A/N: Another AU story from me! But look, no OCs this time (thus far)! This is my first time playing with the Prequel characters, so please be kind. Just a little story that came my way when watching ROTS and reading Outbound Flight. Musical Inspiration for this chapter: I Grieve by Peter Gabriel.
Disclaimer: I own nothing. Please do not sue. This is purely for fun.
She wasn't certain why he hesitated in pulling the trigger. It would be a fitting end to be executed by him, by the man she had thought of as a friend more than a solider under her command. He'd been there in the beginning, guiding her gently with his words, arguing strongly when she needed it, and never once wavering in his duty. Even when he did not agree with the order.
The barrel of Rex's blaster wavered now, though. Wavered, as if the man holding it could not control the trembling that ran through those fingers.
Ahsoka Tano, fallen Jedi apprentice and now… nothing really… knelt in the slowly forming pool of her own blood. A hand was pressed to her side, to where the vibroblade had brought her low. There had been too many of them coming at her all at once. Simply… too many, a white tide of men that had once been a comforting sight, now the hallmark of doom. Too many clones, too many images of that face that wasn't Rex and yet was, to hold back. Blasters had been ineffectual against her lightsaber. She'd learned her fighting lessons well, studying at the feet of Anakin and in secret at the side of Mace Windu, himself.
She could cut a stun beam like it was rotted cloth. Just part it neatly down the center and send its two halves in any direction she chose. It was only something Master Windu was supposed to be able to do.
But she could do it. It had been her one secret from her Master, her one great pride when she should not have had any. Such a mistake to hide it from him, to hold something for herself when she was supposed to be selfless.
Looking back in her final moments, she could see with crystal clarity that it wasn't her only mistake. There had been so many others in her young life. So many regrets that now trickled through the remaining moments of her life, like the blood that trickled thickly between her fingers. Things she should have said, should have done differently. People she should have thanked for their guidance and patience before they were gone forever.
Just as she was about to be gone… forever.
When it was clear that they could not stun her, could not burn her down like they'd done to all the other Jedi, they'd moved in with blades. So, so many of them. A veritable forest of lives flung heedlessly at her, dying in droves at her feet until she was nearly buried alive in a tomb of cooling flesh.
And still they came. All in the name of their Emperor. Dying with horrific glee and misplaced honor. And inside she mourned. She screamed. She begged silently for them to stop, that she would not have to kill another one. Clones or not, they were people. They had at one time been friends. Maybe that's why the blade slipped past her defenses. Maybe somewhere along the way, as the bodies piled higher and higher, she'd simply lost the taste for blood. Lost the will to survive.
Lost the ability to care.
She wondered what he was waiting for, this man that had once been a heart's friend.
His helmet clattered to the ground, mixing in with the shattered bits of her only lightsaber. The one she should not have kept, but had done it anyway. The one Anakin had first given to her before she had the skills to make her own. Her second piece of pride, now smashed and shattered beyond recognition. His white-armored knees hit the ground next, Rex's hand reaching out to touch her face. Tender was that caress, and even through the armored gauntlet, it was kind. Her eyes lifted, saw the tears that ran down his cheeks.
They mirrored her own.
"Run," He whispered. "Go, Ahsoka. Now."
"To where?" she whispered back. "To what end? To be hunted forever? No, Rex. I won't run."
"Please, 'Soka. Don't make me…"
"Do it," she lowered her head, staring at the pool of blood beneath her.
Watching their reflections in that crimson, mirror-like surface. A ripple distorted her view, a droplet of salty compassion and sorrow that had fallen from Rex. A tear to mar the last perfect image of the two of them. She'd take it with her into the next life, into the heart of the Force if that was indeed where a cast-out, once-and-now-forgotten Padawan could go.
She heard the blaster shake, durasteel grip clattering against his armored palm. His other hand rose to steady it, pushing that cold metal against her forehead. "Soka…"
Calm filled her, a resignation so beautiful as to bring tears to her eyes. Letting it all go, all the things she had failed to do, to say. All the things she had been afraid to lose, all the things she had sacrificed. She could see something else in the reflections of her blood. Master Qui-gon, Master Yaddle, Master Aalya Secura, Master Windu… More and more they came, laying intangible hands on her shoulder. Soft smiles of forgiveness, of welcoming. She was going home, she realized. Back to the Temple, back to the Force.
They offered her again the thing she had turned down in her final moment of pride.
"I am a Jedi," she whispered, a smile climbing onto her blood-flecked lips. "I did it, Rex. I am a Jedi. I have passed my final trail. Thank you, my friend, for sharing this last moment with me."
