Ripples in a pond
Chapter 1) The stone is dropped
The night had an ominous feeling to it as a lone Clone Trooper flew his speeder across the night sky of Coruscant towards the Chancellor's office. Pushing his yellow speeder to go faster he hoped to catch up to General Windu before he confronted the Chancellor.
As he drew closer to the building he could see two individuals battling with lightsabers through the hole in the building where the window had been blown out. The Jedi with a purple lightsaber was obviously General Windu and the other must have been the Chancellor. Eventually Windu managed to disarm the Chancellor and forced him up against wall of the blown up window.
He slowed his speeder and started to fly lower so he could pull up next to the window. Suddenly a flash of lightning was being fired at Windu and he quickly blocked it with his lightsaber. The lightning died down after a few seconds and he could see Windu arguing with someone. It took him a second to realize it was being Skywalker due to the distance between him and the building. Cursing under his breath, he sped-up again hoping his General's predictions of the events that would happen didn't become to reality.
Just as he got close enough to see the interior of the office clearly, he saw Windu raise his lightsaber to kill Palpatine when Skywalker ignited his blue lightsaber and cut off his hand to stop him. As Windu held his arm in pain, Palpatine took his chance and blasted him out the window with his lightning. Biting back a curse, the Trooper put the speeder into a dive and hoped he could catch Windu before he hit anything. Drawing closer,he could see that Windu was unconscious and was free falling. Speeding up, he pulled up close and caught Windu putting him in the passenger seat next to him.
"All forces this is Lieutenant Shadow, Operation Dunkirk is in effect. I repeat Operation Dunkirk is in effect." he said in the Comlink on his wrist as he turned the speeder towards one of the docks holding the most recently finished Venator mark II class star destroyer.
Jedi Temple same time
The temple was quiet as Shaak Ti walked it's halls deep in thought. Masters Windu, Kit Fisto, Agen Kolar, and Saesee Tiin had left a few hours ago to arrest Palpatine after Skywalker had told the Council of him being a Sith lord. Shaak Ti knew how powerful the four of them were and how Master Windu's saber style was uniquely suited to dealing with Sith. Still, she couldn't shake the feeling something terrible had happened. Suddenly her thoughts were interrupted by sound of her comlink going off, reaching into her robe she pulled the comlink out of one of her many pockets and brought it up by her mouth.
"This is Master Ti ,what is it?" She asked in a soft but not kind voice.
"I'm sorry to bother you Master Ti but there is a LAAT coming towards the Temple and has contacted us asking to talk to whomever is in charge right now. As you're the only Council member inside the Temple at the moment,it falls to you to decide what we should do." A deep male voice said over the comlink.
It took only a moment for her to decide on what to do and began walking towards the outside landing pad as she gave her answer over the comlink. "Have them land on the outside landing pad, I will meet them there."
"Yes ma'am." the voice said shortly.
Once she reached the landing pad she could see the LAAT had just landed and was opening it's rear doors. She was surprised and wary of the squad of Clone troopers who had disembarked from the LAAT. One of the Clones quickly approached her, his armor was the same as his compatriots with it's red marking signifying them as Shock troopers. The only difference was the two holsters on his hips and an insignia on his chest showing his rank as captain.
"May I ask what this is about Captain?" Shaak Ti asked with her arms folded in her robes.
"Sorry to disturb you so late Ma'am, I'm Captain Carter. With me are Cutter, Maverick, Pyro, Jax, Hotshot, Ross, Deadshot and Reno." As each of their names were said,the clones behind him would salute. "We've been sent to help you evacuate the temple." He answered in a strong, authoritative tone.
"Evacuate? I don't know who has given you your orders Captain, but they're wrong as we have no reason to evacuate." She responded in a confused tone.
"I'm sorry ma'am but-" The Captain started before being interrupted by one of his men running over from the LAAT.
"Sir, the Chancellor has issued for order 66 to be executed, the 501st is already on their way here and Skywalker's leading them." He said.
"Damn it, I thought we'd have more time." He mumbled to himself before he began barking orders to his men. "Hotshot,Maverick, I want both of you to head to the temple entrance. Lay as many mines as you can and make sure to brace the door leading into the Temple. Deadshot you're on overwatch, when they get here I want to know about it. Reno head back to the ship let them know what's happening and tell them to get airborne. Don't trust the radio, it's to easy to listen in on. The rest of you, take up Defensive positions inside the Temple, Hotshot and Maverick will join you once they're done. Dismissed."
"Yes sir!" His men saluted before running off.
