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Mace did, in fact, have the words to describe how terrible the situation was, but they were neither polite nor helpful, so he kept them to himself.
Things weren’t in complete chaos. The assassination of a Chancellor had always been a possibility, even long before the war, and those existing contingency plans had only been revisited and reinforced when war had come. There were procedures to follow, and Mace had spent many long and exhausting hours contacting the Council, the Senate, and the military, as well as interrogating the perpetrators that they had managed to round up. Throughout it all, he’d remained calm, needing to be a steady, reliable figure to lessen everyone else’s panic as much as he could.
Anakin certainly had been in no state to do so.
Eventually, they were recalled back to Coruscant, with their prisoners. Mace had done one last check in with the Naboo security forces and their Queen, who had assured him that they could manage from there – the funeral arrangements were well in hand, and they believed that the perpetrators who had not been caught had likely fled the planet by then.
Mace, unfortunately, agreed with that assessment. And that was the troubling thing – among the perpetrators who escaped was the one who had killed the Chancellor.
The one who was supposed to have been their inside man.
The prisoners’ testimony had all agreed on that point – Rako Hardeen was the one assigned as the sniper. They had also insisted that the plan had been to abduct the Chancellor, not kill him – Hardeen going rogue was as much of a surprise to them as it was to the Jedi.
Which left the Jedi with several questions. What happened to Obi-Wan? And who was now masquerading as Rako Hardeen, if not him? Why had Dooku gone to the trouble of arranging this abduction plan if it was just going to be an assassination instead? Why lie to the rest of the mercenaries about it?
Mace had no answers. Obi-Wan’s lack of communication in the days leading up to the event had been worrying, but not overly so, and there’d been no warnings from the Force, no bad feelings beyond the usual misgivings about the general state of the galaxy. Nothing to suggest what had went wrong, or when.
Few knew that Obi-Wan had been undercover; to most, the situation was as it appeared to be – an assassin had killed first a prominent Jedi, and then the Chancellor. A severe blow to the Republic, but more or less straightforward. But to those in the know, the situation was much more complicated. They couldn’t release Hardeen as they’d originally planned, as he was now the most wanted man in the Republic for crimes he hadn’t actually committed. Obi-Wan was now implicated as the assassin, and Mace didn’t expect that to remain unknown for long. Not with the way Anakin was going on about it.
“This is all your fault!” Anakin raged at Mace and Yoda. “If you’d come up with a better plan, Obi-Wan and the Chancellor would’ve been fine! You shouldn’t have sent him on that stupid mission!”
Mace held back a retort that it could very well have been Anakin’s reckless and unsanctioned pursuit of “Hardeen” that jeopardized the mission. He didn’t know that for certain, after all, and it wouldn’t be helpful even if it had been true.
“Obi-Wan knew the risks,” he said instead. “And he made the choice to take this mission on.”
“And now the Chancellor is dead, and Obi-Wan is being tortured by Dooku!”
“Know what happened to Obi-Wan, we do not,” Yoda said. “Other possibilities, there are.”
Anakin turned his glare from Mace to Yoda. “Obi-Wan is alive ,” he said. “I’m not letting you lie to me about that again. He’s alive, and I’m going to find him and make Dooku pay for what he’s done.”
“Anakin,” Mace started, trying to be gentle, but Anakin turned and stormed from the room.
Mace sighed, exhaustion pulling him down to sit now that he was no longer being shouted at. He exchanged a weary look with Yoda.
“In pain, young Skywalker is,” Yoda said. “And learned not to spill it back into the world, he has not.”
“The last thing we need right now is him trying to chase down Dooku while he’s distraught like this,” Mace said. “This situation is enough of a mess already. But he’s not going to listen to either of us right now, either.”
Yoda hummed in agreement. “Other Councilors, listen to them, he will not, I think. Ask someone else to speak with him, I will. Master Nu, perhaps.”
“Good idea.”
“Prisoners, more to say, have they?”
“No,” Mace said. “Nothing more than what they already told us on Naboo. They’re in Republic custody now, but I doubt they’ll get anything more useful from them. As far as I can tell, they’re being entirely honest when they say that assassination wasn’t the plan…”
He was cut off by the buzzing of his comm. Mace frowned, and pulled up the recorded message.
There was no visual, but he recognized the voice.
Hardeen’s voice.
Or, in this case, ostensibly Obi-Wan’s current voice. Asking to meet up with Mace and have the opportunity to explain everything.
Mace played the message a second time, trying to pick up on any hint of what lay behind it. Why would Obi-Wan – if it was Obi-Wan – contact him now?
For a long moment, he sat in silence, turning over the message in his mind.
“A trap, it could be,” Yoda said eventually.
“That was my first thought,” Mace agreed. “But...where he’s asked to meet…”
The quiet overlook we took refuge on during our mission to ---
“That mission was years ago, before the war,” Mace continued. “I doubt anyone but Obi-Wan would know the specifics like that, and naming the location that way...he’s certainly trying to assure me of his identity.”
“Hmm,” Yoda said, closing his eyes in thought. “Come with you, I will.”
“Are you sure?” Mace asked. “If it is a trap…”
If he and Yoda also got caught up in this, it would worsen the already serious blow to the Republic. Not that there weren’t also many capable Jedi who could step up and take their place, but the public wouldn’t see it that way. They would see prominent figures being killed off one by one.
