A puff of smoke drifted across the doorway. My face scrunched in discomfort as a brief gust of wind pushed it into my eyes. I looked to my right where another guard was smoking a cigarra, not even bothering to pretend alertness. His eyes were closed as he savored the mild narcotic.
"You know, those things will kill you?"
He opened his eyes for a moment and lazily peered at me, taking another drag and exhaling before answering me.
"All that lives must die one day, I'd rather enjoy my life than be too careful about it."
"So, you want to die with a tube down your throat as your lungs will be too weak to breathe properly? My grandad was a user and his passing was not pretty."
He just laughed at that and flicked away some of the burnt-up leaf stuck on the end of his smoke stick.
"If it bothers you this much then I will finish this one and leave it as my last for today."
I gave him a curt nod and resumed looking at the darkened cityscape. The highly regulated Coruscant night was just as warm and comfortable as any other, making guard duty in front of the Great Jedi temple a comfortable affair. Minimal traffic had gone through the main doorway on our shift as it was late, even Jedi slept during the night like everyone else. Aside from a group of Jedi masters hurrying to a transport a little while ago, nothing out of the ordinary had happened.
But I just couldn't shake the feeling that something was afoot. There was a tension in the air, something was about to snap.
A patrol was moving up the long staircase, returning from their evening rounds in the temple district. Right on schedule. The squad leader walked over to the security panel and inserted his report, giving me a few moments to chat.
"Everything alright in the district?"
The one to answer me was a green Twi'lek, a heavily muscled male with a custom A280 in his hands.
"It's quiet down there, really quiet. Usually we have some sort of gawkers and tourists to deal with. People really want a personal night time tour in the temple and suchlike. Today though there is none of that, barely a peep."
I nodded and started to tell him what I heard from the last patrol to come through when I looked over his shoulder and saw a breathtaking sight.
"Yeah, I heard C sector wa- what the kriff?"
The Twi'lek looked at me weird, but turned around to see what I was staring at. His gasp confirmed that I hadn't gone crazy. A sea of white armored soldiers was marching towards the temple, some heavy AT-TE walkers marching in the middle of the perfect square formations. Clones, a kriffton of clones. All marching on the temple.
"Sarge. What the hell is that about?"
The sergeant looked more annoyed than anything as he moved over to us but he too fell silent as he saw the large column marching towards us.
"That's a whole legion. Brun, go to them and ask what is going on! Are we expecting an attack or something? Have the seppies snuck past the fleet again?"
One of the humans on his squad saluted and took off at a steady jog towards the line where a cloaked figure was leading the clone procession. Probably one of the Jedi generals.
The squad leader walked a few paces away from us but I could still faintly hear his comm to central.
"Control, do we have any reports of a clone legion reinforcing us or performing a late-night parade in the temple district?... Then what are they doing here, marching in force towards the temple?... Put me through to master Drallig... Yes, I know that it is late… No, I don't care that he ordered nobody to disturb him, this is important… Yes, I'll wait."
It took barely a minute for the comm to beep again and an irritated looking master Drallig to show up on the miniature holoprojector.
"I assume this is something important, sergeant?"
"Yes sir, we have a legion sized clone force marching unannounced towards the temple. I sent one of my officers out to ask them what the kriff they are doing here."
"I have heard nothing of movements like this. Keep us apprised, I'll get some extra men on the front door."
The sergeant closed his personal comm device and rejoined the group. We all watched the runner reach the bottom of the stairs and stop the column as he talked with the cloaked figure. The conversation was quick, only enough for a few sentences probably before Brun turned around and bolted back towards us with a desperate urgency in his steps.
The man made record time up the steep stairs, easily outpacing the slowly marching legion of clones behind him. He stopped at the top and started rattling off his report.
"Sir! Its general Skywalker sir! He said there was an attempted coup against the chancellor by the Jedi council, he issued an order 66 on the whole temple! He ordered the guard to stand aside in the name of the chancellor. What should we do?"
Nobody really knew what order 66 was, only the sergeant knew, as his face lost all its color. He snatched up his comm again, this time not caring that everyone could hear him.
"Control, we have a legion at our doorstep with general Skywalker saying that order 66 is in effect. Please advise. Also, get me General Drallig on the horn again ASAP."
The comm flickered for a moment before the miniature representation of the Jedi master appeared again.
"Report."
"Sir, we have general Skywalker marching on the temple with what seems to be his entire legion. He told us to stand down as the Chancellor has declared order 66 due to a que attempt."
"Sergeant, did you say order 66?"
"Affirmative sir, order 66 is in effect, for the whole god kriffing temple!"
The sergeant looked very alarmed, that set all of us on edge, making us verily eye the column that was slowly inching its way up the stairs, one of the walkers already trudging up the path.
