This story is very AU. Anakin doesn't turn to the Dark Side. The Jedi found out about his and Padme's relationship and gave him a choice: leave the Order to be a "family man", or stay and divorce his wife. I know this doesn't seem likely, but Anakin chose to stay. Since his kids are Force sensative, both he and Padme agree that they should be Jedi. Kad and his family were borrowed from Karen Traviss's Republic Commando series. Please don't ask about Ferris.
I do not own Star Wars.
Endless war rips apart the galaxy. Death follows death, betrayal, bloodlust, hate and rage and noxious fear. In this darkness, there lingers still the tiny but luminous light of love of all kinds: mate for mate, parent for child, friend for friend. Families together make this light, be they birth family or adopted family, Weequay tribe or Mandalorian clan or even Jedi Order.
But a shadow stretches across the galaxy, squeezing through cracks, reading hearts, twisting and perverting. Day is coming soon to the shuddering, bleeding Republic, the dying Jedi and their flagging army.
Day is coming.
But some of these families will not survive intact to see it.
Chapter 1: The End of Everything
Quinlan Vos was glad to be home. For months, with his cumbersome legion in tow, he had flitted from one Force-forsaken outpost on the Outer Rim to another, bruised and battered and still fighting back to back with those he didn't like and didn't trust.
Oh, no, he didn't like the clones. For all their supposedly superior fighting skills, they seemed to die just as quickly as any ordinary soldier at the blasters of battle droids. It took one Jedi three minutes and a bit of exertion to destroy a squadron of the mechanical enemy. It took a squadron of clones eight minutes and five lives guttering out like candles. Even though the Kaminoans continued to laud them to the Jedi and the Republic, Quinlan had seen enough to draw his own conclusions. They were good, yes, but no better than most soldiers he had fought alongside in the days before he was a soldier himself. Their moderately good fighting skills weren't worth the tension he felt whenever he turned his back to them. For he didn't trust the clones, either. There was something wrong about the whole situation, mass-produced men who instantly followed whatever order he barked at them. Something off there…. He had no desire to find out what.
So it was with relief that Quinlan docked his Eta-2 starfighter in the base's hangar and vaulted out of the cursed thing. I used to like that ship, he thought dourly as he headed toward the closest exit. He would only really feel better when he got to the Temple, took a blistering hot shower, and slept undisturbed on his own pallet for at least eight hours.
"Sir!" called a familiar voice across the near-empty hangar.
Quinlan stifled a groan. Wouldn't you know it. They needed him again. He turned reluctantly to face the squad of twenty-odd black-armored men marching smartly in his direction. Dangerous men. More clones, he concluded with a cursory inspection of their height and the way they moved. They halted in front of him in that impersonal snap-to the army favored. "Your presence is requested, sir," said the one who was obviously commander, even though his armor was unmarked.
Quinlan crossed his arms across his smelly, stained robes. The sneer that marked his face when confronted with something surprising and unpleasant had already started to show. "For what, commander?"
"Arrest of traitors, sir," the commander said immediately. "Dangerous rouges."
Quinlan had half a mind to bark a refusal and be on his way, but he doubted that would sit well if this got back to the Council, and he was in hot water with them already. "Very well, commander…?"
The man rattled off his serial number, which pleased Quinlan a bit. This one at least didn't expect to be friends with him, like many in his own legion had. They could keep their cute little nicknames to themselves.
"Commander Two-two," he said with a nod. "Let's get on with it." The squad and the Jedi took ordinary transport, a closed hover bus of the sort tour groups used. Quinlan rested his elbows on his knees while Two-two filled him in. "There are at least thirteen hostiles, sir. We put the estimate at fifteen to sixteen. Two are training sergeants from Kamino. There are two females, a Republic auditor and an unidentified Twi'lek. A third male, Mandalorian from the looks of it. The rest are an indeterminate number of clones of the Fett template."
Quinlan twisted to look at him, interest piqued. "What exactly have these beings done?"
Two-two's face had the crisp, blank look of a soldier before a new higher-up, an unknown quantity. "Treachery, sir," he said shortly, as if the rest were obvious.