As if the admittance from her lips had flipped a switch in him, the trembling stilled. The blaster was held firm. And Order 66, the order that had been instilled in him long before he was even an infant, snapped into place. She was a Jedi. He was a clone in the Emperor's service. And neither could fight that destiny.
"By order of the Galactic Emperor…"
She closed her eyes, prepared herself for the journey home. One moment of pain. One split-second flash of white searing heat. One more moment of cold dark. And then she would be with her fellow Jedi. She would be home again at long last.
"… I hereby…"
"I loved you, Rex," she whispered.
"… pardon your life."
She did not register his words before the blue stun beam rocketed through her, and then there was only darkness.
He stared at the shattered pieces of the lightsaber spread out on the workbench before him, wondering where to begin. Wondering where it had all ended. Wondering where he had gone wrong. Ahsoka Tano, his Snips, floated in a bacta tank in his private medical ward. Still unconscious after many surgeries, still clinging to life by a fragile thread. And for all his vast powers, his mastery of the Light and Dark sides of the Force, Emperor Anakin Skywalker could not save her.
Like Sidious before him, he'd slain his master before learning the secrets of immorality.
"Still at it?" a sleepy voice whispered behind him.
He could not bring a smile to his lips for his wife. Not when so much heavy sorrow rested upon his heart.
"You should be sleeping," he said instead, still staring at the twisted metal that had been the lightsaber he'd made for Ahsoka. Made it for her what felt like a lifetime ago. "The twins will wake any moment and demand your attention."
"They'll demand their father just as much," Padme murmured, slipping up behind him and wrapping her arms around his waist. "Come back to bed, Ani. There's nothing you can do to fix this."
Her reassuring words carried more meaning for him than just the shattered weapon before him.
"There should be," he murmured back, an echoed memory of their conversation on Tatooine. "I should be able to stop people from dying."
"You did. You saved Ahsoka. You saved me from Palpatine's dark power before he killed me in childbirth. You saved the entire galaxy in destroying him."
He glanced over his shoulder at her. "Only to take his place?"
"Only for the moment," she corrected, though he could sense how heavy that sorrow rested on her heart, too. "His plans were too far reaching, too immense for the three of us to dismantle in one night. Even now Obi-wan travels to the outer rim territories to see what can be done about the fighting there, now that the two of you destroyed the leaders of the Separatist Movement."
"He goes as my ambassador, not as a Jedi Master," He said harshly, bitterly. "To smooth over what I did in destroying the Jedi Order."
"No," she replied firmly, crossing in front of him and taking his face in her hands. "No, you did not do this. He did it. The former Emperor did it. You were as much a victim of his power as I was, as any of the Jedi were. The shroud of the Dark Side had fallen, and there was no way to know how things would turn out. You turned back from the Dark, Anakin. You… and Obi-Wan… and Yoda."
"And now Master Yoda is in exile—"
"—at my behest," she cut in. "As your Chancellor, it was best that any former Jedi not sworn to you directly should be hidden until we can root out the entirety of Palpatine's organization. Master Yoda agreed. For now, the Jedi Order must vanish and rebuild itself, give time for the Galaxy to forget the lies Palpatine put into their hearts. The evidence against them is too damning. Ani, look at me. Look at me. You know this is the only way."
He did, though it took more effort than he was willing to admit. "I know what you're saying is true. But I don't have to like it."
"That's what makes you the man I married," she whispered, rising on tip-toes to kiss him. "That more than anything else lets me know that you love me. That our children will have a good and kind father. And that our galaxy will know peace again eventually."
She took him in her arms, resting her head on his chest. His queen, his Empress, the mother of his children. She should be sitting the throne instead of him, she with all the knowledge necessary to run a successful government. With Obi-wan as her Lord Ambassador and Yoda advising her from afar. Instead, the galaxy was left to contend with a fatherless slave from a backwater desert world as its leader, a fallen Jedi that had nearly killed his wife and unborn children in a moment of madness. A man that had nearly killed his best friend, and then forced that best friend to renounce his Jedi oaths and become a tool of an Empire he would never believe in.
All in the name of setting things to rights.
He glanced over the soft curls of her hair, eyes lingering on the broken lightsaber. And wondered if anything so shattered could truly be made whole again.
Obi-wan Kenobi, Lead Ambassador to the Galactic Empire, stared down at the readings on his display and tried not to frown. For a number of reasons. Chief among them being the fact he was no longer dressed in robes, but in a tailored suit of clothing designed by Empress Padme Skywalker, herself. Form fitting pants of the darkest blue tucked into knee high black boots. A tunic of blinding white belted in wide black leather. And a cape of muted shimmering gold trimmed in that same dark blue trailing about his heels.