“Find answers, we must,” Yoda said. “Trust the Force to guide us, I do. Trust in our capabilities, I do.”
.
.
Obi-Wan, or whoever was now in the guise of Rako Hardeen, was waiting for them exactly where he said he would be, sitting cross-legged on the ground with his eyes closed. He opened them as they approached.
“Hello there,” he said, seeming unbothered by the additional presence of Yoda.
“Why did you call me here?” Mace asked.
“I owe you an explanation,” he said, rising to his feet. “But as I currently stand accused of murder, I can hardly just walk back into the Temple as I am.”
“I could still arrest you here,” Mace pointed out.
“You could,” he agreed. “And I won’t object to that. However, I would prefer that my regular face and voice be restored to me before I go to trial, and I doubt the Coruscant security forces will grant me that courtesy.”
“Hmm,” Yoda said. “Obi-Wan, you still claim to be. Obi-Wan, you feel like, but changed much, I sense.”
The corners of Obi-Wan’s mouth turned up in a small smile.
“You could say that I have, yes. It’s a long story, I’m afraid.”
“We’ve got time,” Mace said. “What happened?”
“I shot and killed Chancellor Palpatine,” he said.
“Why?”
“Because he was the Sith Lord, Darth Sidious,” he answered, as calmly as if he were talking about the weather. Disbelief warred with dread as Mace stared back at him. If that were true...
“A heavy claim, that is,” Yoda said. “Told you this, did Count Dooku?”
“Of course not,” Obi-Wan said. “At least not directly; he’s certainly hinted at his Master’s control in the Senate, but nothing that would actually lead us to him. No, this I learned by witnessing Palpatine’s ascension to Emperor, and his decree to slaughter every Jedi in the galaxy.”
He continued, unswayed by their incredulity as he told them in brief of a life as a fugitive under Imperial oppression, until he’d finally been cut down by Sidious’s latest apprentice, and found himself two decades in the past.
It was difficult to believe, but Mace could tell that Obi-Wan, at least, fully believed what he was saying.
“Leaving much out, you are, I suspect,” Yoda said, peering keenly at him.
“I am,” Obi-Wan agreed. “I can’t be certain this isn’t some Imperial trick, after all, and I can’t risk giving them more information than they already have. But even if this isn’t a trick, it’s not particularly relevant at the moment. What matters is that Palpatine was the Sith, and the entire war was of his manufacture. He was going to become Emperor and have all Jedi executed. By killing him, I’ve prevented that future from occurring at all. Though I don’t doubt that he left behind machinations that can still cause harm without him, at least our chances are better.”
“It’s dangerous to act without proof just on a vision,” Mace said.
“I agree,” Obi-Wan said, “but it wasn’t a vision. And I did not act out of fear or revenge, only practicality and the wish to take advantage of the situation to protect those I could.”
“From our perspective, that’s not what it looks like.”
“I understand,” Obi-Wan said. “And as I said earlier, I’m more or less turning myself in. I believe I acted within my responsibility as a Jedi, but I will accept the consequences if the Council does not agree. All I ask is that you investigate the matter and prevent any plans he has set in motion from coming to pass.”
Mace looked at Yoda, who was deep in thought.
“Consider the matter, we will,” he said eventually, “If true, your words are, then avoided a grim fate, we have. But even if true, face trial, you still may, for acting as you did. Assassinated the leader of the Republic, you have. In our hands, the consequences may not be.”
“We’d need compelling evidence that he actually was colluding with the Separatists to convince the Senate,” Mace said. “We’ll look into it, but by the time we have that, it may be too late to clear your name.”
“I’ve lived my life already, Mace,” Obi-Wan said softly. “If I live the rest of it in prison this time around, at least I’ll know that the rest of the Jedi live on, and that the galaxy does not suffer under the Empire.”
“Skywalker isn’t going to take this well.”
“No,” Obi-Wan said, closing his eyes, and a pained look briefly crossing his face. “I doubt he will. I think it’s for the best if I’m not the one to explain it to him. But if he doesn’t forgive me for killing his friend, the Chancellor, then I can live with it. It will be better than…” he trailed off.
“Something happened, with young Skywalker, in your time?” Yoda asked, gently.
“He fell to the dark side and joined with the Sith under the name of Darth Vader,” Obi-Wan said, quiet pain in the face and voice that weren’t his own. “Yes, the one who killed me. I don’t hate him for it, but I don’t think I can be the one to help him right now.”
“Understand, I do,” Yoda said. Mace did, too, to an extent, but Yoda was the one who had a padawan join the Sith.
“We’ll do what we can for him,” Mace promised. “No one wants to see a Jedi fall.”
Without the Chancellor around, it was unlikely that Anakin would join the Sith. But falling to the dark side was always a risk, especially when he was so wrapped up in grief, and would be hurt even further by the betrayal – whether he perceived that as Obi-Wan’s or Palpatine’s. He would need support, and from someone he would accept it from.
“Come,” Yoda said. “Return home, we will. A long time, it has been, since you’ve seen it. Restore your appearance, we will, and then explain yourself to the whole Council, you will.”
And whatever came after that, only time would tell. They would just trust in the Force – it had guided Obi-Wan back here, after all.