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Chapter 27
"What in all the stars and galaxies are you talking about?"
Mace just stared evenly back at the blonde, human Jedi Knight. "Every word that Anakin said is true."
Calleg Din, one of the strongest Knights in the Order, soon to be made a Master when circumstances permitted, could only look back and forth between the two other men. "But how is any of that possible?"
Anakin sighed, trying to suppress his agitation; they so did not have time for this. "Look, Calleg, we're all still trying to figure out how in the Force it's possible. How he got around all our defenses, how we could've been so blind. But that's not important right now."
"It isn't?"
"No." Anakin shook his head. "What's important right now is protecting ourselves."
Calleg nodded, knowing that Anakin was right. "Of course." He shook his head again, trying to comprehend all the information that had just been dumped on him. "What is there to figure out though? Won't we just fight?"
"Well," Mace said, "that was my original plan."
"Until?"
"Until we received multiple distress messages from Jedi all over the Galaxy. It seems... it seems that the clone troopers are turning on them."
Calleg looked from one Jedi to the other, mouth wide open in shock. Mace and Anakin both stared back at him, the former with that calm look of strength that was almost always present on his face, and the latter showing close to no emotion as well. But, to the trained eye, the smallest of wrinkles between his eyebrows betrayed the inner turmoil and agony that the younger Jedi was going through. "Have any been killed?"
"We're not sure really," Mace replied. "We've gotten nearly a hundred distress messages already, and there are more coming in. So many that we decided to send out a message telling all of the Jedi to watch out and be on guard."
Anakin swallowed, suppressing the anger that attempted to arise. "They have to watch their back and their front now."
"It is an unfortunate situation," Mace admitted. "But we must keep our focus."
"Right, of course. As Master Windu's command, I was able to spend a few minutes looking through some old files when we returned, specifically our agreement with Kamino in making the clones, and there were several things that may have been somewhat overlooked."
"Not hard to do when none of us even knew about it," Calleg muttered.
Anakin nodded. "Yes, but we were still given the holofiles to look at afterwards. I suppose there was just so much going on at the time that some things were, as I said, overlooked. For instance..., the Jedi are not in control of the clones."
Poor Calleg was getting too many shocks that day to count them all. My nervous system is going to be permanently shot, he thought, as he asked Anakin, "What do you mean we're not actually in charge of the clones?"
Before Anakin could reply, a fourth person entered the room. "Sorry, I'm late, Master. I came as soon as I could."
"It's alright, Koresck. I'm just glad you made it," Mace said. "We need as many people helping as possible."
Koresck Loardash, a tall, humanoid from the planet Orphon, nodded his head, his long, black hair shifting slightly as he did so. "Thank you, Master. Calleg, it's nice to see you again. Anakin," he turned to look at him, "heard you've been busy."
Anakin nodded at Koresck, his first and best friend at the Jedi Temple. "Very. It's been crazy picking up your slack while you were off having fun in the Senate."
"Sure, because the Senate is fun," Koresck rolled his eyes and then turned back to Master Windu. "Anakin explained most of what's happened when he called me up on my commlink."
"So you're up to date. Good. Anakin, go ahead and continue."
"Of course. As I was just telling Calleg and Master Windu, the Jedi are not actually in charge of the clones."
Koresck's eyes widened in surprise. "What?"
Anakin put up a hand to stop him from saying anything else. "Let me explain. We are in charge of them in the sense that we are their Generals and Commanders and they follow our orders. However, that is only as long as the Chancellor has commanded them to do so. Today, for some reason, he has decided to reveal himself as the Dark Lord of the Sith and take away our control of the clones. Therefore, they are now solely his to command. Not ours." It took all of Anakin's strength to keep the anger and bitterness out of his voice as he said the words, though he could not keep the emotions from taking root deep in his heart.
"But clones aren't droids," Koresck reminded them. "Won't they have a feeling that this is wrong?"
"They might," Anakin replied slowly. "But they have an even stronger sense of loyalty. This whole time their one, true loyalty has been to the Chancellor." He shrugged, trying to bury the memories of the fact that he'd been the same only the day before. "Whatever the Chancellor says goes, really."
"But not anymore," Koresck said, a fierce determination finding its way into his voice.
"As much as I am pleased about your enthusiasm," Mace said dryly, "we may have to retreat for the time being."
Both Anakin and Koresck stared incredulously at the Master. "Retreat?"
Mace nodded. "Yes. We have no way of knowing how many clones the Chancellor has ready to attack us. It is fairly like that he himself, or this Darth Vader, perhaps even the both of them, will come to join in the attack as well."
"So we fight them off," Koresck stated confidently.
