"Why, Master Yoda, what a delightful surprise! Welcome!" The voice of the shadow hummed with antic.i.p.ation. "Let me be the first to wish you Happy Empire Day!"

"Find it happy, you will not. Nor will the murderer you call Vader."

"Ah." The shadow stepped closer to the light. "So that is the threat I felt. Who is it, if I may ask? Who have you sent to kill him?"

"Enough it is that you know your own destroyer."

"Oh, pish, Master Yoda. It wouldn't be Ken.o.bi, would it? Please say it's Ken.o.bi-Lord Vader gets such a thrill from killing people who care for him ..."

Behind the shadow, some meters away, Mas Amedda-the Chagrian toady who was Speaker of the Galactic Senate-heard a whisper in Palpatine's voice. Flee.

He did.

Neither light nor shadow gave his exit a glance.

"So easily slain, Obi-Wan is not."

"Neither are you, apparently; but that is about to change." The shadow took another step, and another.

A lightsaber appeared, green as sunlight in a forest. "The test of that, today will be."

"Even a fraction of the dark side is more power than your Jedi arrogance can conceive; living in the light, you have never seen the depth of the darkness."

The shadow spread arms that made its sleeves into black wings.

"Until now."

Lightning speared from outstretched hands, and the battle was on.

Padme stumbled down the landing ramp into Anakin's arms. Her eyes were raw and numb; once inside the ship, her emotional control had finally shattered and she had sobbed the whole way there, crying from relentless mind-shredding dread, and so her lips were swollen and her whole body shook and she was just so grateful, so incredibly grateful, that again she flooded with fresh tears: grateful that he was alive, grateful that he'd come bounding across the landing deck to meet her, that he was still strong and beautiful, that his arms still were warm around her and his lips were soft against her hair.

"Anakin, my Anakin ..." She shivered against his chest. "I've been so frightened . . ."

"Shh. Shh, it's all right." He stroked her hair until her trembling began to fade, then he cupped her chin and gently raised her face to look into his eyes. "You never need to worry about me. Didn't you understand? No one can hurt me. No one will ever hurt either of us."

"It wasn't that, my love, it was-oh, Anakin, he said such terrible things about you!"

He smiled down at her. "About me? Who would want to say bad things about me?" He chuckled. "Who would dare?"

"Obi-Wan." She smeared tears from her cheeks. "He said-he told me you turned to the dark side, that you murdered Jedi . . . even younglings ..."

Just having gotten the words out made her feel better; now all she had to do was rest in his arms while he held her and hugged her and promised her he would never do anything like any of that, and she started half a smile aimed up toward his eyes-But instead of the light of love in his eyes, she saw only reflections of lava.

He didn't say, I could never turn to the dark side.

He didn't say, Murder younglings? Me? That's just crazy.

He said, "Obi-Wan's alive?"

His voice had dropped an octave, and had gone colder than the chills that were spreading from the base of her spine.

"Y-yes-he, he said he was looking for you ..."

"Did you tell him where I am?"

"No, Anakin! He wants to kill you. I didn't tell him anything-I wouldn't!"

"Too bad."

"Anakin, what-"

"He's a traitor, Padme. He's an enemy of the state. He has to die."

"Stop it," she said. "Stop talking like that . . . you're frightening me!"

"You're not the one who needs to be afraid."

"It's like-it's like-" Tears brimmed again. "I don't even know who you are anymore ..."

"I'm the man who loves you," he said, but he said it through clenched teeth. "I'm the man who would do anything to protect you. Everything I have done, I have done for you."

"Anakin ..." Horror squeezed her voice down to a whisper: small, and fragile, and very young. ". . . what have you done?"

And she prayed that he wouldn't actually answer.

"What I have done is bring peace to the Republic."

"The Republic is dead," she whispered. "You killed it. You and Palpatine."

"It needed to die."

New tears started, but they didn't matter; she'd never have enough tears for this. "Anakin, can't we just . . .go? Please. Let's leave. Together. Today. Now. Before you-before something happens-"

"Nothing will happen. Nothing can happen. Let Palpatine call himself Emperor. Let him. He can do the dirty work, all the messy, brutal oppression it'll take to unite the galaxy forever-unite it against him. He'll make himself into the most hated man in history. And when the time is right, we'll throw him down-"

"Anakin, stop-"

"Don't you see? We'll be heroes. The whole galaxy will love us, and we will rule. Together."

