Anakin ran a hand through his hair and collapsed against the back wall of the turbolift. The Senate dome wasn't the place for such displays — Obi-Wan would've scolded him — but for the moment he was alone and could indulge.
The turbolift slowed to a halt. Anakin rose and put on the gentle smile and false sense of calm necessary to not panic the Senators and stepped out — only to run into someone.
"Ah, Knight Skywalker," the man said. Human, pale skin, dark hair, shorter than Obi-Wan but not short per se. "It is good to finally meet you. I'm Mr. Morden."
"What do you want?" Anakin sighed. He did not have the time for this. His meeting with the Chancellor had gone overtime already, and as much as he liked the older man-
"Funny," Morden said, smiling in a fashion politicians never did. "I was just about to ask the same of you."
This must be a trap of some sort. No-one ever asked Anakin what he wanted. Well, except Obi-Wan, but half the time that was a trap, too. "An end to the war would be nice," Anakin said. "Do you think you could deliver that?"
Morden laughed. "I think that's beyond even my associates' abilities," he smoothly said. "But they do have capabilities they ... hesitate to commit to the war." Before Anakin could snap about the lack of patriotism, he continued, "You see, as much as the Jedi might be the figureheads of the war, you know how much their hands are tied by the Senate. All those rules and regulations and ... expectations on whose world should be saved first. Decisions ruled by politics, rather than necessity."
"The Chancellor's doing his best," Anakin automatically objected.
"He is; my associates and he have been acquainted since before his election to the Senate, even. In fact, he was the one who brought up your name." Morden drew a breath. "You see, my associates want to contribute. The prospect of a Separatist victory is as unthinkable to them as to you. They simply wish to commit their resources ... efficiently. And who better to give them the true shape of things than a Jedi hero of the front lines?"
Anakin narrowed his gaze. This was probably bogus, but Morden seemed sincere and the Force was smooth around him, like around the Chancellor. If this was some sort of hoax, then it was a benevolent one, with Morden out of his mind and his associates something psychiatric drugs would remove. Most importantly, it did not feel like a danger, like Seppie intel gathering would feel. And it's not like they could get an agent to the Senate; Coruscant, maybe, if they bought someone, but no agent of theirs in the Senate dome would be so brazen.
"There's a droid factory on the third moon of Jensarii, near Geonosis," Anakin said. The Council knew of it, the Chancellor knew of it, and most importantly, the Separatists knew that they knew of it. "We do not have the resources to strike at it at present."
Morden nodded. "Thank you, Knight Skywalker. We will use this information wisely." He smiled. "Now, I'm afraid I must be going." With that, he nodded and walked into the turbolift Anakin had vacated.
Well, that had been interesting. Anakin shrugged to himself and dragged himself back to the Temple to sleep. In all likelihood, nothing would happen.
"...Master Mundi's forces managed to evict Grievous from Felucia, and as it turns out, Jensarii has a resistance," Adi Gallia happily concluded the war briefing over holo. Technically, Anakin shouldn't have been hearing this, but Obi-Wan hadn't tossed him out and the rest of the Council didn't seem to mind. Perhaps they, too, sensed just how much Anakin needed to know. Or they appreciated having an on-call tech expert.
Obi-Wan stroked his beard. "Ah? Jensarii. That was..."
"Droid factory on the third moon," Anakin helpfully supplied.
"It's been completely leveled," Master Gallia said. "Just a crater there. I don't know how they managed it — perhaps some detonite smuggled in with a materials shipment — but that's one factory whose output we never have to worry about again."
"That's excellent news, and sorely needed," Obi-Wan said.
"We still don't have the manpower necessary to make strikes anywhere near the region, but it should ease demands on us all along the front," Mace Windu said. "Hopefully this will encourage other resistance cells to spring up and strike back."
"What are the Separatists saying about the attack?" Anakin asked.
"That it was a Republic warship that dropped out of hyperspace on top of the facility and destroyed it with experimental weaponry, but a Separatist ship managed to destroy it before it could jump away," Master Gallia said.
Anakin tapped the fingers of his metal hand against his thigh. "The moon's in the mass shadow of the planet, isn't it?"
"It is."
"I imagine a resistance cell would be most embarrassing for their Separatist overlords," Obi-Wan smoothly said.
"Though their little fabrication does make the Republic seem technologically ahead," Master Gallia pointed out. "The lie seems rather desperate."
"I don't suppose we could press the advantage?" Master Windu asked.
