PART THREE
During the
Execution
of Order 66
SHATTERED SERENITY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Chaos
Coruscant goes mad.
It is said that the Jedi have orchestrated a rebellion. It is said that they have been overthrown, that they have been slaughtered. The smoke of the Temple's burning glasses the horizon, a shroud shot through with a heart of flame.
No one knows that this has happened everywhere.
On Mygeeto: A lone Jedi Knight runs beneath a leaden sky, with a legion of armored clones at his back. Acting on orders, and not out of any particular malice, they stop, raise well-used blaster rifles to weathered epaulets, and take aim.
He turns to face them in shock and disbelief. It is too late, it has been too late for years. He raises his lightsaber, sends the first few ricocheting back, but there are far too many. Ki-Adi-Mundi only realizes the futility of it all as a rain of blaster bolts scream into his chest and dissolve his world forever.
On Felucia: A slender green-skinned Twi'lek woman leads a horde of clones through this dreamlike world of mountains and flowers, its sky a creamy yellow. A long time ago, Felucia was paradise. Paradise has been blown to pieces, bombed and shattered.
She never even sees it coming.
Aayla Secura never has a chance.
On Cato Neimoidia: Plo Koon steers a Jedi starfighter over the arcing stone bridges and sheeting waterfalls of this strangely beautiful world, so undeserving of its sniveling and cowardly race. Behind him and around him, clones keep with him, tracing their own exhaust arcs in the blue, blue sky.
And then they change. Then they swoop nearer, tight on his tail, and open fire. Dazzling lances spray outwards and swallow Koon's ship.
Final failure tastes like metal exploding in your face, hot metallic blood, and never-ending darkness.
On Utapau: A clone who has become a friend hands a Jedi his weapon, gently teases him for losing it, and sends him on his way. Moments later, he takes his orders and commands that the Jedi be cut down.
His dragonmount takes the worst of it, but neither living man nor dead beast are spared a thousand-meter fall. As Obi-Wan Kenobi tumbles, the last thing he remembers is anguish before unconsciousness and frigid water swallow him whole.
A clone turns to the first, disbelieving. "You killed him. You killed General Kenobi."
Commander Cody does not listen. "Commander Alpha, I have my orders. Now step aside. I need to see the body before I'll be sure. Kenobi is hard to kill."
Commander Alpha stares at him. "You are a traitor."
"He was a traitor. The Jedi Rebellion will soon be crushed."
Commander Alpha, furious, draws his blaster.
"This is high treason, Alpha."Commander Cody raises his own weapon, cocks it, lets the preparation to fire come naturally to his battle-trained hands. "Step down or I'll shoot you."
"You can't do this. Kenobi is our ally. And you cannot kill me. We are brothers, we came to Utapau out of our mutual respect for the general. We have served together for a long time. We are the same person."
"And that's the beauty of clones."Cody targets the center of his brother's chest. "No matter how many you kill, you never lose anyone at all."
The blaster fires. No one is lost.
On Kashyyyk: A pair of clone troopers take their orders like their comrades, turn, and regard without emotion the diminutive Jedi Master that they must kill. They walk forward, preparing themselves, and raise their blasters.
The last thing they remember is a shear of green energy.
They are the ones who never saw it coming.
The circle is completed on Coruscant.
They believe that the chaos is contained here.
They do not know what has happened elsewhere.
In the Temple: a shadow with burning eyes and burning lightsaber stalks the footsteps of those who were once his kin. The Jedi try to fight him, him and his army of turncoat clones, but he's simply too strong. They are drawn into the glowing blue vortex of his blade, and there they meet their doom.
Bodies litter this sacred, peaceful ground. The archives are pillaged, ancient records and holocrons destroyed. The silence of death thunders through this ransacked memory. A memory like the Jedi.
Anakin Skywalker spits on their very existence.
In an opulent office in Five Hundred Republica: The shadow watches his work, and it is beautiful.
It is magnificent.
Utter victory tastes like chaos overstepping its bounds, and his own twisted, scarred face, and the stench of smoke from the burning Jedi Temple.
It tastes like revenge.
The Sith have risen again, and their stranglehold on the galaxy will last forever. Anakin Skywalker is their key. Anakin Skywalker is their victory.
Then Darth Sidious turns, and walks from the office, and walks down, free and alone and fearing no attack, to the darkest cells holding the most dangerous Separatist prisoners. There is one that is still alive. There is one that he has not let them touch.
Asajj Ventress has been starved and beaten, and she lifts the face of a broken woman to his. She stares at him dully, barely recognizing him.
He decides to give her a clue. "Do you remember me, my dear?"
She knows him then. Slowly, her face contorts in hatred, and she tries to spit at his feet. "You let that boy kill my Master," she says.
"Your Master was a traitor, planning to betray me, too old and not nearly as powerful as Skywalker, the boy he would have had you kill." Sidious' rage is as potent as a cracking whip. "You might have destroyed everything."
He ignites his lightsaber, the blood-colored blade eager to drink more. He raises it above her head and says, "To what Kenobi and Skywalker might have done long ago."
She looks up at him, praying to see a scrap of that unknown emotion, pity, in Sidious' face. Instead, all she sees are reflections of flame in Emperor Palpatine's yellow eyes.
Asajj Ventress dies with two words on her lips. A breath, and a name.
The name of her Master.
The name is, Oh, Ky.
In Five Hundred Republica, and yet still innocent: Padmé Amidala stares at the horizon, and stares at the man begging her to wait, and realizes that her husband, the Annie she fell in love with, is lost to her forever. This cold-eyed, distant stranger still professes love, and tells her that he is going to Mustafar to put an end to the war. Forever. In one night.
Their baby is restless inside her, kicking heartily. She begs Anakin not to leave, but he slips out from underneath her touch and turns away and flies out of Coruscant and out of her life and out of her knowledge and out of their future.
Padmé Amidala learns how it feels when your heart breaks, or so she thinks. But a greater treachery is still waiting for her. For Anakin Skywalker has not yet concluded all the pain and heartbreak he must cause.