AN: This was betaed by Prole and PsykoSama on the Space Battles forums! Thank you for the splendid work!
Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Seed or Star Wars. They belong to their respective copyright owners. This story is not created with commercial aim. I make no money from it.
Phase 16: The Future of the Order
=RK=
Part 1
Jedi Temple, Coruscant
"Sir, Jammers are going up all around the Temple. We just lost sensor coverage over most of the building." one of the clones reported calmly, showing no sign that the explosion had affected him in the least.
"I can't sense the intruders with the Force," stated Master Secura.
"There are a lot of techniques and trinkets that can aid someone evade the foresight of a Force Adept," I shrugged.
I wondered what had happened with my stash of Force related artifacts in the last few millennia. They were probably plundered by now.
"As Master Secura observed, its your temple, Master Yoda. What do you need done?" I asked Yoda. "The Republic Army is ready and willing to assist the Jedi in their hour of need." I didn't add aloud the obvious "again".
"Track down the intruders, we must. Their true purpose we know not." grumbled Yoda.
By his expression, I could gather that he wasn't relishing almost being blown up to kingdom come in his own Temple. Then, there was the fact that a smug, smirking Sith Lord was standing in front of him, offering to help them. Again. Yeah. That had to grate.
I could hardly conceal my glee. Who could have thought that being evil could be so much fun?
Yoda's ears twitched with exasperation.
"Secured the younglings and the archives must be. The Communications Tower, handled by Kenobi and Skywalker will be."
"I'm going to the archives. I don't think that any of you would tolerate me being anywhere near your Younglings."
They didn't disagree with my assessment of the situation.
"Escort the General, you will, Master Ti," declared Yoda, disregarding the glares headed my way. Or perhaps not. I could almost feel a tingle of amusement in his aura.
I turned to my apprentice. "Aria, stay here and make sure that the security center remains more or less intact. Besides, I won't risk some overeager Jedi mistaking you as one of the intruders. That's a complication neither of us want."
This time the Jedi agreed with me.
"This way, Veil." Shaak Ti darted towards the door, without sparing me a second glance.
I dashed after her. I reached the Jedi Master when she was next to the exit. I was just in time to have a front row view of the armored door sliding to the side and a lot of heavily armed clones trying to rush in. Trying was the operative word.
The door was barely opened, when my security detail rushed through, almost colliding with Shaak Ti. Only her deft reflexes allowed her to slide to the right, avoiding Waxer, who was leading one of the squads charged with keeping me in one piece.
"Watch out!" warned Waxer, and moved to his right, opening space for the rest of the men.
If the damn building wasn't under attack, (and the Jedi who was almost trampled wasn't Shaak Ti), it would have been an amusing accident.
"Sergeant Waxer, your squad is with me," I ordered. "The rest of you, protect the security center."
"Right away, Sir!" answered me the freshly promoted NCO.
Waxer was one of the many clones who found themselves bumped up a rank after the AARs from the Ryloth debacle got completed. There were a lot of free slots that needed filling when the dust settled. And that was a victory for what it was worth. A decent one even, considering that we were ordered to go straight into a trap.
I could detect a tiny hint of disapproval in his voice. Ah, yeah. He wasn't relishing the thought that the general he was supposed to protect was about to get himself in another mess. It was a good thing that I had chosen my security detail with the idea that they would be acting as a back up instead as a bunch of glorified bodyguards.
=RK=
GAR Detention Center SIGMA
Classified Location
Coruscant
A LAAT transport flanked by two gunships descended through the busy Coruscanti traffic. Various aircars and bulk transports were flying all around them, as the three craft formation made its way to their destination.
They headed to a nondescript building, which as far as anyone knew, contained a minor R&D lab working for the Republic. After the attacks on Coruscant, no one was surprised that the army was providing security for the site. However, it was anything but. The place was home of one of the GAR's most secret detention centers. From outside it looked like just another building associated with the Army. Nothing special. It was simply another one of the hundreds, if not thousands "ordinary" GAR facilities on Coruscant.
"Sigma Station, Avatar Zero-Three-One requests permission to land. Stand by for identification code."
"Roger, Avatar flight. Send the identification code."
"Sending ident..."
"Code received... and its clear. Avatar flight you have permission to land. Head to pad two."
"Wilco, Sigma Station."