He turned around towards us and pointed at my watch mate, the guy had just finished putting out his smoke and was now eyeing everything attentively like a good law enforcement officer instead of the lazy slouch he had been minutes before.
"You, take two of my men and get us E-web emplacements from the gatehouse armory."
We did as we were told, my fellow door guard taking the muscled twi'lek and another human before falling into a sprint with them. Then one of the humans in his squad asked him a question which all of us were dying to ask.
"Sir, what's order 66 and why would the clones attack the temple over it, we are on the same side."
"Order 66 is an order to kill traitorous Jedi in case any of them decided to join count Dooku and the separatists. There has to be a mistake, the Jedi have been the protectors of the Republic for millennia. Our oaths hold clear, we shall protect the temple men! Now prepare yourselves to become one with the Force!"
The doubt largely faded from my mind as we all saluted the sergeant. An urgency appeared in everyone's movements as they spread out amongst the massive pillars and faced the city from which the clones were pouring out from.
I took cover behind the main pillar at the center of the line, next to my guard post. A sharp whine signaled my weapon being turned onto its kill setting, many such whines could be heard along the line, accompanied by some curses as the guards realized they had forgotten their pieces onto the standard stun setting.
A trio of Jedi rushed out of the main doorway and made it to our lines just as the first clone peaked over the landing. The dark robed Skywalker was next to him, his glowing yellow eyes like one of the far-off lights in the dim lighting of the night.
"OPEN FIRE!"
On the sergeant's command, we opened up on the advancing clones. The first line fell with a dozen scorch marks scattered along each of their bodies. The general though was a blur, deflecting and dodging the green bolts we fired at him.
The man next to me took a deflected bolt to the face, being one amongst the many who suffered at the hands of the traitors' deadly accurate deflection skills.
"Focus on the clones, leave the Jedi to deal with Skywalker!"
The amount of fire going towards the force user dwindled, the troopers realizing how useless their barrage was and focusing on the clones who had begun to rush up and over the staircase.
The trio of Jedi who had joined us, two knights and a padawan, charged at Skywalker. Two green and one yellow blade flared into action, deflecting a few blue bolts back towards the clones along their rush.
Skywalker met them head on, blocking both green blades at the same time and grasping the padawan with the force, flinging her over the edge and to the long drop to the city level.
One of the knights flew into a rage at that, violently swinging at his fellow Jedi, pushing back the Hero-With-No-Fear for a few seconds. But he outpaced his fellow knight and overextended. The rogue Jedi took advantage of that, pushing away his opponents humming blade and striking with an upwards stroke. First the quarrens hand fell on the ground, lightsaber still clutched between his fingers, then his head.
The second knight was much more cautious, staying on the defensive and blocking the random blaster bolt that flew at him from the clones we were still holding back. Skywalker took the initiative and brutally shattered the other man's defense. First, he slammed his lightsaber into the other man's block, anticipating the dodge the other one used to bleed off the strength of the attack from his blow, and lashed out with his foot, knocking him backward and force pushing the man into a pillar. Breaking his concentration.
He then proceeded to lift his hand in a holding gesture, lifting the other man in the air and making him choke. All the while lazily deflecting away our return fire.
The knights neck broke with a sickening snapping sound a second later, being audible over the fierce firefight that was ongoing around me. I realized I had still not fired a single shot, gaping from the ease with which the rogue general killed three members of his own order, two of whom had the same rank as him.
I propped my A295 on the dead body of a fellow guard member and started to fire on the traitorous Jedi, earning his ire with my defiance. Every one of my shots was deflected to the sides or into a fellow guard member as he lazily walked towards me, my shots coming out closer together as he approached. My aim was suffering from the pure fear coursing through my blood vessels.
Suddenly my rifle overheated from the rate of fire I had put t through, the marksman rifle not designed to take the heat from rapid fire use. The smirk on the general's face told me that he had been waiting for that moment.
My feet lifted off the floor as he used the force on me like a padawan uses it to lift a small pebble. Then I was moving forward at a breakneck speed, the feel of a trio of blaster burns on my back only overshadowed by the intense burning in my chest where the bright blue plasma blade cut through me, instantly flash sealing my ruptured blood vessels and keeping any of my green blood from leaking out.
One of the last things I could see over the shoulder of my killer was a flight of gunships closing in on the temple, a volley of missiles rocketing out of their racks.
Anakin Skywalker watched the Duros guardsman fall to the ground, sneering at the pathetic resistance the man had put up. Nobody was going to get between him and saving Padme. The Jedi would pay for their treachery.
He force pushed the alien corpse, making his body fly through the main temple doors in a high arc. That should give the traitors pause was the thought going through the man's mind as he lashed out with his saber once more, parting the officer commanding these men from his head.
A series of explosions rocketed the Jedi temple gate, wiping out the heavy weapons emplacements that the Jedi lackeys were setting up and breaking one of the massive pillars.
And thus, the temple burned.