"Even if we seconded Anakin to R&D, we would not have the necessary tech edge," Master Gallia said. Anakin ducked his head as he felt his cheeks heat up.
"Well, if that is all, I do believe Anakin and I have a front to tend to," Obi-Wan said. A chorus of raised eyebrows made clear the Council knew exactly what had prompted this and that Obi-Wan should probably reflect on this clinginess later.
A few echoes of "May the Force be with you," and the holo cut out. Perhaps Obi-Wan would even do the reflecting. Perhaps he's always done the reflecting and decided that there was a war going on and he'd rather cling a bit. Anakin would like that.
They went to deal with the logistics of running a war. Obi-Wan didn't bring up Jensarii. Neither did Anakin.
A few months later, Anakin was once again leaving the Chancellor's office when he ran into Morden, this time in the antechamber. "Hello," he offered.
"Knight Skywalker," Morden said. "It's a pleasure. Was our forces' contribution satisfactory?"
It took Anakin a few moments to remember what he was talking about. "Yes," he said once he recalled Jensarii.
Morden smiled. "Excellent. I take it you'd be interested in continuing our partnership?"
"Sure."
"Here's my holofrequency." Morden handed out an extremely boring-looking business card. "If you come across any target your forces cannot handle, do give a call."
Anakin held the piece of actual paper in his flesh hand. "Of course." He didn't know if he would, and he probably shouldn't, but the Separatists were getting bolder and the Council had an air of desperation leaking from them.
Morden bowed. "It has been good to see you. Now, if you'll excuse me, it wouldn't do to keep the Chancellor waiting."
"Good day, Mr. Morden," Anakin said and bowed.
Morden disappeared into the Chancellor's office. So they were genuinely acquainted. Anakin wondered why he and his associates couldn't offer their assistance directly to the Chancellor, but that was probably related to the plausible deniability thing Obi-Wan kept talking about with regards to the Council's actions. After all, the Senate was filled with snakes.
He stuffed the business card up his sleeve and headed back to the Jedi Temple. There were things to do.
It was a few months later, new intel on a dozen Separatist strongholds in hand, that Anakin remembered the business card. The Republic could not assault them all. Not even most of them. But Morden's associates... Anakin quickly evaluated which of the strongholds were least reachable by the Republic and sent the top two to Morden.
Both had been reduced to rubble before the week was over. The Council spoke of the desperation of the resistance fighters and speculated on civilian casualties. Anakin did not correct their assumptions.
He turned to Morden more often after that. Not things that would make the GAR cross paths with them, but fortresses and droid factories in Separatist space, where the Jedi could not strike. And Morden always delivered.
Anakin became bolder in his requests. Not Serenno or Raxus Secundus, but worlds close in.
News came in of a giant explosion of a R&D facility on Anaxes, right next to a large city. The Separatist media went wild, blaming each and every civilian fatality on the Republic, erasing the fact that there had been a military research installation there in the first place. The Council speculated on the resistance growing bolder and more desperate. Anakin, again, kept his mouth shut on who had delivered the blow and who had provided the intel.
That evening, he shut himself in his room and sank down against a wall, hugging his legs. He knew he should tell Obi-Wan about Morden and his associates, should have told a long time ago, but had held his tongue.
He should tell. Obi-Wan would be disappointed and the Council would scold him, but he should tell.
He pulled up his holocomm and punched in Morden's frequency instead.
Morden answered on the first ring. "Ah, Knight Skywalker. What can we do for you?"
"I want to meet your associates."
Morden nodded. "That can be arranged. When will you next have a few days off? There is, ah, some hyperspace travel involved."
Anakin felt his heart hammer in his throat. "Right now, actually."
"Very well. I will tell you soon on when we'll pick you up. Good night, Knight Skywalker." Morden smiled and cut the connection.
Anakin stared at the empty space vacated by his translucent blue form and flexed the fingers of his flesh hand. Morden's associates were useful and good at behind-the-scenes operations. Maybe the Council would be less unhappy with him if he presented them to the Council and claimed he'd been evaluating their efficiency. And Morden's associates would be happy to help the Council, surely. After all, Anakin didn't hear about everything relevant to the war effort. The Council knew much more.
His comm pinged with a message. A discreet diplomatic platform near 500 Republica in half an hour.
Well, no-one had ever accused Morden of wasting time. Anakin put his cloak back on, drank a glass of water, and set out into Coruscant's dusk.
