Chapter 6

The morning sun breaks through the trees, twisting and turning around branches woven between tree trunks until it shatters across Ahsoka and Lux - their warm bodies wrapped in a bed sheet as the cold air blows across them. Lux opens his eyes and feels Ahsoka press her head into his bare chest, their skin being the only barrier between them. He moves his hand softly down her shoulder until he meets hers and laces their fingers together. She laughs softly as she says:

"We really better go this time Lux"

"Well if you insist, my lady, however, I don't suppose an extra kiss would slow us down"

"No, I suppose it wouldn't"

She turns her head up to his and brushes their lips together - their silky smoothness caressing each other until the sunlight moves past their foreheads.

"Now we have to go"

So they leave, walking through the jungle as if it's their first time seeing it - they look up at the fragmented sky, press each other into trees to deliver the simplest of kisses, and wrap their arms around each other until they are just outside the base, until that boundary which they dissolved under the moonlight rips their fingers apart once again. When they return to the base, Ahsoka blows off Saw and mumbles something about surveillance, so he drags Lux to the War Room for questioning.

"What did you learn about their defenses"
"Nothing new really"
"So you went out on surveillance and found out nothing. Damn it, Lux! I've just about had enough of you. You know those Jedi want me to move slowly right. The nerve of them. We invite them to help us out, and what do they do; they waltz in here and tell us we're doing everything wrong. Well enough is enough. From now on you need to keep Ahsoka out of the loop. When you write up the briefings for her, you are to write up two of them, one for us and one for her. And if you so much as whisper this to anyone else, I will see that you are the first casualty of this revolution. Understand?"

"Yes sir…."

"Hey idiots", Abigail enters behind them, "I got you your King"

Although Saw is not able to determine exactly how she snuck into the palace and then broke out undetected, he wastes little time in bringing the King into the War Room. Upon seeing Lux, the King apologizes for his loss and vows to persecute the Separatists behind his mother's murder. They discuss the state of the planet and possible options to sway public opinion more drastically. Saw, however, continues on and says they are about to begin the final assault on the capital whether the public is ready or not until Steela bursts in and says:

"General Gerrera you need to come outside immediately and see this"
A few seconds later Saw screams back to Lux: "The droids have found us! Ready your troops immediately!"
Abigail laughs softly under her breath.

"What is so funny?"
"You and Saw really don't get it, do you. There is no Republic or Separatist Alliance. The same person who told me to finance your operation is the same one who sent the droids to your base"
"So you lead them here!"
"Of course I did. This war is a mere distraction for the true ruler of the galaxy. You might think Dooku controls the Separatists and the Chancellor controls the Republic, but there is someone who is wielding both sides for the enjoyment of war itself. Dooku is powerless compared to his master, and yet his master is the same person wh-"

Two gunshots later and she's dead. Her lifeless body slumps into the wall as Saw's gun smokes away what is left of her breath.

"What the hell did you do that for? She needed to stand trial Saw! Besides she was about to reveal to us who is behind all of this."
"Lux please, I run things here, and as far as I'm concerned, we don't need traitors behind our lines. I've given the order to kill all prisoners and that includes Abigail. Now go to your squad unless you want to end up like her."

