The Rise And Fall Of Darth Vader (8 page)

“I don’t want to give up on her,” Cliegg said, “but she’s been gone a month. There’s little hope she’s lasted this long.”

Making every effort to control his rage, Anakin rose and stepped away from the table.

“Where are you going?” Owen asked.

Anakin shot an accusatory glare at Owen and replied, “To find my mother.”

The suns were beginning to set as Anakin stood outside the entry dome at the Lars family homestead. Owen had offered his swoop bike to Anakin, andthe bike was now parked in the air a short distance from the dome.
I shouldn ‘t be angry with Owen and Cliegg for giving up,
Anakin thought.
They cared for my mother, but they’re only human. They can only do so much.

Padmé emerged from the entry dome and went to Anakin. He knew she wanted to help, but he also knew there wasn’t any way he was going to risk her life any more than he already had. “You’re gonna have to stay here,” he said. “These are good people, Padmé. You’ll be safe.”

“Anakin…”

They embraced. Anakin almost wished he could have frozen that moment, just to keep Padmé forever close to him. But darkness was coming up fast, and his mother was still out there somewhere.
She’s alive,
he felt.
I know she is!

Releasing himself from Padmé‘s arms, Anakin walked to the swoop bike. “I won’t be long,” he said. He swung himself onto the bike, fired the engine, and tore off across the desert floor.

* * *

With the hot wind whipping at his robe, Anakin crossed into the Jundland Wastes, where Tusken Raiders were known to hide and hunt among the towering rock formations. He didn’t wonder why the Tuskens had taken his mother, or why they hadn’t killed her as they had the other farmers. For all he knew, the Tuskens were acting out some profane ritual. Their motives were not his concern. He just wanted his mother back.

He also wanted her back in one piece. He thought about what the Tuskens had done to Cliegg Lars, and he launched the bike faster over the Wastes.

He was about 150 kilometers from the Lars homestead when he sighted the tall silhouettes of sandcrawlers against the twilight sky. It was a Jawa camp. Although Jawas feared Tusken Raiders as much as anyone on Tatooine, Anakin knew the small, glowing-eyed scavengers would be more willing to provide information if he gave something in return. In exchange for a multitool and a portable scanner that he found in his borrowed bike’s pannier, the Jawas told him he should head east to find a Tusken camp.

Tatooine’s suns had long since set and the moons hung low over the horizon when Anakin saw the cluster of flickering campfires at the bottom of a deep valley. Leaving the swoop bike on the edge of a high cliff, he kept to the shadows as he ventured down into the valley and moved silently toward the camp.

The camp consisted of about two dozen tents made of skins and salvaged bits of wood from Tatooine’s long-dead forests. Two Tuskens stood a short distance from one tent, guarding it. Anakin reached out with the Force and sensed his mother was inside. Without drawing any attention to himself, he maneuvered around to the back of the tent, used his lightsaber to cut a hole through the taut skin covering, and stepped inside.

Anakin found his mother at the center of the tent, tied to a frame made of thin wooden sticks. A small fire burned in a nearby pot and cast warm, wicked shadows across the tent walls. Shmi wasn’t moving. Scared as a child, Anakin said, “Mom?” No response. He could see from the dried blood on her face and arms that she’d been terribly beaten. “Mom?” Still no response. She was barely alive. She moaned as he slipped her wrists free from the leather strips that had bound her to the frame. He gently lowered her to the ground, cradling her upper body in his arms. “Mom?”

Shmi’s bruised eyelids fluttered open, and she struggled to focus on Anakin’s face. “Ani?” she muttered. “Is it you?”

“I’m here, Mom,” he said. “You’re safe.” 

“Ani? Ani?” She seemed confused, as if she were trying to figure out whether he really was there. Then, incredibly, she managed to smile at him. “Oh, you look so handsome.” She brushed her hand against his face, and he kissed her open palm. “My son. Oh, my grownup son. I’m so proud of you, Ani.”

Anakin swallowed hard and felt the sting of tears in his eyes as he said, “I missed you.”

“Now I am complete,” Shmi said. “I love y…”  Anakin tensed as her voice cut off. “Stay with me, Mom. Everything…”

He’d wanted to tell her that everything was going to be fine. And he wanted to tell her so much more. But before he could say anything, Shmi said again, “I love…” Then her eyes closed and her head fell back. She died in his arms.

