COMPLETED: I did it! The Queen Does Not Need to Know is my best work and if you like my writing please check it out. And if you don't like Rey, neither did I, so I gave Daisy Ridley an actual plot and character development, La Gasp!

(Its sequel continues in the same fic)

Beta: Thank you Nauze!

Chapter 11 - Order 66

High General Rex stood with his fellow council members within the Chancellor's office.

"You will continue the battles on the planets you abandoned, you have already given Count Dooku and the Separatists too much advantage," Chancellor Palpatine said.

Doom chuckled, "No."

Palatine frowned at him, "What do you mean, 'no'? No, your pulling back from the Outer Rims didn't endanger us all, or no, you will not reengage? The latter, I will remind you, is treasonous."

Trauma grinned, "It would only be treasonous if we were a part of the Grand Army of the Republic."

Palpatine frowned at them, the deep scar that carved his cheek from the end of his brow to the curve of his jaw was the soft red of barely healed tissue. "You are the Grand Army of the Republic."

Doom giggled, "No, we aren't."

The Chancellor let out a long breath, "Are you proposing treason? The contract-"

"Has become null and void," Wolffe said, "You signed that treaty with Kaminoins."

"Yes, and the army was paid for."

Wolffe smiled, "And yet Kamino was never a part of the Galactic Republic, the only thing that allied them with you was that contract."

"Yes," Palpatine said slowly, "And to desert remains a crime."

Rex didn't smile as he said, "And yet slavery is also a crime, is it not?"

The Chancellor was unamused as well, "You are soldiers, not slaves. Your contracts were signed and legalized."

None of the Jedi had spoken up.

Doom got closer to Palpatine's desk, "We will repeat, Kamino was never a part of the Galactic Republic. You nor the Senate have any jurisdiction over us."

"The contracts-" the Chancellor attempted to say.

But Rex cut him off, "Are null and void."

Palpatine sneered, "Lama Su would have to return the credits in full and destroy the contracts under a number of conditions. I have heard no word from Lama Su-"

Doom laughed, "And you will never hear from that Long Neck again. Lama Su has lost all rights, he sits in a rather cramped prison cell, where he will remain for the rest of his days."

Palpatine's face went blank, "Treason-"

"No," Rex said, "Not treason. A revolution. The Revolution of Clones, which should come to no one's surprise, we won. Kamino is no more, the System of Zuko is now under our command. And it is at our discretion, we find the contract you signed with the now powerless Long Necks, to be a violation of human rights. We consider it slavery. And in the System of Zuko, slavery is illegal, and unlike within the Republic, we enforce that law."

The Chancellor stood, "You would condemn the Republic?"

Monnk spoke for the first time, "We are allies of the Jedi, and the Jedi have recognized us as an unofficial part of yet the fifth Corps; the Defense Corps. You may take back your civilian officers, we will take no orders that do not come directly from the Jedi High Council."

The Chancellor lifted a hand to rub his face, but his hand hovered over the scar, and he let his hand drop, "The Jedi High Council serves the Republic."

Mace Windu finally spoke up, "We do, but your authority and that of the Senate's has been put up for discussion."

"Excuse me?"

"We feel that you overstepped when you exiled Master Obi-Wan Kenobi from the Order. The Jedi used to rule the Republic, we made it, we serve it, but when we relinquished power to the greater Republic, it was for the purpose of having more freedom to serve the Force. Nowhere in our laws or yours, at no point in history, has the sitting Chancellor, without the approval of the Senate, directly dictated the Order's internal affairs. Therefore, your commands are," Mace paused as if thinking over his words, "suspended, until the matter and parameters of the Order's specific relation to the Senate is put into writing and has unanimous support by the Senate."

A flash of cold fury swept the aged man's face, "There is no such thing as a unanimous decision within the Senate."

Master Ti smiled, "Well, I'm sure after a few years in court, the matter could be decided."