The tones were chosen to be striking against his natural coloring, making his eyes glitter like polished sapphires, his hair glint like living sunlight. They were also chosen as the official colors of the Empire. Dark blue and white and gold, to replace the black and the red. Symbols of good coming from bad, of life emerging from death.
The fact that Master Yoda had assisted in the color selection did little to erase his unease in wearing them.
He ran a hand across his moustache to conceal the deep frown on his lips. All were trappings of vanity, of self aggrandizing pride. Things that he had sworn to never factor into his decisions per his oaths to the Jedi Code. Except now he was free of those oaths, those codes, and bound anew by a different set. Even now, two months after the rise and fall of Palpatine, he had trouble believing everything had occurred just as it had.
The Jedi were no more. The temple burned, the location leveled for safety reasons, the land now the property of the Emperor. All dead and destroyed at the hands of the Chosen One.
The one that now was called Emperor by the now Imperial Senate. The one that was now married to a former Naboo Queen that now served as Chancellor of said Senate, and now the father of twin children. The one that was supposed to have brought balance to the Force, not leave it in darkness.
Only he had done exactly that, fulfilled his destiny to the letter. Just not as the Jedi Council had predicted.
A prophecy that misread may have been… Yoda had said once.
The hand on his lip moved up to his forehead, rubbing at the headache blossoming between his eyes. Yoda was on Dagobah now, in self imposed exile until the extent of Palpatine's corruption could be determined and removed. It was all part of a plan, a very good plan. One created by Bail Organa, Mon Mothma and Garm Bel Iblis, and blessed by Yoda, himself. Once they were certain that the Jedi Order could be reestablished properly, that the Republic could be reinstated and Anakin could step down, then Yoda would return. Then Obi-wan could cast off the trappings of pride and Imperial grandeur and reclaim his own place on the Jedi Council.
A council of two. Because there were only two masters left.
And no Jedi.
He tried very hard not to worry about that, about how close it sounded to the Rule of Two that the Sith believed in. Not two months before he would have said it was impossible for any Jedi he knew to fall to the Dark Side, that this fear in him was completely unfounded. But that was before the massacre, before Anakin fell and was redeemed, and before everything he loved was destroyed. Before Yoda went into exile on a planet nearly dripping with Dark Side energies.
Before he had to renounce the Order and become… this.
No, he had learned a valuable lesson through the pain and suffering and loss. Nothing was impossible, and nothing was ever permanent. He'd see to it that the Jedi returned. He'd trust Yoda as much as he could until tiny Jedi Master gave him a reason not to trust him. And one day, perhaps, he'd come to terms with the demons of doubt that now infested his heart. For now, however, he had a job to do, and standing on the bridge of his personal flagship, the newly minted Imperial Star Destroyer Iron Fist, lamenting what could not be changed wasn't his task.
"Lord Kenobi?"
His left eye twitched, the pain in his head growing. How he hated that title. "Captain Bodden," he greeted, lowering his hand and turning to face the man. "Please call me Ambassador or General. The lordship isn't required."
Captain Bodden's mouth firmed in a thin line for a moment, military discipline disliking such a casual request. Inwardly, Obi-wan sighed, making a mental note to talk with Padme—with Empress Padme, he corrected himself—yet again over her obsession with titles. He did not need a lordship to do what he needed to do, regardless of political ramifications.
"Yes… Ambassador. Forgive me."
"Already forgotten, Captain," he assured the man. "You have something to report?"
"I'm… not entirely sure, sir. I've received a report from Captain Parck of the Imperial Star Destroyer Strikefast. He's encountered a…" Bodden caught himself before using the derogatory term 'alien' that Palpatine had made popular. "Sentient life form on an uncharted world in Wild Space."
Obi-wan frowned thoughtfully. "What in blazes was Captain Parck doing in Wild Space?"
Captain Bodden gestured to the side, and Obi-wan fell into step beside him. "He was chasing a band of smugglers that we believe were carrying weapons for the New Separatist Order. The smuggler ship in question is the Starwayman, captained by Booster Terrik. Captain Parck pinned them down on an unknown world."
"That still doesn't tell me how the Strikefast ended up in Wild Space."
"Apparently, this Booster Terrik believed he'd have better chances of survival in blindly jumping into hyperspace than in Captain Parck's hands."
"Which pointed heavily in the direction that the Starwayman was indeed smuggling weapons for the Separatists," Obi-wan nodded. "I would have chased these smugglers into Wild Space, too, if given the choice. Captain Parck is a brave man. And he encountered something more, I take it."
