Star Wars - Darth Plagueis

ship.
    Jump complete. On approach. Arrival in ninety seconds .
    Ahead, he saw the four towers surrounding the stacked tiers of the Jedi Temple, its ancient stone as orange as fire in the light of the setting sun. The civilians seemed to give it a wide berth, as if it were a holy place rather than one of sacrilege.
    He would reduce it to rubble.
    He walked toward it and fate walked beside him.
    Statues of long-dead Jedi Masters lined the approach to the Temple’s enormous doorway. The setting sun stretched the statue’s tenebrous forms across the duracrete. He walked through the shadows and past them, noting some names: Odan-Urr, Ooroo, Arca Jeth.
    “You have been deceived,” he whispered to them. “Your time is past.”
    Most of the Jedi Order’s current Masters were away, either participating in the sham negotiations on Alderaan or protecting Republic interests offplanet, but the Temple was not entirely unguarded. Three uniformed Republic soldiers, blaster rifles in hand, stood watchful near the doors. He sensed two more on a high ledge to his left.
    Eleena tensed beside him, but she did not falter.
    He checked his chrono again. Fifty-three seconds.
    The three soldiers, wary, watched him and Eleena approach. One of them spoke into a wrist comlink, perhaps querying a command center within.
    They would not know what to make of Malgus. Despite the war, they felt safe in their enclave in the center of the Republic. He would teach them otherwise.
    “Stop right there,” one of them said.
    “I cannot stop,” Malgus said, too softly to hear behind the respirator. “Not ever.”
    STILL HEART , still mind, these things eluded Aryn, floated before her like snowflakes in sun, visible for a moment, then melted and gone. She fiddled with the smooth coral beads of the Nautolan tranquillity bracelet Master Zallow had given her when she’d been promoted to Jedi Knight. Silently counting the smooth, slick beads, sliding them over their chain one after another, she sought the calm of the Force.
    No use.
    What was wrong with her?
    Outside, speeders hummed past the large window that looked out on a bucolic, beautiful Alderaanian landscape suitable for a painting. Inside, she felt turmoil. Ordinarily, she was better able to shield herself from surrounding emotions. She usually considered her empathic sense a boon of the Force, but now …
    She realized she was bouncing her leg, stopped. She crossed and uncrossed her legs. Did it again.
    Syo sat beside her, callused hands crossed over his lap, as still as the towering statuary of Alderaanian statesmen that lined the domed, marble-tiled hall in which they sat. Light from the setting sun poured through the window, pushing long shadows across the floor. Syo did not look at her when he spoke.
    “You are restless.”
    “Yes.”
    In truth, she felt as if she were a boiling pot, the steam of her emotional state seeking escape around the lid of her control. The air felt charged, agitated. She would have attributed the feelings to the stress of the peace negotiations, but it seemed to her something more. She felt a doom creeping up on her, a darkness. Was the Force trying to tell her something?
    “Restlessness ill suits you,” Syo said.
    “I know. I feel … odd.”
    His expression did not change behind his short beard, but he would know to take her feelings seriously. “Odd? How?”
    She found his voice calming, which she supposed was part of the reason he had spoken. “As if … as if something is about to happen. I can explain it no better than that.”
    “This originates from the Force, from your empathy?”
    “I don’t know. I just … feel like something is about to happen.”
    He seemed to consider this, then said, “Something is about to happen.” He indicated with a glance the large double doors to their left, behind which Master Dar’nala and Jedi Knight Satele Shan had begun negotiations with the Sith delegation. “An end to the war, if we are fortunate.”
    She shook her head. “Something other than that.” She licked her lips, shifted in her seat.
    They sat in silence for a time. Aryn continued to fidget.
    Syo cleared his throat, and his brown eyes fixed on a point across the hall. He spoke in a soft tone. “ They see your agitation. They interpret it as something it is not.”
    She knew. She could feel their contempt, an irritation in her mind akin to a pebble in her boot.
    A pair of dark-cloaked Sith, members of the Empire’s delegation to Alderaan, sat