The last rays of the dying Sun were dancing on the tops of the tallest buildings when Anakin reached the landing pad. A generic-looking shuttle stood there, landing ramp open. Morden and the Chancellor were conversing at its foot.
Anakin stopped before them and bowed. "Your Excellency. Will you be joining us?"
The Chancellor smiled sadly. "I'm afraid the war keeps me on Coruscant, much as I'd like to go. I can only send you off." He clapped a hand to Anakin's shoulder. "My boy, I'm glad you could arrange this meeting. Their name might be quite unpronounceable to the likes of you and I, but their spokeswoman is an excellent philosopher, in addition to her other duties. You'll learn much, I trust."
Anakin bent his head and shuffled in place. "Thank you, Your Excellency."
"Modest as always." The Chancellor released him. "Now, it wouldn't do to keep them waiting. Have a nice trip."
Anakin bowed once more and followed Morden into the shuttle. As they rose, he watched through the window as the light gave way to night.
"I'm sure you have many questions," Morden said, "but they shall have to wait for our destination. Rest assured that my associates are very eager to meet you."
With that, he showed Anakin to a moderately roomy sleeping chamber. Anakin ate the provided rations and used the hygiene pack before collapsing on the bed and staring at the ceiling until he fell into a sleep filled with crablike ships black as the void between the stars.
Come morning, Anakin was awake, unsettled by some currents in the Force he could barely describe, as they descended into the dusty atmosphere of a red planet, cold sand and colder rock. He couldn't see any vegetation or signs of habitation.
"We moved all structures underground years ago for safety reasons," Morden said. Anakin hadn't noticed him come up.
"Where are we?"
"Depends on who you ask." Morden stood next to him at the window. "The first sentients who made contact called it Korriban. On current Republic star charts, it is called Moraband. To its original inhabitants, though, it is called Z'Ha'Dum."
"Z'Ha'Dum." Anakin mouthed the word as the ground split before them to reveal a cavern filled with ships. He thought he'd heard Moraband mentioned somewhere, but couldn't place the name.
Usually the Republic called worlds after their oldest sentient inhabitants, or at least what their oldest sentient inhabitants called them. This sometimes caused severe consternation — the Quarrens had never been happy that the Republic had ruled in favor of the Mon Calamari on the name of Mon Cala — but if what Morden said was true, the planet should be called Z'Ha'Dum.
Unless the eldest species ceded some right due to a rich history of multicultural habitation. "Have there been settlements by other species?" he asked as they walked through the stunningly diverse offerings of the hangar.
"The Tsis, now extinct, some millennia ago, and humans shortly after," Morden said. "This was once a multispecies metropolis, though my associates have let that cool down in favor of contemplation and observation for the past millennium."
Since the founding of the Republic. Or, more likely, since the war with the Sith of the Brotherhood of Darkness and then Darth Bane. Planetary bombardment could go a long way to explaining the current state of the surface.
They walked through a sand-brown corridor cut straight into the rock. "Here." Morden knocked on a door, then opened it. "May I present Anakin Skywalker, Jedi Knight."
"Welcome," a human woman said. She had ragged, tufty white hair and a face that could charitably be called plain. After years of Coruscant's artificial finery and mirror-polished beauty that hid rot within, it was refreshing to meet someone who looked like a real person. Anakin couldn't help but like her already. "I am Sorzus Syn."
Anakin bowed. "Hello, Lady Syn."
She twitched her lips. Another title, then — but she didn't mention which. "I imagine you have many questions. Please, take a seat."
He sat down on one of the gray-brown couches. Had they been even slightly warmer in tone, they'd have fit right into the Jedi Temple. "Could you tell me about your, uh, people?"
"So precise," she said, approvingly. She sat down opposite to him and steepled her fingers. "As for my ... employers, if you will — let us start with what they are called. Their true name is 10,000 letters long and unpronounceable by the likes of us. We call them the Shadows."
"The Shadows." Anakin thought for a moment. "Because they're dark-colored, or because they're, uh, crepuscular?"
Syn laughed. "Oh, no, not at all. Well, I suppose they are dark-colored." She leaned forwards. "It's because they prefer to work in the shadows."
"Hence the covert strikes rather than joining the war."
"Exactly." She leaned back. "I have spent many years with them, learning from them, ever since I first set foot on this rock I knew only as a coordinate on a map. You see, millions of years ago, the galaxy was filled with races that held powers we could not even begin to understand. The Rakata. The Gree. The Kwa."