"Just what is going on here Captain?" Shaak Ti said in a hard tone.
"I'm afraid explaining everything would take too much time, time we currently don't have. Long story short General Windu and the others failed to arrest the Chancellor and he's issued orders for the clones to kill the Jedi. Now we have Skywalker heading here with the 501st and it's not very hard to figure out what they're planning. If you have a security system now would be a good time to activate it." The Captain responded in a dry tone as he and Shaak Ti walked through the Temple.
"If the clones have been ordered to kill all the Jedi why are you and your men helping us? Shaak Ti asked in a suspicious tone with her hand on her lightsaber.
"Look, we can either sit and play 20 questions or we can try and save as many people as we can. Your choice." He said staring her down and pointedly ignoring her hand being on her lightsaber. However,before she could respond his comlink started chirping. Grabbing it off his belt he activated it and looked at the man who had appeared on the com. He wore a black robe and a black and red helmet that covered his face.
"Captain I've been informed of your situation and I'm deploying a battlegroup to meet at the rendezvous point. We no longer have the luxury of time, I'm ordering you to leave any Jedi who refuse to listen and focus on evacuating the children. Use force if you must but get them out of there, I will not have them slaughtered for the Hubris of the Jedi. Am I clear?" the man said in a hard tone.
"Crystal Sir." The Captain responded saluting with his other hand. The other man simply nodded and cut the connection. Turning away from Shaak Ti,the Captain headed further into the Temple towards the children's rooms, with Shaaki Ti hurrying to catch up with the man. Just as he reached the hall where the children's rooms were, his shoulder was grabbed by Shaak Ti and pulled turning him around to face her.
"If you think I will allow you to take the Younglings on the orders of some mysterious man who could easily be a Sith Lord in hiding then you have been critically misinformed." Shaak Ti said with a fierce look on her face in hopes of getting more answers through intimidation.
What she wan't expecting was for him pull one his blaster pistols from his belt and point it at her. "Don't ever say something like that around me again. If it wasn't for the General,every single one of you in this Temple would be dead with the rest of the Jedi in the galaxy following shortly after. The only reason I haven't shot you is because the General told me that having your help would allow us to save more than I can alone. Now, we can either stand here and argue until Skywalker gets here and kills us all or we can evacuate the Children while we still have time and I can promise to explain everything I know once we're safe, will that satisfy you?" he said in a harsh tone at first before softening his voice near the end and holstered his pistol again,holding his hand out to shake.
Shaak Ti was shocked at what the Captain had just done, for a clone to pull a gun on a Jedi was unheard of due to their rigid up bringing on Kamino where they are trained from birth to follow orders and respect authority. Eventually she managed to shake off her confusion and took the Captain's hand in a handshake. "I'll hold you to that promise Captain.", she said shortly.
40 minutes later
It took 20 minutes to wake up all of the Children and have them ready to go. They spent another 20 minutes trying to convince as many other Jedi and their Padawans to leave as they could, in the end over half of the Jedi masters and knights refused to leave and of those who had padawans only a handful were willing to go against their Masters. Shaak Ti pleaded with the other masters to listen but they were convinced that the Jedi Temple would never fall and refused to believe otherwise.
"I hope you have a plan for getting everyone out Captain, we don't have enough transports to evacuate everyone here and I doubt we have enough time to make more then a single trip." Shaak Ti said in a dull almost mocking tone towards the Captain who tapping on the wall in Archives where they had gathered all those who were leaving.
"The General told us about a secret tunnel that leads to a secret hangerbay where he had stationed a CR70 corvette in case something like this ever happened. We'll use that to escape the planet and link up with a Venator-II class before heading to the rendezvous point." He said distractedly before he found the pressure switch and the wall opened up into a dimly lit cave.
"You mean he knew this was going to happen? If he had the information why didn't he tell the Jedi council before-" She started to say only to be interrupted by the captains comlink chirping loudly. Carter pulled it off his belt and pressed one of the buttons.
"Sir, Skywalker and the 501st have just reached the Temple steps, should we engage or fall back?" Deadshot's voice came of the com.
"Negative, fallback to the Archives and take up rear guard positions as we go through the tunnel." Carter responded.
"Understood, moving there now." Deadshot said with the sound of running footsteps being heard.
Returning the comlink to his belt Carter entered the tunnel with the rest following behind. As they traveled down the tunnel it became larger and they eventually came upon a large blast door. Carter pulled out a data chip and placed it into the pannel on the wall, the door made a loud grinding noise as it lifted off the ground and the men and women were able to get their first look at the ship they would be using to escape.