"Please stop-Anakin, please, stop, I can't stand it . . ."

He wasn't listening to her. He wasn't looking at her. He was looking past her shoulder.

Feral joy burned from his eyes, and his face was no longer human.

"You ..."

From behind her, calmly precise, with that clipped Coruscanti accent: "Padme. Move away from him."

"Obi-Wan?" She whirled, and he was on the landing ramp, still and sad. "No!"

"You," growled a voice that should have been her love's.

"You brought him here . . ."

She turned back, and now he was looking at her.

His eyes were full of flame.

"Anakin?"

"Padme, move away." There was an urgency in Obi-Wan's voice that sounded closer to fear than Padme had ever heard from him. "He's not who you think he is. He will harm you."

Anakin's lips peeled off his teeth. "I would thank you for this, if it were a gift of love."

Trembling, shaking her head, she began to back away. "No, Anakin-no . . ."

"Palpatine was right. Sometimes it is the closest who cannot see. I loved you too much, Padme."

He made a fist, and she couldn't breathe.

"I loved you too much to see you! To see what you are!"

A veil of red descended on the world. She clawed at her throat, but there was nothing there her hands could touch.

"Let her go, Anakin."

His answer was a predator's snarl, over the body of its prey. "You will not take her from me!"

She wanted to scream, to beg, to howl, No, Anakin, I'm sorry! I'm sorry. . . I love you . . . , but her locked throat strangled the truth inside her head, and the world-veil of red smoked toward black.

"Let her go!"

"Never!"

The ground fell away beneath her, and then a white flash of impact blasted her into night.

In the Senate Arena, lightning forked from the hands of a Sith, and bent away from the gesture of a Jedi to shock Redrobes into unconsciousness.

Then there were only the two of them.

Their clash transcended the personal; when new lightning blazed, it was not Palpatine burning Yoda with his hate, it was the Lord of all Sith scorching the Master of all Jedi into a smoldering huddle of clothing and green flesh.

A thousand years of hidden Sith exulted in their victory.

"Your time is over! The Sith rule the galaxy! Now and forever!"

And it was the whole of the Jedi Order that rocketed from its huddle, making of its own body a weapon to blast the Sith to the ground.

"At an end your rule is, and not short enough it was, I must say."

There appeared a blade the color of life.

From the shadow of a black wing, a small weapon-a holdout, an easily concealed backup, a tiny bit of treachery expressing the core of Sith mastery-slid into a withered hand and spat a flame-colored blade of its own.

When those blades met, it was more than Yoda against Palpatine, more the millennia of Sith against the legions of Jedi; this was the expression of the fundamental conflict of the universe itself.

Light against dark.

Winner take all.

Obi-Wan knelt beside Padme's unconscious body, where she lay limp and broken in the smoky dusk. He felt for a pulse. It was thin, and erratic. "Anakin-Anakin, what have you done?"

In the Force, Anakin burned like a fusion torch. "You turned her against me."

Obi-Wan looked at the best friend he had ever had. "You did that yourself," he said sadly.

"I'll give you a chance, Obi-Wan. For old times' sake. Walk away."

"If only I could."

"Go some place out of the way. Retire. Meditate. That's what you like, isn't it? You don't have to fight for peace anymore. Peace is here. My Empire is peace."

"Your Empire? It will never have peace. It was founded on treachery and innocent blood."

"Don't make me kill you, Obi-Wan. If you are not with me, you are against me."

"Only Sith deal in absolutes, Anakin. The truth is never black and white." He rose, spreading empty hands. "Let me take Padme to a medcenter. She's hurt, Anakin. She needs medical attention."

"She stays."

"Anakin-"

"You don't get to take her anywhere. You don't get to touch her. She's mine, do you understand? It's your fault, all of it-you made her betray me!"

"Anakin-"

Anakin's hand sprouted a bar of blue plasma.

Obi-Wan sighed.

He brought out his own lighstaber and angled it before him. "Then I will do what I must."

"You'll try," Anakin said, and leapt.

Obi-Wan met him in the air.

Blue blades crossed, and the volcano above echoed their lightning with a shout of fire.