Thirty seconds later, the three LAATs landed on the designated platform. The only door leading deeper opened, revealing two squads of heavily armed clones. The troopers moved towards the transport calmly and professionally. They did a brief scan while taking a position around it.
=RK=
Communications Tower
Jedi Temple
Coruscant
A man wearing a work clothes sneaked through the top levels of one of the Jedi Temple's towers. His mission was complete and he only needed to get away clean. It was both easier and more difficult than one might expect. The Temple's sensor grid was either disabled and the Jedi themselves couldn't sense him.
Yet, he was far from safe. There were clones converging on his position, and soon reinforcements would arrive at the building, sealing it.
He was running out of time.
He was running out of luck.
'Make that he was all out,' he observed to himself as five clones turned the corner. They were carefully sweeping the corridor, their weapons at the ready.
Had he been less professional, he would have cursed. Instead he acted, would have hesitated. Instead he acted.
Before the clones could react, he was already in motion. He blasted them off their feet with the force, and was in their midst before they could even cry out in surprise
He landed blade down, impaling their leader, before pulling a second soldier to him. The clone's armor provided no resistance to his crimson energy blade, and landed behind him, neatly divided in half.
The other clones managed to orient themselves and opened fire. Two of their number died to their own blaster bolts, while the third found himself thrown into the wall and impaled by a fiery saber.
The last thing he saw was the nondescript face of his killer, as he pulled his weapon from his torso, his expression as dispassionate as any Jedi.
The man pretending to be a common worker, deactivated his weapon and ran. A minute later he passed through an air vent and crawled to the exterior of the building. One of the LAAT gunships patrolling around the Temple passed near him and he jumped inside through an open side door.
There, he donned a suit of clone armor, making him appear just as one more of the countless duplicates of Jango Fett.
=RK=
Near the Archives
Jedi Temple
Coruscant
We met a human woman, dressed as an employee of the security company helping upgrade the Temple's defenses.
"What an honor," she chuckled after studying us for few seconds.
The fact that she was out and about to begin with was remarkable. In a situation like this, it was a warning sign, one and enough to detain her with lethal force... However, that was almost an afterthought. She got our undivided attention, for a different reason. We couldn't sense her in the Force.
She gave us a demure smile and charged, activating a blue lightsaber. I drew my own weapon and sent a telekinetic wave at her, which she canceled with one of her own, with no apparent effort at all. Then she counterattacked, blasting us with a solid wall of Force energy.
I managed to remain on my feet by shoveling a wedge of telekinetic energy in front of me. Shaak Ti did almost as well. I think that facing something who wasn't there in the Force had surprised her a lot and kept her off balance. She stumbled few paces back, but remained upright.
I had to break Shaak Ti of that habit. Being surprised by someone or something "blank" in the Force was a good way to get yourself killed. There were various artifacts and Force disciplines which could create that effect.
For me, it wasn't anything I hadn't faced as an apprentice on Korriban, and that's before you take the various Sith Assassins into account.
There was no more time for thinking. The woman, whose most distinctive feature was an utterly ordinary, forgettable face, was upon me. That in itself was ringing alarm bells in the depths of my mind, but I was too busy fighting to pay enough attention to whatever my subcouncience was trying to tell me.
She was an unpleasant surprise. This nobody, turned out to be one of the most dangerous opponents I faced ever since coming to this time. She was fast. Strong. Unpredictable. And a damn fine blade-master.
Our blades clashed in a screech of released energies. Moment later, Shaak Ti was at my side, yet we couldn't immediately overwhelm our adversary. She ducked and weaved around our blades, parrying and riposting.
"Who are you?" I asked.
Her smile grew wider.
=RK=
Communication Tower, Jedi Temple, Coruscant
Anakin and Obi-Wan followed a trail of death. While they couldn't feel the intruders responsible for the massacre at the comm center, they could sense the death of a Jedi. The Force signature that winked out felt familiar, but neither of them could place a name to it.
Despite what someone might expect, neither of them knew all ten thousand of their brothers and sisters.
It wasn't too far away. They rushed that way, only to find a Jedi Knight and squad of clones, who were cut to pieces.
They could hear shots and the distinctive sounds of blaster bolts being deflected by lightsaber, coming from nearby. The two friends wasted no time and dashed that way.
Less than a minute later, they reached an intersection. There they found another group of gutted clones. A human girl laid sprawled on the ground. Her unseeing eyes looked accusingly at Anakin.