Deserters from the army perhaps? A Republic auditor. That was interesting. The description of the suspects sounded more like the setup for a trite joke than the summation of a proper security threat. Still, they could be the makings of an odd but effective conspiracy.
Quinlan peered out the transparisteel view plate at the grungy buildings lit by either harsh garish lights or weakly flickering glowstrips. The very edge of the Lower Levels. "How are their fighting skills? And what is your plan for this operation?"
"They're good, sir. The clones and the training sergeants at least know brutal hand-to-hand, not to mention the usual mastery of the standard gear. Blasters and such. That's why we wanted a Jedi along, sir. We plan on going in as soon as we get there, while they're sleeping. We'll put half the squad on reserve, to provide backup once things get hairy. We thought you'd like to come with us, sir, get us in quick and quiet." He waited for approval of this plan.
Quinlan glanced out the window again, trying to get his bearings. He didn't think he had ever been in this sector before. "Approved. And after they are apprehended?"
"We eliminate the threat, sir. We considered-"
"Where is their base located?" Quinlan cut him off impatiently.
Two-two's face stayed starched and expressionless. "An apartment above a restaurant, sir. The restaurant is closed this late."
"Capture only," Quinlan interjected sharply. "This is the sort of operation you don't want to draw attention to. These people likely have neighbors, acquaintances, maybe even friends who live nearby. Don't give them a reason to want to investigate, commander."
Two-two nodded briskly. "Sir, yes, sir." He donned his helmet and checked his blaster. They were close.
Quinlan inspected his lightsaber briefly under cover of his over-robe. Capture, relocate, then eliminate. "Who have your orders come from?" he asked, scrubbing vigorously at a scorch mark on the glazed metal on the hilt.
"The Chancellor, sir."
The aggravating mark just wouldn't come off. He scratched at it with a fingernail. The Chancellor. It must be all right, then. The Council trusted the man, after all. Enough to let him elect his own representative to their ranks, at any rate. The mark stubbornly stayed put.
The hover bus dropped them several blocks from the target. Jedi and commandos stole through the night, silent and nearly invisible, wreathed in the Force and black armor. Two-two ordered ten of his men to position themselves on the roof of the building adjacent, to enter in five minutes' time. They slipped through a rather seedy dining establishment with an oily quality to the air that spoke of large quantities of greasy food.
Quinlan led the way up the narrow stairs to the door of the rented apartment. Closing his eyes, he quested with the Force. Perhaps fifteen beings inhabited the apartment. One was awake, in the main room off the door, but distracted, reflective. The others were all in their beds, fast asleep. The commandos ranged themselves silently around the door, prepared to go in at a second's notice.
Quinlan opened his eyes and snapped his hand down in the "forward" command. A simultaneous exertion of Force power snapped the lock. The awake one jolted to immediate alertness, but it was too late: Quinlan was already through the door. The commandos poured in after him.
The man who leaped at Quinlan was in his sleep clothes only, but coldness radiated from him in the Force. Best beware. Quinlan darted in for a quick disabling blow to the knee with a well-placed kick-and sprang back in alarm as a knife flashed into the man's hand, seemingly out of nowhere, and slashed at his leg. The wicked blade just barely missed a vital artery.
Quinlan ignited his lightsaber. Its molten gold blade blazed to incandescent life. Pure hate gleamed in the man's eyes at the sight of it. Quinlan went for him again. He stayed out of range, taking advantage of his lightsaber's reach-but the man danced aside, surprisingly fast for an ordinary human in his sixties. He dropped as the lightsaber slashed over his head and came up under it, slicing for a hit to the stomach. Only Quinlan's Jedi reflexes saved him.
He leaped away, felt a hitch as the knife snagged the fabric of his tunic and gashed it open. That was it! He pulled back on his robes sharply when the knife caught at a seam. The man's grip slipped just enough for a Force pull to wrench the blade out of his hand. There now, Quinlan thought with ugly triumph as he went onto the offensive. That wasn't so hard, was it? He aimed for the head with his lightsaber. The man ducked away, right into Quinlan's waiting kick to the breastbone. The man collapsed on the ground, and the black blur of a commando fell upon him.