Anakin sat there in stunned silence, just holding his mother.
If I’d gotten here sooner, I could have saved her.
He pushed his fingers through Shmi’s matted hair.
I won’t leave her here. I have to get her back to the speeder bike. But those Tusken guards -

He remembered the Tusken he’d encountered when he was a boy. 

I saved his life!

Earlier, Anakin hadn’t questioned the Tuskens’ motives. Now, he wondered if they would have taken his mother if they’d known that her son had once saved one of their own. Or is this how Tuskens say thank you? He quickly speculated whether the Tusken he’d rescued might still be alive, possibly in this very camp.
I should have let him die! I should have!

He thought of how the Tuskens had taken his mother, imagined what she had endured in the past month …

Why would they do this? How could anyone do this?

The answer came to him from the darkest reaches of his own heart.
They did this because they wanted to. They did this because they could.
As his grief transformed into anger, he knew exactly how he was going to dispose of the Tusken guards.

Temporarily leaving his mother’s corpse, Anakin Skywalker stepped outside the tent and reactivated his lightsaber.

He didn’t stop with the guards.

* * *

When Anakin arrived back at the Lars homestead with his mother’s blanket-wrapped body, Cliegg Lars, Owen, Bern, Padmé, and C-3PO emerged from the entry dome. They watched in silence as he lifted his dead mother from the bike and carried her toward the dome’s doorway. Anakin was in no mood to talk, and he had reconsidered his assessment that the Lars family was made up of “good people.”

What’s the advantage of being good if you’re weak?

His grim, scowling expression locked onto Cliegg Lars, who lowered his gaze.

Perhaps you ‘re wishing you hadn ‘t given up on her so soon?

Without breaking stride, Anakin redirected his glare at Owen and Beru.

Maybe my mother never told you about how to be prepared to take care of things?

Anakin didn’t even look at Padmé or the protocol droid as he descended with his mother into the underground dwelling.

* * *

Later, Anakin was standing at a workbench in the homestead garage, repairing a part from the swoop bike, when Padmé entered carrying a tray of food. She said, “I brought you something. Are you hungry?”

Anakin continued to examine the bike part, moving slowly, as if he was slightly dazed. “The shifter broke,” he said. “Life seems so much simpler when you’re fixing things. I’m good at fixing things. Always was. But I couldn’t…” He stopped working and looked at Padmé. “Why’d she have to die? Why couldn’t I save her? I know I could have.” He turned away, looking into a dark corner of the cluttered garage. His rage had momentarily given way to grief.

“Sometimes there are things no one can fix,” Padmé said. “You’re not all-powerful, Ani.”

“Well, I should be!” he snarled back at her, causing Padmé to flinch. “Someday I will be,” he continued. “I will be the most powerful Jedi ever! I promise you. I will even learn to stop people from dying.”

Padmé just stood there, confused and alarmed by his words. “Anakin …”

“It’s all Obi-Wan’s fault. He’s jealous! He’s holding me back!” He flung a wrench across the garage. It smashed against the wall and clattered to the floor.

“What’s wrong, Ani?”

Still avoiding her gaze, Anakin tried to calm his voice as he said, “I… I killed them. I killed them all. They’re dead. Every single one of them.” He turned slowly to face Padmé, revealing the tears streaming down his face. “And not just the men, but the women and the children, too. They’re like animals, and I slaughtered them like animals!” Then he roared, “I HATE them!”

Anakin began sobbing and slumped down to the floor. Padmé knelt and put her arms around him. She said, “To be angry is to be human.”

“I’m a Jedi,” Anakin gasped between sobs. “I know I’m better than this.”

And yet he also knew something else, something far worse than that he’d allowed himself to give way to his anger.

Killing the Tuskens had given him satisfaction.

Anakin knelt before his mother’s final resting place, a graveyard outside the Lars compound, where two old headstones stood beside the new one. “I wasn’t strong enough to save you, Mom,” he said, trying not to choke on his words.
I’ve failed
, he thought.
Not just as your son, but as a Jedi.
“I wasn’t strong enough,” he repeated. “But I promise I won’t fail again.” He rose to his feet. Through clenched teeth, he added, “I miss you so much.”

Padmé, Cliegg, Owen, Beru, and C-3PO were gathered behind Anakin. As he moved away from the grave, R2-D2 motored toward the group and emitted a flurry of beeps and whistles.

“R2?” Padmé said, surprised that he had left their starship. “What are you doing here?”

R2-D2 beeped and whistled more.

