Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (Star Wars: Novelizations #3)

by Matthew Woodring Stover

Sun-dragon

Sun-dragon

What you have done—what happened in the General’s Quarters and, more important, why it happened—is all burning away in Coruscant’s atmosphere along with Dooku’s decapitated corpse. Already it seems as if it happened to somebody else, as if you were somebody else when you did it, and it seems as if that man—the dragon-haunted man with a furnace for a heart and a mind as cold as the surface of that dead star—had really only been an image reflected in Dooku’s open staring eyes. And by the time what’s left of the conning spire crashes into the kilometers-thick crust of city that is the surface of Coruscant, those dead eyes will have burned away, and the dragon will burn with them. And you, for the first time in your life, will truly be free. This is how it feels to be Anakin Skywalker. For now.

Sun-dragon

By the time the doors to the Jedi Council Chamber finally swung open, Anakin was already angry. If asked, he would have denied it, and would have thought he was telling the truth … but they had left him out here for so long, with nothing to do but stare through the soot-smudged curve of the High Council Tower’s window ring at the scarred skyline of Galactic City—damaged in a battle he had won, by the way, personally. Almost single-handedly—and with nothing to think about except why it was taking them so long to reach such a simple decision … Angry? Not at all. He was sure he wasn’t angry. He kept telling himself he wasn’t angry, and he made himself believe it. Anakin walked into the Council Chamber, head lowered in a show of humility and respect. But down inside him, down around the nuclear shielding that banked his heart, he was hiding. It wasn’t anger he was hiding. His anger was only camouflage. Behind his anger hid the dragon. He remembered too well the first time he had entered this Chamber, the first time he had stood within a ring of Jedi Masters gathered to sit in judgment upon his fate. He remembered how Yoda’s green stare had seen into his heart, had seen the cold worm of dread eating away at him, no matter how hard he’d tried to deny it: the awful fear he’d felt that he might never see his mother again. He couldn’t let them see what that worm had grown into.

Sun-dragon

You’re drowning. “I am not …,” you hear yourself say, “… on your side. I am not evil.” “Who said anything about evil? I am bringing peace to the galaxy. Is that evil? I am offering you the power to save Padmé. Is that evil? Have I attacked you? Drugged you? Are you being tortured? My boy, I am asking you. I am asking you to do the right thing. Turn your back on treason. On all those who would harm the Republic. I’m asking you to do exactly what you have sworn to do: bring peace and justice to the galaxy. And save Padmé, of course—haven’t you sworn to protect her, too …?” “I—but—I—” Words will not fit themselves into the answers you need. If only Obi-Wan were here—Obi-Wan would know what to say. What to do. Obi-Wan could handle this. Right now, you know you can’t. “I—I’ll turn you over to the Jedi Council—they’ll know what to do—” “I’m sure they will. They are already planning to overthrow the Republic; you’ll give them exactly the excuse they’re looking for. And when they come to execute me, will that be justice? Will they be bringing peace?” “They won’t—they wouldn’t—!” “Well, of course I hope you’re correct, Anakin. You’ll forgive me if I don’t share your blind loyalty to your comrades. I suppose it does indeed come down, in the end, to a question of loyalty,” he said thoughtfully. “That’s what you must ask yourself, my boy. Whether your loyalty is to the Jedi, or to the Republic.” “It’s not—it’s not like that—” Palpatine lifted his shoulders. “Perhaps not. Perhaps it’s ...