Mace shook his head. "What? The four of us? I hate to say it, but Darth Sidious has been waiting a long time; he planned this absolutely perfectly. Besides us, there are only 10 or 20 people in the Temple who have made Knight status, and many of them just barely. Even though many of the more experienced Jedi are only a planet away, they would not possibly be able to get here by tonight. Plus, they may have their own clone troopers to fend off. And even if we were able to engage Darth Sidious and Darth Vader in battle, as I said before, we don't know how many clones they may have with them. How many of them might get past us and murder our younglings?"
This quieted both Anakin and Koresck and they exchanged a look. Endangering the younglings was not worth the risk, was not even an option. They both knew this even better then most Jedi.
"Besides," Mace let out a sigh and a flicker of emotion flashed across his face, "I have seen both Darth Sidious and his apprentice fight. They are not opponents to be taken lightly. They are forces to be reckoned with."
"The Sith have been hiding like the big babies they are for centuries," Koresck said. "How bad could they be?"
Anakin and Mace were silent, and so it was Calleg who answered for them. "Darth Sidious killed 3 Masters singlehandedly: Tinn, Kolar and Fisto."
Koresck's eyes bugged out in surprise yet again as he looked from Mace to Anakin for confirmation. When his eyes fell on his friend, he nodded. "Sorry. I don't think I mentioned that to you."
"That old man," Koresck seethed, fists shaking with anger, "killed them all? How?"
"The Sith are more powerful then we ever imagined," Mace replied calmly, though he kept a close watch on Koresck's tremors. The natives of Orphon, called the Orphus, were known for their quick tempers. And the tribe that Koresck was from, the Canis Orphus, in particular could be... unpredictable.
But, the Orphus soon regained control of himself; the shaking stopped and the hateful scowl left his face, though an agitated frown still remained in its stead. "So, if we're not going to fight, our only other option is to lay down our pride and run away, trampling it into the dust as we go." He put up his hands to silence any rebuttals. "Don't worry, I understand why this is necessary; I'm just giving you the blunt truth about what we're doing. So, my question is, where exactly are we going?"
Mace turned back to Anakin, and so Calleg's and Koresck's eyes both followed. "Anakn informed me that he had an idea, though he was unable to elaborate before Calleg's arrival."
Anakin nodded. "Well, we need somewhere big enough to house 200 people, 90 percent of them children, and somewhere close enough to get them there within a few hours."
Koresck nodded, quickly catching on as he remembered something Anakin had asked him about earlier. "Only one place comes to mind."
"And that is?" Mace asked.
"The old Jedi safehouse."
"What's that?" Calleg asked.
"Back in the days of the Sith Empire, before the Jedi were truly an organized Order, several of them hid out in a safehouse on the Under-Levels of Coruscant," Anakin explained. "When the Jedi overthrew the Sith and restored order to the Galaxy, we were given this Temple as a reward and subsequently abandoned the safehouse. But it's still there."
"You know this how?"
Koresck and Anakin exchanged a look. "We went exploring down there when we were younger," the former said.
Mace shook his head and let out a short laugh. "Normally, I'd be upset with you for that. But as it's turning out to be very useful, I'll let it slide."
"Do you know exactly where this safehouse is?" Calleg asked. "How big it is?"
"Yes and no," Anakin said. "But I know it's big enough to keep everyone. It's actually a series of smaller safehouses throughout a large section of a mostly uninhabited level."
"You said you went down there when you were younger," Mace piped up. "How do you know it's still uninhabited now?"
"Well, that's actually why I was late," Koresck said. "When Anakin contacted me, he asked me to check out the area. Didn't say anything about why," he added, giving his best friend a look, "just that it was important and he couldn't explain. So I went to check it out real quick. No one's there. I also did a brief sweep of the surrounding areas and no one's come close in months."
"So it should be relatively safe?"
Koresck nodded. "That's what I said."
"Well, it sounds like the best plan we've got," Mace admitted. "It should be sufficient temporarily, until we can find more suitable quarters."
"Do we know exactly when they're planning on coming?" Calleg asked.
"No," Anakin said. "All Palpatine said was 'plans for tonight.'"
"So," Koresck concluded, "we have, at best, 4 or 5 hours to smuggle about 200 people, the majority of them under the age of 20, out of this Temple and down to the lower levels. Not only that, but it has to be done so discreetly, that not even this Dark Lord of the Sith himself can catch a whiff of it in the Force. Plus, we have to keep track of any distress messages from outside the Temple, so that they know not to come back here. And we probably need to have a few people stay here to try and defend the Temple, or at least spy to see what we're up against." Koresck looked at the three others in the room. "That about covers it?"
