Fear No Darkness by Independence1776

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Chapter 4

 B11: Color Burst Spectrum, snow cones and Food, stew

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“Have you ever been to Imperial Center before?” Makri asked Maglor when he came out of the cockpit to tell his passengers they’d landed.

“I have not,” Maglor said. It was the truth-- he hadn’t been to the planet formerly known as Coruscant since it had been renamed.

“Then you should make the time to visit,” Makri said.

Maglor shrugged a shoulder. “The dock is rented for six hours. What would you suggest?”

He’d fully anticipated a test of his loyalty. If he’d just dropped them off and returned to the Mid Rim, it could very easily be twisted into sympathy for the scattered rebellion. If he stayed too long, well, he couldn’t afford that and it too would gain Imperial attention for living beyond his means. A handful of hours-- enough to see something like the many transients who had never been here before-- was the perfect compromise.

Woena dropped Makri’s bags at his feet and said, “There’s tours of the Imperial Palace or the Imperial Senate.”

Makri shook his head. “You didn’t have to grab my bags, Woena.” To Maglor, he said, “They require reservations weeks in advance for background checks. We don’t want malcontents gaining access.”

“No, we don’t,” Maglor said.

“There’s a walking tour of the Federal District; I don’t think it requires--”

Woena said, “It’s usually sold out. The Imperial Museum; there’s always a couple of exhibits worth spending some time in. Or there’s a hop-on hop-off hoverbus tour of Imperial City; it has a stop at the Museum where you can buy a ticket, so you could do both if you have time.”

“I think I’ll take that option; thank you.”

Both of them smiled at Maglor and departed the ship through the airlock. Once they were out of the docking bay, Maglor had the staircase removed and left through the cargo bay as usual. Four hours, to give plenty of leeway in travel time, on a planet that made his skin crawl.

Not simply because of what happened here and who ruled it, but also because it was entirely city. He knew there were parks here and there-- only a handful of them free-- but the never-ending skyscrapers and traffic; the noise of machines, droids, and people; the crowds themselves… He’d grown up in a culture that prized connection to nature, even in their cities. Tirion had been the most urban city in the Arda system, but even it had fountains and gardens everywhere. Coruscant-- Imperial Center, he had to remember that-- lacked even that touch of connection.

He couldn’t stay in the docking bay; he had to leave, else give the Imperials something else to check on. He had no doubt one of the teens’ parents would run a background check on him. It was thankfully easy for him to catch one of the public transports from the spaceport to the Museum Plaza, thanks to being on a direct line. If he’d any other passengers or simply cargo, he would have been routed to a different spaceport. But his passengers merited landing in Imperial City itself. It got them out of his ship faster, thankfully, but that was the only upside.

Maglor stepped off the transport with half a dozen other people and walked to the nearby holomap. He didn’t need to worry about pickpockets here; there seemed to be one stormtrooper for every five civilians. A chill went down his spine. As long as he kept to himself, attracted no attention, and left quietly, they had no reason to bother him. He sighed and studied the map. The Imperial Museum stood nearer to the Senate Dome than the Federal District, though he could see both from the plaza: the Senate to his left and the District in the near distance on the right.

Given the sick feeling in his stomach even looking at the icon of the Imperial Palace, it would be better idea to skip the hoverbus tour entirely and stick to the museum. So he walked across the plaza and entered it. Security blocked his way. Maglor shuffled through the queue with everyone else, setting off no detectors he could hear, and joined the faster-moving line to buy a ticket to enter the museum proper.

The atrium opened up in front of him, a giant Imperial logo made of thousands of smaller images-- probably from every planet in the Empire-- hovered in the middle of the floor. Half a dozen floors opened onto the atrium. And the information center was placed directly below the logo. Not knowing where to go, he walked over there. A Human woman wearing a museum uniform smiled at him. “How may I help you?”

“I have only a few hours to spend in the museum. What exhibits would you recommend?”

She picked up a tiny holograph emitter and a marker pen, putting three red dots respectively on the ground floor, the first upper level, and the fourth lower level. She put six orange dots on other floors. “The three red dots are our central exhibits: the Fall of the Republic, the Rise of the Empire, and the Security of the Empire. The orange dots are smaller exhibits that tie into the larger ones. Is there anything you are particularly interested in?”

“I’m a Mid Rim cargo pilot--”

“Ah! Then you’ll enjoy our Exploration of Hyperspace exhibit on the fourth floor.” She put a green dot on the other side of the fourth lower level. “You should be able to see that one and one of the main exhibits and have time after to enjoy a meal on the cafe at the top of the museum. It has great views of Imperial City.”

Maglor took the holomap, thanked her, and walked to the turbolift. He’d start at the bottom and work his way up. Not that he’d have an appetite at the end of the Rise of the Empire exhibit, but at least this way, he might see something he’d enjoy before entirely ruining his already poor mood.

*

Maglor stepped off the turbolift at the cafe level, keeping his emotions off his face and body language. The hyperspace exhibit had been interesting enough-- he now had one historian’s work to read if he could find a copy of the book-- but the Empire exhibit? That had started off with the Clone Wars, putting full blame on the Jedi for not being able to stop the war and twisting their actions during it, ending that part of the exhibit with the so-called attempted coup against Palpatine and the destruction of the Jedi Order. It devolved from there.

A droid greeted Maglor when he reached the cafe entrance. “This way, good sir. We have the perfect table for you.”