"We are at war now," Palpatine said in a low voice, "And I have wartime majority-"

"But this isn't a discussion about the war, it's the foundation of the Jedi People within the Republic. The matter of defence of the Republic falls to the Jedi in times when the Senate is hindered for any cause. It is the Jedi Order itself that has wartime powers."

"You are a part of the Republic and under Senate control!"

"Only by choice," Master Yoda said, "Contested, never have we, but separate from the Senate are we able to function. Your own forces must you now rely."

Palpatine gestured to the clones, "They are my army."

Doom grinned, "Nope, we've been over this. We are freemen. We are Zukarians. It is our discretion to help whom we choose."

Trauma's grin was more a baring teeth, "And as we are not taking money from the Jedi, which means our continued service is not a job. We are no more slaves then we are mercenaries."

"The credits the Republic paid-"

"Is dark money, seized by the Zukarian government. By our laws, that money goes directly to our public trust," Rex said, "We are not giving you back blood money."

"That money-"

"Came at the price of thousands of our lives," Rex said, "We owe you nothing. You owe us."

Palpatine turned his ire on Master Yoda, "The Republic has no other forces."

"Your problem, that is," Yoda said back pleasantly.

Colour rose in the man's cheeks, "How can the Order be making these decisions? You do not even have a full Council."

"Present, the Council is," Yoda said.

"I count seven, one who isn't even a Master Jedi."

"Twelve, there are. Here, all are."

Palpatine frowned, and it took him a minute to realize who those twelve were. "They aren't even Jedi!"

"It is the High Council that the Council is chosen. We can choose whomever we like. High Generals Wolffe, Doom, Trauma, Monnk, and Rex, are our chosen," Mace said.

Palpatine's hands fisted on the table as he leaned forward, "Half the Senate is dead, another quarter is still in the hospital, and the greater Galactic Republic is crying out for blood against the Separatists."

"Your problem, that is," Master Yoda said kindly, folding his small clawed hands over his staff, "Revenge, the way of the Jedi, it is not."

Rex would cherish the look on the Chancellor's face for the rest of his existence. This slimy bastard that played with lives like trinkets, who thought to turn him and his brothers against the only beings in the galaxy that gave a damn about them.

They were all in high spirits that day until the sun began to set, and a message came through every Zukarians coms.

"Execute Order 66."

Many of their brothers were in the Jedi Temple or surrounding it. More were still holding the lines against contested areas in the wider galaxy with their Jedi Generals and Commanders.

It was horrific to be fully confronted with what could have become of them all just a few weeks sooner when the chips had yet to be removed.

Master Mace Windu bowed his head as he stood beside Rex after the message played before him.

"I trusted the Chancellor," he said brokenly, "I trusted a Sith and nearly condemned us all."

Rex put a hand on his shoulder, "We weren't too late."

Mace sighed, "We have our proof of Darth Sidious's identity, but the Senate is enraged, afraid, and broken. If we attack the Chancellor with this, if we remove him by force…"

Rex squeezed the man's shoulder, "Then we do what needs to be done, what the Republic wants us to do. We kill General Grievous, and we bring Dooku before the Senate."

Plo nodded, "The Sith have no loyalty. I believe he meant to kill Palpatine that day. If we can apprehend Dooku, he will turn on his Sith Master."

Aalya crossed her arms, "Which means we are still stuck in this war."

"It is not the same," Monnk said, "The Chancellor was informing the Count of all our positions and plans. It was a stacked game. But the Chancellor will no longer be privy to our council."

Doom stroked his beard, "And though we lost a lot of Senate members, it was proportionally low losses on a military scale. We demolished Dooku's forces. Only a few smaller ships escaped orbit."

Trauma grinned, "Add in the massive losses the Separatists wasted on the Ilum siege."

Rex dropped his hand and shook his head, "That wasn't a siege, we didn't suffer any losses and it was over in a matter of hours."

Depa smiled, "Which means that the Separatist army is down to scraps."

"And with Darth Sidious revealed with no army of his own, he won't be able to fund both sides," Mace said, "Dooku is not likely to have the time or resources to replenish his forces."

"Hide well, do the Sith," Yoda remarked sadly.