Sun-dragon

Alone in the Chamber of the Jedi Council, Anakin Skywalker wrestled with his dragon. He was losing. He paced the Chamber in blind arcs, stumbling among the chairs. He could not feel currents of the Force around him; he could not feel echoes of Jedi Masters in these ancient seats. He had never dreamed there was this much pain in the universe. Physical pain he could have handled even without his Jedi mental skills; he’d always been tough. At four years old he’d been able to take the worst beating Watto would deliver without so much as making a sound. Nothing had prepared him for this. He wanted to rip open his chest with his bare hands and claw out his heart. “What have I done?” The question started as a low moan but grew to a howl he could no longer lock behind his teeth. “What have I done?” He knew the answer: he had done his duty. And now he couldn’t imagine why. When I die, Palpatine had said, so calmly, so warmly, so reasonably, my knowledge dies with me … Everywhere he looked, he saw only the face of the woman he loved beyond love: the woman for whom he channeled through his body all the love that had ever existed in the galaxy. In the universe. He didn’t care what she had done. He didn’t care about conspiracies or cabals or secret pacts. Treason meant nothing to him now. She was everything that had ever been loved by anyone, and he was watching her die. His agony somehow became an invisible hand, stretching out through the Force, a hand that found her, far away, alone...

Sun-dragon

“Rise, Darth Vader.” The Sith Lord who once had been a Jedi hero called Anakin Skywalker stood, drawing himself up to his full height, but he looked not outward upon his new Master, nor upon the planet-city beyond, nor out into the galaxy that they would soon rule. He instead turned his gaze inward: he unlocked the furnace gate within his heart and stepped forth to regard with new eyes the cold freezing dread of the dead-star dragon that had haunted his life. I am Darth Vader, he said within himself. The dragon tried again to whisper of failure, and weakness, and inevitable death, but with one hand the Sith Lord caught it, crushed away its voice; it tried to rise then, to coil and rear and strike, but the Sith Lord laid his other hand upon it and broke its power with a single effortless twist. I am Darth Vader, he repeated as he ground the dragon’s corpse to dust beneath his mental heel, as he watched the dragon’s dust and ashes scatter before the blast from his furnace heart, and you— You are nothing at all. He had become, finally, what they all called him. The Hero With No Fear.

Sun-dragon

“Stop!” he cried. “Enough! We surrender, do you understand? You can’t just kill us—” The Sith Lord smiled. “Can’t I?” “We’re unarmed! We surrender! Please—please, you’re a Jedi!” “You fought a war to destroy the Jedi.” Vader stood above the shivering Neimoidian, smiling down upon him, then fed him half a meter of plasma. “Congratulations on your success.” The Sith Lord stepped over Haako’s corpse to where Wat Tambor clawed uselessly at the transparisteel wall with his armored gauntlets. The head of the Techno Union turned at his approach, cringing, arms lifted to shield his faceplate from the flames in the dragon’s eyes. “Please, I’ll give you anything. Anything you want!” The blade flashed twice; Tambor’s arms fell to the floor, followed by his head.

Sun-dragon

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.

Sun-dragon

You open your scorched-pale eyes; optical sensors integrate light and shadow into a hideous simulacrum of the world around you. Or perhaps the simulacrum is perfect, and it is the world that is hideous. Padmé? Are you here? Are you all right? you try to say, but another voice speaks for you, out from the vocabulator that serves you for burned-away lips and tongue and throat. “Padmé? Are you here? Are you all right?” I’m very sorry, Lord Vader. I’m afraid she died. It seems in your anger, you killed her. This burns hotter than the lava had. “No … no, it is not possible!” You loved her. You will always love her. You could never will her death. Never. But you remember … You remember all of it. You remember the dragon that you brought Vader forth from your heart to slay. You remember the cold venom in Vader’s blood. You remember the furnace of Vader’s fury, and the black hatred of seizing her throat to silence her lying mouth— And there is one blazing moment in which you finally understand that there was no dragon. That there was no Vader. That there was only you. Only Anakin Skywalker. That it was all you. Is you. Only you. You did it. You killed her. You killed her because, finally, when you could have saved her, when you could have gone away with her, when you could have been thinking about her, you were thinking about yourself … It is in this blazing moment that you finally understand the trap of the dark side, the final cruelty of the Sith— Because now your self is all yo...

Sun-dragon