The CR-70 corvette was the precursor to the CR90 introduced at the beginning of the clone wars, used primarily as a civilian and cargo transport it had much less armament and shielding than it's newer counterpart. After everyone had been loaded into the ship, Carter entered the cockpit and sat in the pilot's chair.
Taking off was done in silence with only the sound of the quite rumble of the engines. As the ship exited the secret hanger they could see a battle taking place in the early mourning sky of Corusant. A Venator-II was trading fire with a few Republic Gunboats as it exited the planet's atmosphere, and several fighters were dog fighting around them.
Between the Venator,the fighters, and the Republic Gunboats were quickly destroyed and they were quickly able to escape the planet and enter hyperspace before the enemy reinforcements arrived. Sitting back and taking his helmet off Carter rubbed a hand down his face tiredly, 'It never fails to amaze me how the General is able to predict the enemy's moves so accurately. The fact that he is not even in his thirties yet only compounds that fact.' the Captain thought to himself. The sound of the door opening interrupted his thoughts, turning his chair to see who it was Carter found Maverick standing there.
"General's on the comlink Captain, says he wants a debriefing. I'll take over for you here." Maverick said pointing his thumb over his shoulder.
Carter simply nodded before putting his helmet on and heading down the hall to the meeting room where the hyperspace comlink had been set up. Entering the meeting room Carter activated the comlink and stood at attention.
"Captain glad to see you made it out alive, what's your status?" The general said as he handed a data-pad off to another trooper before giving the Captain his full attention.
"We've Managed to evacuate all of the Children and over half of the Knights and their Padawans, overall we managed to save over 400 people."
"That's better then was originally expected at least. Very good Captain, once you've met up with the Battle group, you're to head to Tython where a base has already been set up. You did good work Captain, get some rest." The General said before turning away as the link was cut.
In the rest of the galaxy,Order 66 was issued only for the General's men to interfere and rescue the Jedi. On Felucia Commander Bly received Palpatine's broadcast of activating Order 66, him and his troops spread out around Aayla Secura and raised their Blasters. The sound of Blaster fire was heard and Aayla spun around with her Lightsaber drawn only to see Bly and the others on the ground and several Scout troopers coming out of the forest holding E-11 shock blasters.
On Cato Neimoidia Plo Koon and the Wolfpack were engaged in an air battle when a small fleet exited slip space and sent them messages to board the lead Venator where someone was waiting to meet them. They also warned them not to accept any communications from Corusant until they had met and talked with whomever they were meeting on the Venator.
On Utapau the General's forces intercepted Obi-wan before he could meet up with Commander Cody and discreetly escorted to a Consular-class cruiser. Once they had escaped the planet,they headed for Kashyyyk to pick up Yoda before heading to Tython.
On Kashyyyk Several clone troopers had rigged a jamming device that would temporarily block all communication coming and going to the planet. This would give them a window to warn Yoda and the Wookiee leaders and allow them to escape. Once they had warned Yoda they took a Nu-class attack shuttle and escaped the planet where a Consular-class was waiting for them.
All of the Galaxy,the General's men who had infiltrated the Republic forces were helping the Jedi escape. From his flag ship the General was reading the reports coming in, the sheer number of Jedi in the field made rescuing them all a herculean task. He wasn't foolish enough to think he could save them all but that didn't stop him from trying.
He was reading a report that presented a great opportunity and also great risk to any men he sent, it seemed the Chancellor had been building a large ship in secret. The Mandator-II class was the largest Star-destroyer built and was to be the Prototype to a new class of ship, the Super Star-destroyer. The ship had just been finished and if he moved quickly he could capture it and make sure Palpatine didn't get the chance to use it against them later, which from the specs he was looking at would be a very good thing.
"Send in the Mandalorian Super Commando's. I don't care what they have to do, that ship must not get to Coruscant." He said in a hard tone knowing full well that he was sentencing everyone on the ship to death. The fact of the matter was that the number of lives that would be lost if Palpatine got that ship would be in the millions and he had to make the brutal call of sacrificing their lives to save more in the long run. It wasn't something he liked doing and it's not a choice he takes lightly but one cannot win a war without making sacrifices.
Authors Note
I realize some of you have to be asking yourselves "Why doesn't he just focus on the stories he's already started instead of making a new one again?" Well the reason is simple, you see when I get a idea for a new story it makes it impossible to focus on anything else. I haven't stopped writing on any of my other stories and I don't plan too. They just get put off for a little until I can focus on them again.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy the story and I look forward to any reviews you guys leave.
This is banko54 signing off.