Mace nodded, "Dooku might go underground completely."

"Which means the Separatist movement will fall apart on its own," Rex said. "The droids are not smart enough to be independent, Grievous is a pain on the field but strategy-wise, he isn't much better than the droids. Dooku doesn't even have Ventress anymore."

Monnk was the last to speak, "Then we must continue to search, keep him running, rebuild where we can. And it will become a political game to take Darth Sidious out of office."

"At which point, we can kill him," Shaak Ti said.

Everyone looked at her, she was not a violent female. She met their looks, "I served on Zuko for too long. The Chancellor wanted to send all those precious souls to war for his game, he wanted to genocide our people as well. This is not something that can be forgiven."

Rex looked over the traffic and buildings shimmering the last rays of light from the setting and said, "The Sith wanted a war, will give them a war."

Ahsoka was looking between her Master and Kix.

But they said no more.

She swallowed hard, "Three months of recovery, and I might be able to walk again?"

It was ridiculous, that couldn't be possible. Darth Maul had been chopped in half, yet both her legs were whole.

"You will walk again," Anakin asserted.

Ahsoka looked at Kix.

Kix smiled at her sadly, "There are many in your position who have never regained full mobility. Your pelvis was shattered, Commander Tano."

"But I'm healed now," she said, "You had me in a kriffing bacta tank for nearly a month!"

"Yes, but your cells had to rejuvenate. It will take another few months before your body even has the resources to give you proper nutrition. As for your ability to relearn how to walk… That battle will not be a physical one."

"What do you mean it won't be physical?" she demanded, "The question is will I physically be able to walk."

"Because, relearning to walk is painful. You don't realize how many muscles you need to just raise a foot, much less balance weight on a limb until you no longer have any muscle strength. You will feel stupid, you will feel hopeless, it will become easier to be in a wheel chair or hover craft, it-"

"I'm a Jedi, Kix! I know how hard training can be!"

He smiled at her sadly, "Rumour has it you were head of your Initiate group in dueling and all physical tasks. You were a natural."

She raised her chin, "I am a natural."

He nodded, "And that is what has been taken from you."

Ahsoka felt her heart twist, and she shoved away her immediate understanding of what he had said. "You're wrong," she said, "I am a Jedi and I am strong enough to regain everything I lost."

"You do, Ahsoka," Kix said, the first time she could remember any of the troops addressing her by her first name, "But healing and relearning is not going to come naturally. You are going to need help."

"I get that," she said, "I'm a Padawan learner."

He nodded, "Of course, Commander. But as it is now. Two months of bedrest, and then a month of low supervised movement."

"I thought you said I was healed."

"All your bone fragments have been realigned, yes, but you must keep weight and stress off your pelvis. I'm afraid you'll have to be mostly prone. And the tissue damage, while healing, will be quite tender. I'm going to keep you on regular pain medication before nightfall so you can sleep peacefully. But generally-"

"It's going to be really boring," Anakin summarized, "but you're going to put up with whatever Kix tells you to do because you want to get better."

Ahsoka was shaking inside and she was sure at any point that she was going to fall to pieces. Which felt selfish, given how many people had died. She was alive, she should be grateful, and she was, but…

"How long after I learn how to walk will it take me to relearn how to fight?" she asked.

Kix looked to Anakin, who gave the medic wide eyes, and Kix sighed, "Commander Tano, with your track record, I expect if you manage to relearn how to walk, you will be running soon after. As for being able to use a super deadly lazer sword at the deadly accuracy you were able to before? That, I am not sure of, for hand to hand and arms training, I would tell my men a year of training. But I understand that lightsabers are as much an art as it is fighting. So in truth, I cannot say. I only know that six months after being able to walk, and with consistent exercise and maintaining your health, your body should be able to handle whatever you put it through that you were able to before your injury."

If.

If she managed to relearn how to walk…

If.

"Can I have-" the words choked off as tears stung her eyes.

But Kix understood, and ushered Anakin out. She didn't even hear her Master say goodnight, already slipping into her own turmoil.