Anakin couldn't help grinning at his friend's assessment. "Yeah, that pretty much sums it up."
"Great," Koresck grinned, punching his palm with his fist. "It's go-time."
Acacia couldn't believe her ears; her brother could not have just said what she thought he did. "Anakin, are you sure?" she asked, even though she knew that now was not the time for questioning him. She was, after all, on the battlefield, blaster bolts whizzing around her in every direction. The only reason she'd been able to take this brief break to answer her commlink was because she'd managed to find a large rock to duck behind. It blocked the majority of the blaster fire, enough for her to carry on a conversation, but nowhere near all of it.
Anakin sighed. "Acacia, I wouldn't say something like this to you if I wasn't beyond absolutely positive. The Chancellor himself admitted it to me. He is the Sith Lord and I have reason to believe that he's telling the clones to attack the Jedi."
"Our clones haven't come after us yet," Acacia replied stubbornly. She refused to believe that Cody and all the rest would shoot her in the back when they got the chance. It wasn't possible; she'd been with them for 3 years. Some sort of loyalty had to have been built up in that much time. At least enough to keep them from shooting her dead, even if the Chancellor had told them to. Which, by the way, was another thing she was having a difficult time believeing.
"You're way out in the Outer Rim. They might not have gotten the command yet. Look, Caish, I know this is incredibly hard to process," he shook his dark locks, "I still haven't wrapped my head around it. But you have to trust me."
She took a deep breath. "I do. But Ani, what are we gonna do?"
"I'm going to protect the Temple, and you and Obi-Wan are both getting off that planet. Now."
"Where do we go?"
Anakin frowned. "I don't know. But don't come back to the Temple. They're planning an attack here, too. I can't be sure that it'll be safe."
Acacia bit her lip, but nodded. "OK. What about you?"
Anakin's smile was so clearly forced that his sister didn't even know why he bothered to attempt it. "Oh, you know me. I'm always fine."
She scoffed. "You are not either."
"Maybe. But I will be today."
It was difficult to read someone's expression in a hologram, but, if the situation was as bad as Anakin had insinuated, Acacia was sure that he was only placating her. But she also knew that her brother would be able to concentrate better on his task if he didn't think that he had to worry about her being worried about him. So, she forced a smile of her own. "OK. I'll tell Obi-Wan and we'll leave as soon as we can."
"Good."
"And Anakin?"
"Yeah?"
"I know I don't say it enough, but I love you."
His smile warmed her from the inside out. "I love you, too, Acacia."
Closing the commlink so he didn't see the tears that tried to squeeze out of her eyes, Acacia stood quickly and hurried off in search of her Master. It wasn't hard to find him, all she had to do was follow the sound of his gonga mount's screeching. Yeah, he'd managed to get another one. Acacia had thought that it would've been better not to bother and to simply go and foot, but her Master had thought that the animal would be helpful.
Somehow.
As she came toward him, Acacia executed a perfect front-flip and landed on the large lizard's back, trying to ignore the dry scales she found herself sitting on. "Master, we have to go."
"Go?" Obi-Wan twisted in his seat so that he could look over his shoulder at her with bewilderment. "Acacia, what are you talking about?"
"Sorry, but I can't explain it. All I know is that Anakin called and he told me that we have to leave the planet. Now."
"Acacia, we're in the middle of a battle!" her Master exclaimed. "We can't just up and leave. What about the clones?"
"I think, General, that it would be better if you worried more about yourself." It was Cody who spoke the words - as he leveled a gun at their heads.
Acacia gulped; she'd stared down the barrels of many blasters in her time as a Jedi padawan, but it's not really the sort of thing that you ever get used to.
"Cody?" Obi-Wan shouted in shock, trying to keep control of his gonga as it bucked underneath him and, at the same time, avoid the blaster fire shooting in all directions. "Cody, what is going on?"
"It's what I was trying to tell you," Acacia whispered.
The clone commander nodded at the girl. "I don't know how she knew, Sir, but you should've listened to her. She's a smart girl that one, almost never misses her mark."
Normally, praise like that would've made Acacia smile. Now, well, there were slightly more important things going through her mind. Like how the heck was she going to keep herself and her Master from getting shot dead.
"Cody, what are you doing?" Obi-Wan asked, still completely baffled by the sudden turn of events.
He sighed. "I'm sorry, General Kenobi. Truly, I am. But orders are orders."
"Orders? From whom?"
But Cody never answered Obi-Wan's question. He simply pointed the gun at the pair of Jedi, aimed and fired.
Yes, it's another cliffhanger. I simply love those! Lol, I know I'm evil.
Anyway, hope you liked and please review!
P.S.: this is the longest chapter ever in this story! :D