Lux leaves the War Room and rallies his troops before heading to the battlefield. Three tank divisions approach along with thousands of droids. Saw and his squadron go to the capital with the King to try and retake the palace while the droids are distracted here, leaving Lux's and Steela's squadrons to wait for a deliverance which might never come. Ahsoka joins them on the battlefield, taking on the super battle droids with some of Steela's troops while Lux and his squad distract the tanks. They don't have enough grenades to take out each tank, so they will need to capture some of the tanks and use them against the droids. At first, the battle is a stalemate with both sides throwing every bullet against each other in the hopes of winning, but their rebellion has far fewer troops. So, they move into the trees and ambush the droids from above. A few of Lux's troops finally manage to capture a tank without the droids noticing, so they are able to take out a considerable number of droids and a few enemy tanks before their tank is blown up - they died for an idea, not a person or a place, but an idea in which they will never see completed and yet it's as if they possessed an everlasting hope that their death will push it closer to reality. They keep fighting, the living against the electronic mind, flesh losing to piles of metal, the mindful winning against mindless programming. Lux and Steela fight next to each other and cover Ahsoka as she leads a charge towards the droid commander. As Lux is firing at a super battle droid, another droid fires at him, and in an instant, he in on the ground covered in Steela's blood - it's red and moist, hardly recognizable on the jungle floor littered with bodies and machines, but she's dead; she died for him. Lux stays by her body and covers Ahsoka from the ground, careful not to attract too much attention and be overrun. Then for some unknown reason, the droids stop; each one powers off - some slump forward, some backward, and some collapse onto themselves - Saw must have found a way to power them all off at once.

A few minutes later, Lux receives a call on his holocommunicator from Saw telling him to go to the capital immediately. He carries Steela's body back to the base and gives it her squadron to cover and prepare for the funeral. Then he and Ahsoka head to the capital with a small task force. When they arrive, they see people lining the streets throwing confetti and streamers through the air while droids are being carted away in trucks to be melted down. They march through the city towards the palace where the King now wears his crown and the people applaud his leadership - a thunderous applause for a democracy that fails to exist. However, the Separatists are expelled from the planet, and the King is ready to give his inaugural speech:

"Citizens of Onderon I applaud you for rising against the oppressive force of tyranny imposed by the sinister Count Dooku. In an effort to preserve justice I will send a delegate to the Republic, not to ask for trade agreements and neutrality, but to join them in their quest to rid the galaxy of evil. Today marks the day the common man stood up for his own freedom, and in honor of the people who died fighting for this freedom, I declare today as a national holiday of celebration and of mourning. We might have freed ourselves, but elsewhere in the galaxy people still fear the droid army. It is our duty to contribute to their demise, and in the interest of ensuring our voice is heard in the Galactic Senate, I am appointing Lux Bonteri, son of our beloved Senator Mina Bonteri, as our delegate and senator to the Galactic Republic. I would also like to appoint Saw Gerrera as the Secretary of Defense to ready our defenses against a possible Separatist assault. Never again will this planet sit in the hands of a tyrant. May the force be with both of you and with us all as we continue the fight against the Separatists."

Another thunderous applause bellows down the streets of Iziz as Lux and Saw bow before the audience. Lux leaves with Ahsoka to head to Coruscant, the capital of the Republic and home of the Jedi temple, as Saw works on establishing a more polished and prestigious military, forgetting to mourn his sister under the mounting pressure from the King and public for increased public safety and defense. Steela's death goes unrecorded in Onderon's history, but Lux will never stop fighting for the girl who gave her life so he could go on to finish what her brother started - maybe she sacrificed herself out of love or maybe she thought they would both be saved but regardless she is now gone forever and he is powerless to change that. Despite their victory, Lux still can't stop thinking about what Abigail said to him earlier - is it possible that behind the face of evil is another more sinister creature? This creature, this nameless, unidentifiable creature, in Lux's mind, now takes the form of a silhouette which remains incorruptible in a quest for galactic domination, a silhouette playing on both sides to see which is the strongest only to destroy the other from the inside out, a silhouette which signs its name to galactic history by remaining entirely in darkness.

Thank you all for your continued support! I can't wait to read all of your reviews! This marks the end of Lux's journey on Onderon. I hope you have enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. There is more to this story, however, so do not worry this isn't the end, at least not yet. In the next part, I hope to include more relevant and reoccurring side characters to help push this story along. Also, I am very excited to explore the world of Coruscant with you guys. It is my favorite planet in the Star Wars Universe, and I think you will see that in some of the chapters to come. Anyways, thank you for reading, and I look forward to our journey into the next phase of this story.