She closed her eyes and tried with all her might to not feel sorry for herself.

But what she couldn't get out of her mind was the prospect of never being able to use her lightsabers again. Could she even become a Jedi Knight without her legs?

Would she even deserve it if she failed to stand on her own two feet?

She managed to bury the tears, and she drank down her own fears like poison. She felt paralyzed, because in that moment, she realized that if she failed in this, her entire life would be for nothing.

Anakin shoved Kix as soon as the door shut. "What the Kark was that? 'If'? Why did you keep putting it like that? You told me she could and would make a full recovery."

Kix stood to attention, "General Skywalker, I have been yours and Commander Tano's medic for nearly three years now."

"Yeah," Anakin agreed, "But that doesn't give you the rig-"

"If I told her she would definitely recover, which is likely true because she is capable, then for the next five months, we will hear nothing but her complaints about how slowly she is healing. But if I were to tell you or her that you can't or that it is unlikely for you to be capable of doing something, it basically ensures that you will do the opposite. I suspect she will be back to normal, if not better than she was, in six to eight months."

"But you just said-"

"See, I just told you what you wanted to hear, and you are still arguing with me."

Anakin flushed, "I'm- You saw her face. She was distraught."

Kix sighed, "I am not worried about her relearning how to walk, General. I'm worried about the next two months. She won't be able to use the restroom without help, she won't be able to bathe herself, or dress herself. Those are going to be the hard parts. Her lack of privacy, her lack of independence, those will be the harrowing challenges ahead of her."

"Her friend, Barriss Offee, she's a healer. Would it be better or worse for her to be assigned to Ahsoka?"

Kix pulled out his datapad and started reviewing the young Knight's profile. "Help. It will help them both, I think. Healer Offee has been tagged as being pushed to her limits. Assigning her to a single patient, a friend, for two months will likely do her much more good than the time they are proposing she takes off. For Commander Tano, having a friend, and a friend who needs her in turn… Yes, this will be good."

Anakin sighed, rubbing his face. "Well, there's some good news at least."

Kix smiled at her, "She is alive, there is much to be grateful for."

Anakin nodded, "She isn't going to like me having to retrain her."

"Why not?" Kix asked.

Anakin was looking off into the distance, "Because she trained herself for much of her Form. I trained her how to fight, not truly her Form. Obi-Wan would actually be a better teacher for her. He has a better grasp of the basics than I ever bothered with."

"Isn't Luke new to learning Form as well?" Kix asked.

"Yes, Obi-Wan just started training him with lightsabers a little over a month ago."

"Then perhaps once she starts walking, you visit Mandalore as there will be few in her age group having to relearn form. She will likely know more than Luke, and as you mentioned, General Kenobi will be there to help her."

Anakin nodded, "It might assuage her from being relieved of duty until she is back to fighting form."

Kix opened his mouth to say something, but a hologram appeared of Chancellor Palpatine.

"Execute Order 66."

Kix paled, and then Anakin felt a cry of sorrow and anger ring through the Force, both from Kix and from elsewhere throughout and around the Temple.

Rage stole over Kix's face, he flung his datapad against the wall stomped on, breaking the shattered datapad fragments.

"Kix?" Anakin asked, reaching out to his medic.

Kix flinched back from him, "Don't touch me!"

"What's wrong?" Anakin asked, "What was that? What's Order 66?"

Kix wouldn't meet his gaze, "Proof."

"Proof of what?"

Kix just shook his head and walked away down the hall, leaving Anakin alone with the shattered datapad and his worries.

Cody felt rage sweep through him as the image of the Chancellor appeared, "Execute Order 66."

Obi-Wan stood beside him, tears trailed down the man's face.

Cody was afraid to ask, but right then, he was pretty sure this was going to be his only opportunity to ask him about it. Because whatever the chips would have done to him and his brothers, stripping away their will and minds.

It was Obi-Wan who had actually lost everything.

"How bad was it?"