The Force thrummed a warning. Quinlan turned, lightsaber coming up to block a blow he hadn't even known would be there. Another bright, sizzling blade clashed against his. His eyes widened as he stared into a human male's face highlighted by the hot green of a Jedi blade. The young man radiated hard challenge. Come and get me, Jedi, he seemed to mock. Quinlan leapt free, across the room and past the other fierce little skirmishes, and landed in a ready stance. Contempt electrified his limbs, and his teeth bared in a snarl. Battle on my terms, traitor.
The ex-Jedi pursued him across the room. Quinlan plunged into the murky depths of the Force. Its polluted, diseased currents both buoyed and drowned him. The other responded in turn. Their blades clashed as they whirled around the room, barely conscious of the struggle around them.
The occupants of the apartment gave off grim determination. They seemed to think they could actually win this day. Then the rest of the commandos crashed through a hole they blasted in the ceiling, and the battle was swiftly over.
Quinlan dispatched the shocked ex-Jedi with a non-lethal slash to the ribs and a simultaneous Force-push that smashed him against the opposite wall. He paced over to his opponent, slumped barely conscious on the floor, and called the traitor's lightsaber from his nerveless fingers into his own waiting palm. "You don't deserve this," he said aloud, and clipped it to his belt alongside his own.
The commandos set about clearing the prisoners from the wrecked apartment. Half of them were barely conscious. The ones that weren't fought back with the despair of cornered aak dogs determined to inflict as much damage as possible before they were taken out.
Quinlan shuddered as he came down from his adrenaline high. He had to drag himself from the sludgy miasma of the Force. A sledgehammer headache awakened between his temples. He relaxed his body and focused on slowing the wild paroxysms that passed for a heartbeat nowadays. The death knell of his own life source in his ears struck an uncomfortably raw nerve. The mad spasms slowed to a measured beat.
Only then did he hear the thin wail that rose above the strangled curses of the few remaining prisoners and the commandos' loud silence. Puzzled, he followed the sound of it to the unopened door of one of the back rooms. He opened it with a wave of his hand. The light from the hallway jagged across a serviceable carpet to catch the edge of a crib with sculptured bars. A tiny child, no more than a year old, clung to those bars, staring frantically across the room. When he caught sight of Quinlan silhouetted in the doorway, he wailed again.
A baby? Quinlan was at a loss for what to do with the child. Where would such a group of people get a youngling, anyhow? His first thought was stolen, but there had been a human female among the hostiles. It was most likely her child. Well, he certainly couldn't leave him standing there howling in misery. He scooped the baby up and carried him to the front of the house. The child flinched away from his touch.
The one remaining hostile was a clone struggling viciously against a pair of commandos who had him in two savage arm bars. The clone's teeth were bared in rage while tears streamed freely down his face. He caught sight on Quinlan with the child then, and his face blanked with horror. "Don't hurt him!" he shouted hoarsely.
Quinlan looked at him coldly. "What exactly do you think I am?"
The baby reached toward the clone and sobbed what sounded like "Mril."
"We have family on Mandalore!" the clone insisted desperately. "Send him to them!"
"Family?" Quinlan asked contemptuously. Clones did not have families. Traitors to the Republic did not deserve them.
The clone tried again. "Kal has family on Mandalore. Ask for Skirata!"
Quinlan held the squirming child toward one of the commandos. They could "ask for Skirata." The thought He must be about Korto's age crossed his mind with a brief sting of regret. He even looked a bit like Quinlan's own offspring, black-haired and ordinary, living under his own clan name of Vos on a distant planet with a woman Quinlan had thought he'd loved. He shoved the memories aside roughly. There was no time for that.
He reached into the Force to seek the calmness and peace he knew it was supposed to bring, stretched his awareness to encompass the room, brushed the distraught child-who twisted to stare at him with terrified eyes. He'd felt it. He was a Force-sensitive.
Quinlan snatched the child back from the commando's outstretched hands. He settled the boy more securely in his arms, felt the infant cringe as if the contact burned him.
The clone strained against his captors hard enough to drag them back through the apartment's door. "Wait! Ask for Skirata, in Keldabe, ask-"
Quinlan kept his attention on the miserable child, studying him physically and with delicate probes of the Force that left the baby shuddering. "What is his name?"