"And the Shadows?"
"Indeed. You see, Anakin, most of these races outgrew this little corner of the universe and left for other galaxies. But two remained. The Shadows ... and the Vorlons."
"You've met the Vorlons," Morden said from the door. "They kidnapped you on Mortis. Thankfully, you resisted their ploy."
"You probably noticed the biased set-up they showed you," Syn continued. "Two beings representing the Light and Dark, with things necessary to life, like the night and rest, made synonymous with murder, and someone needed to hold tight rein on them all. Order. Strangulation."
"The Vorlons want to bottle up our potential, play by every rule imaginable, even the injust ones," Morden said. "Their lust for rules and order goes so far that even when they made you using Force manipulations, they would not free your mother. Because, after all, that would go against the rules of Hutt Space."
Anakin felt as if he'd taken a step on level ground only to plummet into freefall. "What do you mean, they made me?"
"They knew the Jedi had a prophecy about the Chosen One, so they made one," Syn explained. "They hoped they could use you against the Jedi as a sleeper agent, to bend them to their will. But you refused them and threw off your shackles."
"I-" Anakin took a deep breath and tried to calm himself. He'd thought his mother had just had a baby because she wanted one so much the Force provided, or something, but she'd just been fucked over by a hyper-powerful Force sensitive with an agenda. One who hadn't even bothered to free her and buy her a ticket to Republic space.
But she'd loved him. She'd loved him nonetheless, and now she was-
He swallowed his feelings deep within him. He didn't want to think about them. Not now. Not ever. He'd just ... ignore this. Yes.
"And the Shadows?" he heard himself asking. "What do they stand for?"
"Unleashing our full potential," Syn said. "Breaking the chains placed upon us."
"So they support going after the Hutts and Zygerrians and other slaver scum as soon as the war is over?" Anakin asked. Obi-Wan had said the Jedi would like nothing more than to stop slavery, but their hands were tied by the Senate. If the Senate was under Vorlon control...
"If you wish. You see, at heart, the principle is simple. You take groups of people and bring them together. They fight. Many die, but the survivors are strong. Their strength will have brought them victory, and through victory, their chains are broken."
"Peace is a lie," Morden said. "That is the heart of Shadow philosophy. Peace is stagnation. We only grow through struggle."
"That's not true," Anakin reflexively said.
"Do the Jedi not have trials, both for Knighthood and for ongoing self-reflection?" Syn asked. "This is the same, but on a galactic scale. Cultures. Races. Civilizations. All of them being given their trial by combat. Some might fail, but the survivors emerge stronger."
"No." Anakin rose to his feet. "That's not- War never made anyone stronger! It just tears people down. Haven't you seen the refugees? The bombed-out ruins? All the cities wiped out by some inhumane Separatist superweapon?"
"Tragic, but the weak must be culled."
"They haven't done anything wrong! And it's not like surviving a superweapon is a matter of anything but luck. Being out of town on a random day isn't a strength, it's happenstance."
"Yet consistent luck comes from the touch of the Force, and the Force is strength."
Anakin closed his mouth and had to remind himself to breathe. He was shaking with — rage, fear, both — and he didn't have a single coherent argument in him, merely the deep conviction that this was wrong. "No," he said. "I do not agree." He swallowed. What would Obi-Wan say? "I don't think we should continue our association."
Syn and Mordin looked at each other. "That would be a shame," Mordin said, moving to block the door. Anakin let his hand drift towards his lightsaber as the Force began blaring belated warnings at him.
"Years ago, young Sheev stood where you once stood and chose right," Syn continued. "He thought you showed such promise. Yet you would squander his gift."
"It's not a gift," Anakin insisted before her words hit him like a punch in the gut. Sheev. Sheev Palpatine. "The Chancellor is in on this?" he demanded. His stomach sank as the implications hit him. The Chancellor, agreeing with people who thought war was the way forward. The odd way everything had fallen into place to start it. The intel leaks they never could plug. The way every advantage they gained was immediately neutralized. "Force. He- he manufactured it."
"He and Dooku have conspired with us to give a great gift to the galaxy," Syn said.
Anakin whipped out his lightsaber. Its blade shook in his trembling hands. He should've been alarmed, turned it off, but the Force itself was screaming get away get away get away in his mind and he had to run. "Let me out," he threatened Morden.
"I'm afraid it doesn't work like that," Morden said, ignoring the wildly oscillating lightsaber blade near his face.
"A pity," Syn said. "He is, at least, a good pilot."