Obi-Wan closed his eyes sitting on the bench behind him, "You killed us all, Anakin helped the 105th slaughter everyone in the Temple."

"I don't understand how the Jedi couldn't have sensed that change."

Obi-Wan looked up at him, "We trusted you? Your sudden hostility… it was so random. Too absurd to even understand what was happening."

"But you were in danger, the Force tells you-"

"But you were you. Cody, for most of us, General's especially, we gave up on memorizing everyone's names, even the number system. But I could tell you blindfolded walking through a full assembly, which men belonged to which battalion. We learned to identify you all in the Force. You were an extension of us, we more than trusted you; by the third year of the war, you were us. We may have been losing troops by the thousands, but we were losing knights and Padawans in droves as well. We mourned you as much as our own. It was all suffering, lights extinguished in the dark."

"So when we turned on you…"

"You were the same lights that surrounded and protected us. We would no more think to kill you then we would our own Padawans and fellow Knights. By the time any of us could truly process the shift-"

"It was too late," Cody said softly.

Obi-Wan looked up at him, "I thought of you often over the years that followed."

"Do you know what became of me?"

"I heard rumours that you taught at the Imperial Academy, on Mandalore as it so happens. But I never left Tatooine."

"That must have been hell."

"It was nothing I didn't deserve."

Cody sat beside him, "You did not deserve any of this, no more than we did. As you said, we were a part of you. It breaks my heart to think I could have been forced to raise a weapon against you."

"You don't know what I did to Anakin."

"Anakin betrayed you?"

"He was the Chancellor's pet project. He pushed Anakin over the edge."

"What did you do?"

"I cut off all his limbs and left him to burn to death on the edge of a river of lava."

Cody absorbed that horror and couldn't help but ask, "But why? You love him."

"I do. And that love blinded me to what was happening to him. To what Palpatine had been doing to him. I saw the bodies of younglings, of our elder Masters in the Temple, and then I saw the footage of Anakin killing them. I gave into revenge. I wanted to hurt, I wanted him to regret what he had done."

"That's understandable," Cody said.

"It isn't," Obi-Wan said staring out over the balcony, "I am a Jedi Master, I should have killed him. Simply killed him. Millions, possibly billions, suffered for my cowardice."

It took Cody a moment, and he was appalled, "Are you telling me he survived losing all his limbs and being burned alive?"

"I am, and for my brothers and sisters who managed to survive Order 66, he hunted them down as well. He killed any Force sensitive who crossed him, no matter who they were, no matter their age or position."

"I thought it was overkill when you had Darth Maul cremated and his ashes scattered."

Obi-Wan smiled at him without humour, "Overkill, isn't dead enough when it comes to the Sith."

"You still don't deserve it," Cody said.

"I was Anakin's Master, his friend, his brother; I failed him."

"No," Cody said, "You are not Anakin, he made his own choices. It was reasonable to think he would have died from what you described."

"I cut Maul in half, and that wasn't good enough. I should have known to end Darth Vader. I lost Satine because of my repeated failure to kill a Sith, and I lost my entire people because-"

"Because evil is real, and all we can do is our best against it," Cody said.

"I failed."

"Yet here we are," he asserted.

Obi-Wan bowed his head, "I was lucky."

"No, you were strong. You kept Luke alive in your time. And I believe that kid could save the galaxy if that responsibility was placed on him."

Obi-Wan met his gaze, "And that's exactly how I failed Anakin, I told him over and over again that he was the Chosen One. I was going to do the same to Luke. That isn't something I should ask of anyone."

"Your Master was the one who told you to train Skywalker, right?"

Obi-Wan nodded, "It was his dying wish."

"It seems to me that it wasn't Anakin who was tasked with saving the galaxy, but you."

"I'm not the Chosen One."

"No, yet you're the one who accepted all the blame."

Obi-Wan said nothing.

Cody laid a hand on his shoulder, "The fate of the galaxy cannot be laid at one man's feet."

Blue eyes met his brown, "Thank you, brother."

AN: Thoughts, reactions, swimming dolphins, or feedback? Pretty please?