Cal said. "You executed Order Sixty-Six."
"I did not," the Emperor mused, "I did fall down on my feet after it was executed, I admit, but I was not the one who gave the order. If anything, I wished desperately to stop it," he looked at Cal, "But I failed. I didn't account for Darth Sidious' contingency plan. When the Sith responsible for this died, an automated message was sent out to the Clones, and Order Sixty-Six was executed all the same."
Cal closed his eyes, and then shook his head. "My Master died because of a recording?"
"The Inhibition chip in the old clones couldn't be removed, nor altered. The new ones don't have that problem, but they're still being trained on Kamino," the Emperor answered, honestly enough. "I've ordered more than a million of them; policing the Galaxy takes manpower."
Cal looked at the figure of the Emperor who seemed half-lost in thoughts, and then back down at the scuffle below. "Why?"
"Because I need people I can trust," the Emperor answered easily enough. "Darth Sidious was defeated, but he had contingencies and plans, and suicide-switches and whatnot. He had one of his underlings dig a hole straight into a planet's core, wanting the planet's destruction in the untimely case of his death to cripple anyone who fought over it. And that was one of the many problems I had to solve soon after, but not the last, nor even the most damning."
He crossed his arms in front of his chest. "It is easy to believe that crushing freedom is evil; but when freedom is used to corrupt, assassinate, destabilize the matters of law and incite bloody rebellions? Then that Freedom has no right to exist; no more than a rightfully elected government keeps the law, so I enforce the Empire's Law across this Galaxy."
"The Jedi," Cal muttered, "You hunt them."
"I have to," the Emperor mused. "Not out of hatred, mind you; think about it, do they not take Force-Sensitive children from their families and train them in their ways? Of course, families lap it up when they say that their child has a great destiny, or they must be taken by this or that Jedi Seeker because it's for the best and there might be dangers ahead, but...is that truly necessary? Leaving the Jedi by their own means that they might end up taking children from families who know no better; I'm not doing this because I want to kill the Jedi, I'm doing this because I want to protect the children."
Cal sat down on the stone ground of the ledge, the noise of blasters coming to a halt as the construct actually fell, a powerful shot taking its energy core out in one shot, the resounding explosion sending molten shrapnel everywhere.
"How can that be the truth?" Cal asked.
The Emperor sat down in front of him, his legs crossed and his hands on his knees, "It is one truth, Cal. I'm not asking you to trust my words; I'm not asking you to believe in me wholeheartedly. What I want you to do is keep doing what you're doing. You will experience many things as you do this, and once you reach the end, once you have that list of Force-Sensitive children...destroy it."
Cal blinked, "What? But don't you want-"
The Emperor shook his head. "Cal, I have no need for it. Force-Sensitive children throughout the galaxy will live their lives, grow up, and if they show signs of being capable of using the Force they'll be picked up inevitably and trained in its use by the Inquisitorius. The list is worthless to me, but the damage that can be caused if you, or Cere, got your hands on it and went on a kidnapping spree? Think about it, and make your choice."
The Emperor sighed, "But I have to go now, Cal. I'll come back later, and we can talk more if you'd like."
"Not like I can stop you," Cal pointed out.
"You can," the Emperor said with a dry chuckle. "But deep down, you don't want to; you want answers, you want to satisfy your curiosity, you want to know how I think, or what I wish for the Galaxy, and those are all natural things. With time, maybe, you'll come around. But make no mistake Cal," he slowly stood up, "I will protect those children with any means necessary. So if you do not choose to destroy that list, I will have you hunted down ruthlessly, and I will have you, and Cere, killed."
Cal froze, the feeling of death brushing over him as he felt the goosebumps rise all over his skin. "You are free to choose, but you are not free from the consequences of your choice."
Then the Emperor's apparition was gone, and Cal exhaled a breath he didn't know he had been holding on to.
He didn't know what was more horrifying. The way the Emperor appeared pleasant, and even somewhat a soothing presence to speak with, or how quickly it had veered down into a depth of coldness and death that he had no idea could even be there.
He didn't want, instinctively, to follow the man's advice.
At the same time, he didn't have a greater purpose.
BD-1 beeped, and Cal quietly nodded. "I know BD. Talking to myself isn't the greatest of ideas right now."
Then, he quietly glanced past the ledge once more, and saw that the Imperial Patrol had moved forth. Silently, he dropped down from the ledge and, at a distance, followed them.
He had to get into the tomb anyway.
It felt like running away from a decision, it felt like avoiding to give an answer for fear of not knowing whether it was the right one or the wrong one, and yet it was the most he could come up with.
But one thing he knew, beyond doubt.
The Emperor was hiding something. Something deep, and horrifying.
Whether he had the courage to find out what it was or not, however, wasn't easy to find out.
---
I glanced at the ceiling of my meditation room. Whispers echoed. Feelings twirled.
I slowly stood up, "I am the Master of my fate," I whispered, "I am the Captain of my soul."
The Force twisted, pouring back and forth as I raised a hand and a Sith Holocron pulsed close by. I nodded absentmindedly, and then put it back where it was.
"My Emperor," Tarkin's voice was tight as it came through the hologram in my room. "The Death Star's hyperdrive engines-they have been stolen."
I snapped my gaze back towards him. "You speak so highly of your Tarkin Doctrine, and what has it yielded you?" I mused. "Recover them. The Grand Inquisitor shall aid you. Do not fail me."
"Yes, my Emperor. Your will be done," Tarkin bowed his head, before the hologram stopped transmitting.
I walked out of my meditation chambers, a grumbling in my stomach telling me it was time to get something to eat. I could have a droid bring something up, but sometimes I relished the human contact with others. Thus I divested myself of the Emperor's robes and merely put on those of a simple Officer.
I walked out of there with a skip to my step.
If I wasn't wrong, the menu today was some kind of mashed potato-equivalent with gravy and roast in the Officer's lounge, while the Soldier's mess hall had the meat and beans rations.
I'd try to see if I could convince the cook for an extra side-portion of beans; it had been a while since I had eaten them.
Also, an officer eating with the troops bolstered moral.
As it turned out, I wasn't the only one who had thought the same thing.
"I really don't like the gravy sauce," a face inherently similar to mine looked back at me. "Too fat."
I arched an eyebrow, "Is someone not skimming it properly?"
"Eh, the others seem to like it well enough," my other self shrugged. "Officer talk is all about this Berch Teller fellow and the size of his balls. He's sending messages on the Holonet."
I sighed. "They can't be traced back to a source, can they?"
"Nope, or it would be too easy," my other self muttered. "How's things going on at your end? Headaches?"
"Too many to count, too many to forget," I chuckled. "I'm distracting myself with this new fellow. Cal Kestis' heart is in the right place, but he's young and thus, foolish."
"We were young and foolish once too," my other self pointed out, before taking a seat at an empty table, while I sat in front of him.
"And we paid the price for it," I mused. "Never again."
My other self nodded.
"Never again."
It was the world's most complicated Puppet Show...
...but in life, the best things are always worth the effort.
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