It was just Maglor’s luck that the droid led him to a small table overlooking the Imperial Palace. Maglor sat down, absently noting that the vast majority of the people in the cafe were Humans and near-humans like himself, and pulled up the holomenu to pick from the limited selection: all ridiculously expensive tourist food. There wasn’t much here he preferred to eat, but that was only to be expected. “A nerf meat burger, fried tubers, and a glass of water.”

“Would you like to order dessert now or when your meal is ready?”

“No dessert.”

The droid nodded and zoomed off back to the front of the cafe, undoubtedly having transmitted Maglor’s order to the kitchen droids. Maglor stared out the transparisteel window at the Imperial Palace. The last time he’d seen it in person, it had been something else entirely: the Jedi Temple. But Palpatine had made it his home and the center of his government.

He didn’t even need to actively use the Force to feel the corruption. It saturated Imperial City, a heavy fog seeping everywhere to those who knew how to see it. But even passive use of the Force here was a terrible danger. He didn’t know where the Inquisitors were based; Darth Vader lived here; and Darth Sideous, well, Maglor didn’t know for sure, but would guess that he was Palpatine. Only a Sith would have taken over the Jedi Temple and claimed it for his own.

He could hear, faintly underneath the corruption and darkness, a sweet song: all that was left of the thousand generations of Jedi who had lived there.

Maglor clenched his fists below the table. He had lived there once, well over a hundred years ago. Father had encouraged his sons to look beyond the Singer Force tradition; both he and Mother had studied briefly with the Jedi soon after they married. (That, he suspected, was one of the main reasons the Order never recorded the House of Fëanor as Jedi.) Maglor had spent the longest at the Temple-- nearly two dozen years-- studying how the Jedi treated music as part of their connection to the Force. Apart from a handful of people from longer-lived species, he doubted any of the people he’d known had lived to see Order 66. And he knew none of them had survived.

But the Temple itself: that he missed. Not just the extensive Archives, but the mix of serenity the Code encouraged and the passion about the Force that made up the Jedi’s day-to-day life, the lightsaber arenas and the discussions of morality and duty and responsibility, the culture and history that made a Jedi a Jedi.

He smiled pleasantly at the droid server who put the tray with his meal in front of him. Maglor ate quickly, not because he was running out of time, but because the more he sat here and thought about the genocide of the Jedi, the more tempted he was to storm the Imperial Palace.

That was a trap, he realized abruptly: a perversion of the Force to bring any Jedi who was foolish enough to ignore Master Kenobi’s warning to flee and never return to Coruscant to a place where they could be easily dealt with. Goosebumps rose on Maglor’s arms and he put down the last few bites of his nerfburger on his plate. He took several deep breaths to center himself, not touching the Force at all, and made himself finish his meal. He pressed the call button for the droid server, paid it without caring about the change, and left.

He kept his head down as he crossed Museum Plaza to reach the hoverbus stop, nearly running into a Human child holding (and partly wearing) a multicolored snow cone from a stand that was placed by the railing overlooking the Palace. The Plaza rather had a festive air, but then, it was clearly designed-- or redesigned-- to celebrate everything the Empire had done in bringing order to the galaxy. Maglor took one last look at the old Jedi Temple and shuddered.

Within the hour, he was in hyperspace. Never again would he return to Coruscant, not while the Empire controlled it. He opened himself up to the Force, letting the background singing that made up every day of his life soothe him.

*

Maglor put the last of the cubed stew meat into the pot, covered it, and turned the stovetop on low. It would take hours to cook, a necessary thing given his project for the day. He’d planned this deliberately: no cargo in the hold; no job for another two days; his ship parked in a system marked with only a numerical designation thanks to the complete and utter lack of life and scarce resources. It was an almost utterly forgotten system, marked only on navigation charts because of its star’s gravity well.

He turned away from the galley and looked at the supplies scattered across the dining table. It had taken several weeks to gather all the materials, a piece here and a piece there, cautiously and carefully. In the center of the wires and power supply and circuits was the Durindfire gem he’d carefully pried out of his mother’s gift to him.

A kyber crystal would have been a Jedi’s first choice, but those had been difficult to find in general and were now impossible. Father had made his own crystals and given his sons free choice of his work. But a natural crystal was the the only option Maglor had: he didn’t have the smithing skills of his father or his brother; there was no way to look for a kyber crystal without revealing himself.

He sat down at the table, checking one final time to make sure he had everything on the table. Once he began, it would be inadvisable to stop. Maglor closed his eyes and reached for the pipe that would become his lightsaber hilt.

Several hours later, he opened his eyes, mentally exhausted and sure in the knowledge his new lightsaber would function as designed. He rose, stretched, and went to the hold to test it. He stood in the center of the empty space and held the hilt upright before him: black in color, with silver accents. The grip was softer than his older lightsaber had been, and placed slightly differently, partly to accommodate for his scar. He thumbed the button and a brilliant silver blade ignited, the hum reassuring.

He swung his blade, moving into some of the basic forms to get a better feel for his new lightsaber: it was balanced and perfectly in tune with him. The Maglor who hadn’t yet lived through the Jedi Purge would have found the weapon uncomfortable, but he was no longer that man.

He was a Singer and a Jedi and a survivor. He was an exile in hiding. He was Malda Coinon and Maglor Fëanorian.

He shut down the lightsaber and hung it from his belt. For the rest of today, he would wear it. Whenever he was in hyperspace and ferried no passengers, he would wear it. He could not risk it anywhere else, not yet and maybe not ever. But onboard his own ship, he would no longer hide.