"Send him to Mandalore!"
He glanced up in irritation. "Tell me his name, or I'll give him one myself."
Even hate had deserted the clone's face now, leaving only desperation. "Kad! Kad Skirata! He has family there, send him to Mandalore-"
"Mandalore?" Quinlan snorted.
"Yes, he has an uncle-!"
"No."
The clone fell silent as if he had been punched.
"He would be corrupted and wasted on Mandalore. He will be much more happy and useful where I am taking him: the Jedi Temple."
The clone's eyes glazed. With a blood-curdling shriek of rage, he burst from his captors' grips and shot across the room toward the Jedi and the baby. Quinlan leapt back, hand outstretched, and heaved the clone back with the Force. The child screamed in anguish. The commandos hit the clone with a stun setting. He went limp, and they hauled him out the door. Quinlan tried in vain to calm the struggling boy.
Commander Two-two appeared at his side. "The hostiles are all secured, sir."
"Very good," Quinlan said distractedly. "Now-"
A golden bolt of fury shot into the room at lightning speed, a chilling howl of wrath Quinlan's only warning. The creature leapt, massive jaws aimed at the baby.
Quinlan ended up standing on a table, the infant held as high over his head as possible, when the commandos finally shot the thing with a stunner. He slowly lowered the child. "What was that?" he croaked.
Two-two crouched beside the unconscious animal. "I'm not sure, sir." The creature had six legs, wrinkled folds of smelly golden hide, and the most hideous, toothy face Quinlan had ever seen. He was in no hurry to get down from the table. "What else do they have in this place?" he wondered allowed.
Two-two nodded crisply. "We'll check every room, sir."
"Good." Quinlan gingerly dismounted from the table and, giving the creature a wide berth, edged his way around the room to the door. The baby reached both hands wretchedly toward the animal even though he had no chance of touching it across such an incredibly far stretch that was constantly getting longer. His face crumpled in a silent heartbroken wail.
"I have somewhere to be," Quinlan said briskly to the guards. "You can handle this?"
"Yes, sir. We'll give the apartment a thorough scan, probably check the restaurant too, and then handle the prisoners."
The child's agony sawed ruthlessly at the Jedi's Force sense. He pressed a hand to his head. This was a sensitive youngling, apparently very attached to his family, and likely attuned to them at a startling level. "Don't kill them," he ordered.
Two-two tilted his helmeted head questioningly. "Sir?"
"Don't kill them," he repeated. "If this one feels it, he'll be broken for good. Do you understand me? Do not kill any of these prisoners." He shot the golden bulk a sour look. "Not even that."
Two-two seemed at a loss for the first time since Quinlan had met him. "But-what do we do with them, sir?"
Quinlan turned on his heel and strode out. "That's for you to decide." He bore the newly sobbing child through the restaurant, to the curb, and to a nearby speeder rental shop. He cinched the baby into the seat beside him. The child never stopped screaming.
"There there," he said tightly. The sound stirred uncomfortable memories of his own early childhood, the murder of his parents, and how only his Jedi tutor could make everything right and safe again. "We're almost home."
Soon the spires of the Jedi Temple rose above them, so high they appeared to pierce the star-dense sky. Quinlan motored the speeder into a hangar. The baby's sobs echoed desolately in the cavernous space. A maintenance droid hurried stiffly to welcome the Jedi as Quinlan picked up the youngling. His hands tingled as they automatically began to take in memories stored in the fleecy, pale blue onesie. Quinlan tried to fix his eye on the droid and failed.
"See that this is returned to Xed Speeder Rental in the Lower Levels. About three sectors from here."
"I will assure its safe return, Master Vos," the droid intoned politely, though its photoreceptors strayed repeatedly to the baby.
"That's all," Quinlan snapped.
He headed for the youngling quarters as quickly as he could. He had just stepped out of the lift directly opposite them when a human woman dashed through the door. "What are you doing?" she cried. "Give him to me, now!" She snatched the distraught baby from him. He vaguely recognized her as the newest youngling Master, caretaker of Krayt Dragon Clan. Veenna, he thought it was. She held the baby protectively and stared, waiting for an explanation.