He frowned, noticing her padawan braid. He knew her face, but the name escaped him. Helin? Helen? Something like that. And now she was dead, cut down within the Temple, where she should have been safe.
There was a charred hole where her heart used to be, a testament of how much both the Jedi and the GAR had failed that day.
Behind the death, the two Jedi could see one of their own facing a pair of men in worker's coveralls.
Kenobi recognized the man facing the intruders. He was Kolren Plox, one of the better healers in the Temple. However, the medic had never been particularly good with the blade, preferring to dedicate his time to studying medicine.
Anakin and Obi-Wan activated their lightsabers and charged at the enemies. It took them exactly three seconds to reach the intruders.
More than enough time for the infiltrators to deal with Plox. One battered aside Kolren's azure lightsaber, leaving the man open for a slash. A crimson blade cut through his chest, leaving him to fall back to the ground without uttering a sound.
A moment before Obi-Wan and Anakin were upon them, the duo of assassins whirled around and faced them. Blue and crimson blades clashed in a deadly dance.
=RK=
Lower Levels
Jedi Temple
Coruscant
While the Jedi and their clone lapdogs were loosing their heads trying to contain multiple threats, a single figure stalked through the corridors of the Temple. She was cloaked thanks to a stealth field and a liberal use of her Force powers.
Deception, within deception, within deception... Rinse and repeat. That was her master's modus operandi.
Everything that was happening on that day was a sleight of hand. Strictly speaking, they didn't need to steal a Jedi Holocron. Not from the Temple anyway. Her true master had access to few of those toys. Only a Jedi who would know how to bypass the encryption on the crystal containing the names and location of the Force sensitive children across the galaxy was really needed. However, that wasn't her concern.
She had an objective to achieve, and in the great scheme of things, the games played by Sidious and the Jedi were irrelevant.
Down she went, level after level. Each one was less traveled than the last. Soon enough, she was stalking through halls which haven't been visited in years, perhaps decades. The only ones which paid any attention to these places were few old cleaning and maintenance droids.
The infiltrator continued to decent. She was closing to her objective. She could almost feel it.
=RK=
Kelins, Outer Rim
Meanwhile, thousands of light years away, Bolla Ropal was oblivious to the four figures stalking him.
It wasn't surprising. When all was said and done, the Jedi and most other Force Adepts through history, were reliant to their extraordinary perception and senses. Too reliant to them.
An experienced clone trooper or mercenary might have noticed the stalkers. Not that would have done them much good.
The four hunters stalking their prey, passed through the crowds on the busy streets of this relatively new colony world as a bunch of ghosts. No one looked twice at them.
Nearly an hour later, Ropal reached his destination. It was a small home on the outskirts of the town. He was there to pick up a particularly powerful Twi'lek boy. The kid was going to make a great addition to the Order, the Jedi Master was sure of it.
Bolla was few hundred meters from the house when he was able to clearly feel the child's Force signature. It was notable, because he was not even trying.
The Rodian took few more steps towards the house and halted. He sensed something, though it wasn't through the Force. Perhaps it was some kind of instinct, or his sense for self preservation.
Rapol could feel eyes upon his back, something that wasn't surprising. No matter where they went, the Jedi were often stared at by the populace. Yet, there was something different this time.
He turned around and frowned. Four figures disguised by black cloaks were walking towards him, like predators ready to pounce on their prey.
If he wasn't a Jedi with all that imply, his eyes would have popped out of their sockets. He could see them, but as far as the Force was concerned, they were non-existent.
He felt eyes upon his back and turned around. Four figures disguised by black cloaks were stalking towards him. His huge eyes almost popped out of their sockets. He could see them, but as far as the Force was concerned, they were non-existent.
The Jedi's right hand fell on the hilt of his lightsaber.
The figures continued walking towards him. They drew lightsabers of their own, which snapped to life a moment later.
=RK=
GAR Detention Center SIGMA
Classified Location
Coruscant
The three LAAT's that just landed, shut down all their equipment as the welcoming committee was surrounding them. The clones in the transport carefully came out, wary of their "prisoner".
The lights in the hangar blinked once and cut off. The computer system of the detention center crashed under a dedicated cyber attack. At the same time, the men who got out to secure the new prisoner were mercilessly cut down by a hail of blaster fire.
"Good. Let's go." grunted the man who played the role of prisoner. He towered almost two heads above the clones who acted as his escorts.
They ran towards the entrance of the Detention center.