Seizing the opportunity to act as a translator, C-3PO said, “It seems that he is carrying a message from an Obi-Wan Kenobi. Hmm. Master Ani, does that name mean anything to you?”

The two droids followed Anakin and Padmé into the starship.

* * *

Obi-Wan had tracked the bounty hunter - a man named Jango Fett - to the droid foundries on the planet Geonosis, where he’d discovered that the Trade Federation’s Viceroy, Nute Gunray, was behind the assassination attempts on Padmé. Obi-Wan had also learned that the Trade Federation was scheduled to take delivery of a Geonosian-produced droid army, and that various interstellar commerce factions had allied with Count Dooku’s Separatist movement. Although Obi-Wan had managed to transmit this information from Geonosis, his holographic recording ended with him trying to evade a hail of laserfire from enemy droids.

Anakin and Padmé watched the prerecorded message in their starship’s cockpit on Tatooine, while the Jedi Council and Chancellor Palpatine simultaneously viewed the relayed transmission on Coruscant. When Obi-Wan’s message was over, Jedi Master Mace Windu instructed Anakin to stay where he was with Senator Amidala while the Jedi Council dealt with Count Dooku. “Protect the Senator at all costs,” Mace Windu said via holographic transmission. “That is your first priority.”

“Understood, Master,” Anakin replied.
First I lose my mother, now… Obi-Wan.

As Mace Windu’s hologram faded out, Padmé said, “They’ll never get there in time to save him. They have to come halfway across the galaxy.” Swiveling in her seat to examine coordinates on the navicomputer console, she said, “Look, Geonosis is less than a parsec away.”

“If he’s still alive,” Anakin said grimly.

“Ani, are you just going to sit here and let him die? He’s your friend, your mentor. He’s -“

“He’s like my father!” Anakin snapped. The father I never had. “But you heard Master Windu. He gave me strict orders to stay here.”

“He gave you strict orders to protect me,” Padmé said as she flicked a series of switches that activated the ship’s engines, “and I’m going to help Obi-Wan. If you plan to protect me, you will have to come along.”

Anakin grinned.

As the ship lifted off, carrying Anakin, Padmé, and the two droids away from Tatooine, it occurred to Anakin that they hadn’t so much as said good-bye to Clieg, Owen, or Beru. I didn’t have much to say to them anyway, he thought. He looked at C-3PO, who had belted his sandblasted metal body into a seat behind Anakin, and felt some small sense of accomplishment.

At least I rescued someone I cared about from Tatooine.

* * *

Although Obi-Wan Kenobi turned out to be very much alive, Anakin’s unauthorized mission to Geonosis was almost a disaster. He and Padmé were captured by the insectoid Geonosians before they could rescue Obi-Wan, and then the duplicitous Count Dooku and the Geonosians sentenced them to death.

And yet to Anakin, all of this amounted to almost a disaster, because there had been one bright, significant moment on Geonosis for him and Padmé. After they had been captured and enchained, and were about to be hauled into a giant execution arena, Padmé had faced him and said, “I’m not afraid to die. I’ve been dying a little bit each day since you came back into my life.”

Dying?
“What are you talking about?” Anakin asked.

“I love you.”

“You love me?” Anakin said incredulously. “I thought that we had decided not to fall in love, that we would be forced to live a lie, and that it would destroy our lives.”

“I think our lives are about to be destroyed anyway,” Padmé said sadly. “I truly, deeply love you, and before we die I want you to know.”

They kissed then, and at that moment, Anakin believed he had more reason to live than ever before.

Anakin, Padmé, and Obi-Wan were nearly killed by monsters in a giant execution arena. Fortunately, their deaths were prevented by the arrival of lightsaber-wielding Jedi, including Mace Windu and Yoda, and an unexpected army of clone soldiers. Although Mace Windu was able to dispose of Jango Fett, who had served as the genetic template for the clones, many Jedi perished in the battle against the Geonosian-manufactured droids.

Count Dooku fled the execution arena, and Obi-Wan and Anakin chased him to an abandoned weapons factory in a high rock tower that Dooku had converted into a hangar for his personal starship, a customized solar sailer. With their lightsabers already activated, Obi-Wan and Anakin entered the dark hangar to find the elegantly attired, silver-haired former Jedi as he prepared to escape from Geonosis. Turning to face his pursuers, Dooku wore an expression of mild annoyance at the pair who now stood across the hangar from him.