He said curtly, "I found him," and backed up a step.
"Found him? But-"
A memory transmitted by contact with the baby's azure onesie caught him before he could think of a reply. The light of a window silhouettes a human frame in shadow, edged with a corona of gold. He can't see the person's face other than a bright, wide smile meant for him- Quinlan rubbed his hands on his robes ineffectually, the cleansing action automatic even though he knew the memories he'd gathered would only fade once they were spent. A pair of blue hands roll a red ball to him across the floor-
"Master Vos?" Veenna asked.
He turned and strode away.
"Master Vos!" Veenna called over the baby's wails. "What happened to this youngling? Where was he?"
Quinlan paused at the lift. "I found him," he repeated, and before Veenna could ask more the door sealed behind him. He leaned against it and tried to regain his center of balance. The contact with the Mandalorian youngling, his memories of an idyllic childhood gone forever, slowly faded, but Quinlan was left with the raw, hot flavor of avocadoes at the back of his throat.
Desperate heartbreak stabbed and hacked away at his heart. Everything and everyone he had ever loved- Gone, gone, GONE, GONE! Anakin Skywalker jolted awake with tears tracking down his cheeks and an answering scream rising in his throat. The vortex of nearly mad grief that swamped him poured from the youngling quarters. Luke! Leia! He half-tumbled off his pallet and sprinted through the Temple's softly lit halls to the horizontal lift tube that would take him to the youngling quarters on the other side of the Room of a Thousand Fountains. He shifted from foot to foot during the ride over, anxiety gnawing at his bones. When he burst into the nursery where Krayt Dragon Clan slept, searing grief smacked him hard enough to make him stagger.
"Veenna!" he called.
She sat in the rocking chair, helplessly cradling a human baby. Anakin stopped when he saw the baby's shock of black hair. Veenna smiled ruefully and jerked her head at two of the cribs that lined the walls.
Luke and Leia both watched the proceedings in distressed confusion. Luke reached a tiny hand through the bars to touch Anakin's hand. He whimpered a feeling of shocked empathy into the Jedi Master's mind. Anakin scooped up his three-month-old son, such a solemn monk of a baby, with a serious blue gaze and hair so pale it may as well not have bothered growing at all. He picked up Leia too: a warrior in the making, willful and vivacious and every inch her mother's daughter. Cradling them, he slid to the ground beside Veenna.
"Master Vos just brought him in fifteen minutes ago," she murmured. "Shh, little one, it's all right. You're safe here."
The baby turned his head and blinked dark eyes shining with tears. "What's your name?" she whispered.
"Kad," he said in a tiny toddler's voice. "Kad Skeer-h-ta."
"Kad?" Luke asked, concerned. Despite the loss Anakin felt from the youngling, almost as strongly as he still felt his own, his heart swelled at Luke's first word.
Kad looked appealingly at Veenna, then Anakin. "Boo? Baboo?" His poignant pointedness imparted that he asked for people.
Veenna shook her head slowly. "I'm sorry. I don't know where they are."
Kad looked desperately from her to Anakin again. "La-la? Mril?" "No," Anakin said helplessly. "We-"
Kad threw his head back and screamed. "BOO! BABOO! LA-LA! MRIL! ORD!"
Veenna started to her feet convulsively, while Anakin fell back with a choked gasp.
"BARD! NINE! COR! VOO! AHTEEEEN!"
"A healer, Anakin, get a healer!" Veenna shouted.
Still holding his own bawling babies, Anakin edged toward the door. There was no way he could bring himself to leave in the face of this youngling's agony. He cast out in the Force to find someone, anyone, who could help.
"COM! DI! JAN! BESS! AD! FIVE! MIRD! BOOOOOO!" Kad broke into wrenching sobs.
Don't leave me, don't leave me, please don't leave me!
"Kad, Kad," Veenna repeated urgently. "Please, little one."
Kad looked up at her, eyes dark holes devoid of hope, and fell silent. The only sounds were Luke and Leia's combined unhappy cries. Veenna met Anakin's eyes, horrified.