What? Anakin didn't like how pleased she sounded. He stepped forwards, about to turn on Morden-
Two beings phased into existence next to him, somehow arachnid or crustacean, waist-height and black as the night. They shot something at Anakin without so much as moving. He brought his blade up to deflect the black-purple bolts, but impact only absorbed them into his blade, sending spikes of pain up his arms.
Morden was smiling the same smile he had when they'd first met as Anakin frantically blocked a deluge of bolts, the Force screaming in his ears. His arms shook from the effort of blocking.
"Enough of that," Sorzus Syn said behind him.
He was swatted to his knees with a tremendous slap of the Force, ice-cold and oily, fanged and Dark enough to make all his prior encounters with it seem like the Temple crèche in comparison. He gasped, tried to rise, and found himself pinned down by the same callous cold.
"You're a Sith," he croaked as he tried to roll away.
"I made the Sith," she corrected. "And you are a disappointment."
The creatures — Shadows? — had stopped firing on him. He could feel their alienly gleeful regard as a physical weight. He struggled in vain against Syn's Force grip.
"But no matter," she continued. "That can be fixed. Mordin, too, first chose wrong. He spent a bit of time as the central processing core of one of our ships — as you soon will." She took a step towards him. "Of course, once you've been in one of those ships, you're never quite whole again. But you do what you're told." Her face twisted into a snarl. "And so will you!"
Anakin felt an overwhelming roar in his ears, static along every nerve, something pressing down and pushing. He screamed with it and rolled, hitting an invisible wall and-
The Jedi Temple was weird and full of odd people, but Anakin had managed to find both nice spots to hide in and ways to sneak out. He was currently in the Observatory Tower. Coruscant had much too much light pollution to see the actual stars, but here they had a dark room with a huge holographic projector for star maps, so people could stargaze indoors at any time of the day. It was so wizard.
He'd taken to coming here when he felt stressed, first to look at the map of Tatooine and think about Mom, but then he'd started looking at other places. The galaxy was vast and had so many stars. Anakin wanted to see them all.
Today he was looking at the Esstran sector. He'd gone over the Gordian Reach last time, and while he'd recognized some worlds from there, he didn't recognize any of these ones. Some sort of backwater, then, perhaps even worse than Tatooine. Obi-Wan had mentioned there were sometimes huge supernovae that wiped out life in an entire sector, forcing everyone to evacuate. Anakin wondered whether something like that had happened here.
It was odd, to look at names on a star map — Thule, Ziost, Jaguada — and think they might be just graves now. Did the dead have anyone to mourn them? Perform the rituals to keep them well in the afterlife?
The door opened, jolting Anakin out of his thoughts. "Ah, there you are," Obi-Wan said. He then froze and carefully folded his hands in his sleeves. "Why are you looking at those worlds?"
Anakin shrugged. This was weird; usually Obi-Wan approved of his independent study. "I was done with the Gordian Reach and moved on."
"You may move past these ones. Pray to the Force you never be assigned to visit one."
"They're dead, then?" Anakin cast an eye over the map. Recently dead, if they were that irradiated still.
"Yes," Obi-Wan began, then never continued the thought. "Shut that down, would you? Master Yoda asked to come over for dinner and we should get something from Dex's."
"Yes, Master," Anakin sighed and reached out with the Force. The projection twisted in on itself as it contracted, one of the stars settling in his palm. "I wonder what it's like down there."
"If you go to Moraband, you will die," Obi-Wan said.
Anakin rolled his eyes at Obi-Wan's melodrama and shut down the projection, plunging them in darkness. He rose and followed Obi-Wan out of the room. Dinner with Master Yoda was always weird and left him feeling judged; at least this time he'd have Dex's cooking as consolation, rather than whatever mush Obi-Wan had failed at making last time.
The vacuum tingled against the hull of his body, but he'd been told that would soon stop. He twisted around, playing with the limits of his new embodiment in a dance with gravity here in the shadow of Z'Ha'Dum.
New orders arrived in his mind. He immediately jumped to hyperspace and calculated trajectories with the ease of breathing.
He emerged from hyperspace above the target location on Naboo and opened fire. His red laser beam, more like a lightsaber than a blaster bolt, ripped into buildings and ground, vaporizing them in an instant. He tore the structures and scorched the earth until there was nothing left before returning to hyperspace and Z'Ha'Dum.
He didn't know what had been at his target, but that didn't matter. He would do as he was told.