"Yes, sir."
They came to a stop at the main command station, a holo paused in mid-action. Standing in a ring of clone troopers, their white armor making the blue color of the prisoner's skin that much more startling, was the sentient in question. He was humanoid, tall by the recognized standards, with blue-black hair that drifted unkempt around his shoulders. Skins of animals were sewn together to make his clothing, fur trimmed for warmth. To all appearances he was a savage, of a culture unfamiliar with the concepts of metalworking nevertheless space flight.
It was the eyes that drew Obi-Wan in, and not for the glowing red characteristics of them.
This man was powerful, the air he projected even through the still-frame image of a badly captured holo spoke of command and authority. A tremor in the Force echoed like a bell in the back of Obi-wan's mind, and images danced before his mind's eye. A battle of unknown strength, a war that could rip the galaxy apart again, and this man the key to saving the galaxy or leaving it forever in slavery.
"A vergence," he whispered, peering intently at the man.
"Sir?"
Obi-wan shook his head, both to clear the visions and to dismiss the question. "Just a stray thought, Captain," he glanced back up at the man. "How did Captain Parck encounter this being?"
Bodden's mouth twisted, as if something sour had suddenly wedged itself between his teeth. "He defeated an entire unit."
This time Obi-wan lifted an eyebrow. "An entire unit of clone troopers?"
"No, sir. An entire unit of clone troopers and an entire unit of stormtroopers."
The other eyebrow lifted until both were trying to climb into his hairline. He'd heard of the newly trained units called stormtroopers, recruits pain-stakingly trained from many human worlds. Palpatine had an academy created in secret just for this project, intending them to replace the genetically modified clones in order to allow a modicum of independent thought in his personal warriors. Test data uncovered in Palpatine's office had shown frightening efficiency and ruthlessness in these select units.
Emperor Skywalker had made it his personal project to attend that Academy and change the training curriculum at his first opportunity. Once the twins were settled, and the Imperial Senate was under control, and the Separatist threat was undone, and… and…
That headache threatened to return, the promise of pain lodging itself permanently between his eyes.
Obi-wan flicked a glance back towards the scrolling report from Parck. For this—to all appearances—savage to have defeated stormtroopers with primitive tools? Impressive was an understatement.
"Does this sentient have a name?"
"Nothing we can pronounce correctly. He says we can call him by something called a 'core name' among his people."
"And what is that core name?"
"Thrawn."
Obi-wan nodded, attempted to fold his arms into the billowing sleeves of his Jedi robes and belatedly realized that they were no longer there. He settled with swallowing his annoyance and folding his arms across his chest. Making yet another mental note to have his wardrobe redesigned the moment he got back to Imperial Center.
"Where is this Thrawn now?"
"He's currently under guard in a private suite on the Strikefast."
"Then I am to believe Captain Parck offered him membership in the Empire, then."
"It would appear that way, sir. If I may, Ambassador, would you have done differently? If a fraction of these reports are true, he's a remarkable find. A brilliant tactician in the making."
"If he isn't one already, and if this wasn't some extreme streak of luck," Obi-wan said.
Bodden met his gaze evenly. "Do you believe in luck, sir?"
The ghost of a smile appeared before he could contain it.. "Not for an instant, Captain."
Captain Bodden returned that smile. "Neither do I, sir."
"Then it's settled. How quickly can a shuttle be prepared? I want to head to the Strikefast, myself, and meet this Thrawn before an official offer is made."
"Sir, the Iron Fist can get you there faster than a lambda shuttle could."
Obi-wan shook his head. "Thrawn isn't going anywhere, and neither is the Strikefast. No, Captain. I'm afraid that Ani…that the Emperor requires an update on what is left of the Separatists and their forces. Cutting off the head of that monster has left us with a thrashing body to deal with, and that must be our top priority. I'll rendezvous with the Strikefast and order them to join the task force in this sector. I shouldn't be gone for more than three days."
He didn't like it, but again Bodden was a true military man. He nodded crisply. "Very good, Ambassador. I'll transmit the details to Captain Parck, myself. Shall I inform your entourage to meet you in the shuttle bay?"
This time he couldn't suppress the look of aggravation. Entourage… another term for bodyguards. Another requirement from the Empress in his new duties. As if his skills with combat had vanished the moment he renounced his oaths to the Order.
"No," he said, turning to head for the turbolift. "I'll take Captain Cody with me and one other, chosen at Cody's discretion. Have this report sent to me in its entirety. Thank you, Captain."
"Very good, Ambassador."