"What did he do?" Anakin rasped.
Veenna sank into the rocking chair. "You don't know that," she rebuked.
Anakin was in no mood to be chastised by a woman only a scant three years his senior. "Look at him," he exclaimed, eyes on Kad, who was as still as a lifeless doll. "Didn't you hear that? Veenna, something awful happened!"
She shook her head obstinately. "I refuse to jump to conclusions. Did you summon a healer?"
Anakin bit back a heated retort. Right. I'm a good Jedi now. "Yes, I reached for-"
The door slid open. Vokara Che, Master Healer of the Jedi Order, stepped into the room.
Kad caught a glimpse of her and raised his head. A sudden, relieved cry of "La-la!" leapt from his throat-and died an abrupt death as he realized the new arrival was not the one he had thought she was. His face crumpled. "La-la…."
"Oh no," the elderly Twi'lek healer murmured. She took the unresisting child from Veenna. "I'm sorry, little one. I'm Master Che." She looked at Veenna. "Shall I take him?"
The youngling Master shook her head tiredly. "No. I think I'll keep him. Krayt Dragon Clan could use more members." She vacated the rocking chair for Master Che, who swathed Kad in salving layers of the Force. Veenna leaned against the wall with a data pad on her knees as she created a file for their new arrival. Anakin peered over her shoulder.
Kad (Cad?) Skita Skirta Skir'ta Kad Skir'ta
She glanced at him wearily. "Home planet Coruscant?" He could only shrug. She filled it in. "Age…." She peered at the child. "Twelve to fifteen months."
Anakin, who was no judge of babies of any species but was determined to learn, compared him discreetly with the two he still held. "That old?"
"He's on the small side. Birthday-"
"July 9," Anakin suggested.
"Luke and Leia's birthday?"
"Until you learn the real one, it will do. It's memorable. Empire Day, and all that poodoo."
The look she gave him told him what she thought of the likelihood of finding out anything about this particular youngling. "A year and three months it is." She sighed heavily.
"What's his name?" Master Che whispered.
"Kad Skir'ta," Veenna answered. "Kay-ay-dee."
"A good name," Master Che agreed. "What happened to him?"
Veenna sighed again. "No idea."
It struck Anakin suddenly that this was a remarkably intimate moment among people with little connection: all of them in their sleep clothes, united by exhaustion and compassion for this one heartbroken baby, all unarmed. He had even left his lightsaber under his pillow.
"That weapon is your life, Anakin. Where is it?"
"…Under my pillow, Master."
"Oh, Anakin. I swear that you do this on purpose."
He desperately wanted Obi-Wan back from that mop-up mission to Cato Nemoidia right then, so he could stop the whirling in Anakin's head and make the galaxy fall into place again. Obi-Wan had been a pillar of stability these past few months for his former Padawan still reeling from the betrayal of his most trusted friend and the loss of his wife.
Leia clutched the front of Anakin's sleep shirt in her perfect little hands and nuzzled into it. His heart warmed until it burned as a tranquil flame in his chest, not the devastating inferno it would have been had Sidious had his way. The twins, and Obi-Wan, were Anakin's anchors. Until this storm eased, they would keep him safe and sane.
And Kad? he thought. What happened to his anchors? That youngling is adrift and so completely alone.
"He's asleep," Master Che whispered.
"Good," Veenna muttered. "He needs his sleep." She reached to take Luke and Leia. "I think we all do." She returned Leia to her crib on the far right of the wall, but moved Luke to the far left, so that the one between them was ready for a different occupant. "I don't think he should be left alone."
Master Che nodded. "I'm staying for the night," she answered.
Kad woke with a jerk. He looked around frantically, then, seeing where he was, buried his face in Master Che's robes and cried bitterly.
"Kad, Kad," Master Che whispered over and over. "Hush, little one. Hush."
The small tenderness was too much. Kad's sobbing screams again grazed on their ears. "BABOO! LA-LA! MRIL!" Anakin and Veenna crouched helplessly on either side of the rocking chair, willing to do anything to help, but unable to provide any sort of comfort.
It was a long, long night.
Please review. If you have questions, I'll do my best to answer them.
mad'ika