Chapter 62
Order 66
Anakin strode through the dim halls of the Jedi Temple, moving from the hanger up in one of the spires, to the main foyer at street level. It was a long walk, to say the least. But he walked it nonetheless. Stress, lack of sleep, and all the running he'd already done left him fatigued, and he needed to conserve his remaining strength for the battle that was fast approaching.
He rounded a corner and entered a hallway lined with enormous windows and–
"Hey, wait!" Darra called.
No, not now! Anakin slowed down, but didn't stop.
"What's going on?" She demanded, jogging up to him.
"Get down to the main foyer and you'll find out." Anakin grumbled. I don't have the patience to deal with you right now.
"Tell me now!" Darra pleaded. "I know you know."
"Yes, tell us." Master Tachi added, coming out of a side hallway with Ferus trotting after her. "I'd really like to know."
"Master Ti will explain." Anakin replied, picking up the pace a bit.
"Tell us." Master Tachi demanded, stepping in front of him and blocking his way. "I'm in no mood for games."
I'm not playing games here! Anakin scowled. "There isn't any time for this."
"There is always time, now stop wasting it and explain." Master Tachi responded coolly.
Anakin was not in the best frame of mind to deal with this. Frustrated, seething, and scared half out of his mind, he glanced to the side, out a window, as he struggled to calm down, think clearly, and give her a short coherent answer that would hopefully satisfy her. But as he glared through the window, something caught his eye…
Squinting through the dimness of night, he walked over to the window and studied the wide walkway that led right up to the Temple. While it was never truly dark on Coruscant, even with the glow of the city lights and the streetlights that illuminated the walkway in question, it was difficult to see much very clearly. What he saw was enough though.
"Shavit!" He cursed softly, staring in rising horror.
"What is it?" Ferus asked, coming to stand beside him.
Anakin shook his head. "Look at that," he breathed.
"Clone troops?" Ferus frowned in confusion. "Marching here?"
"What?" Darra muttered, peering over Ferus' shoulder.
"What did you say?" Master Tachi asked. "What's out there?"
"Not just clone troops," Anakin swallowed as he got a better look at the color of their armor. "They're members of the 501st, the best of the best. And it looks like the entire legion is coming."
"But why are they coming here?" Master Tachi wondered. "This move makes no sense."
There are too many…we're so screwed! "Take a wild guess," Anakin sighed bitterly. "We are at war Master Tachi. And I think we've just lost."
Obi-Wan hung on tight as Boga lunged down a path towards the command center he'd spotted. The air was thick with blaster bolts, but they were not struck as they raced on through. With a good tug on the reins, Boga skidded to a halt just in front of Commander Cody and his command team.
"Commander, contact your troops, tell them to move to the higher levels." Obi-Wan ordered.
"Very good sir." Cody nodded and started to turn away, then stopped and turned back. "Oh by the way, I think you'll be needing this." Cody called cheerfully, handing Obi-Wan his lost lightsaber.
"Thank you Cody," Obi-Wan grinned sheepishly, taking back his saber. "Now let's get a move on! We've got a battle to win here!" He reminded them and urged Boga away.
He directed Boga to take him up to the top level. From there he could survey the landscape and see just where his direct intervention was most needed. And if he was fortunate, things would be over soon and he could return to Coruscant–
The cliff face exploded underneath Boga's claws. With a shriek she, and he, tumbled backwards and down. Obi-Wan slipped out of the saddle as they plummeted together. And they fell until the water stopped them…
The wind howled, blasting stinging ice crystals every which way. The harsh fine snow was so thick in the air that visibility was dropped down to only a few meters in any direction. The towering skyscrapers of the city were mere hazy shadows that sometimes briefly appeared through the haze of gray-white.
Mygeeto was a frozen world, locked in a perpetual ice age. The gaunt-looking Muuns of the InterGalactic Banking Clan settled it and turned it into a vault for rich, security-conscious clients and into a mine for the rare crystals that Mygeeto's crust contained. It, like Cato Neimoidia, was one of the richest worlds in the Confederacy of Independent Systems and if the Republic could take control of it, the Separatists would suffer greatly.
On a narrow pedestrian bridge that spanned a deep icy chasm, Jedi Master and General Ki-Adi-Mundi led Clone Commander Bacara and his best troops in an assault on an enemy position. Towering tripod droids, which were just massive laser cannons with legs and some limited artificial intelligence, rained fire down on their make-shift barricade. But the narrow walkway limited the number of droids blocking them.
When the last droid was destroyed, Master Mundi leapt over the barricade and waved his troops forward with a cry of, "come on!" One good rush across this bridge and they could capture the next towering building. But his troops only followed him for three steps before abruptly coming to a halt.
Confused, the Cerean Jedi turned back and squinted back through the swirling snow to try and ascertain what the problem was. The clones were in combat mode, they had orders to be following, and as per their training, they were completely emotionless as they did so. That left Master Mundi completely in the dark about what was going on.
He was able to block the first few shots purely on instinct. But after that the volume of fire increased, and in his shock he simply couldn't focus enough to block them all. First one got through his defense, and the shock and pain distracted him enough that more got through, and more, and more. And then he fell…
It was hot and humid on Felucia, as usual. Only a hazy glow of light made it through the ever present blanket of clouds that hung high in the atmosphere. On the ground far below, there was a riot of color.
Fungus and primitive plant life dominated the biosphere here. Most of it was translucent, coloring the light that passed through it odd shades. Towering mushrooms and enormous translucent flowers reached for the cloudy skies of the sparsely inhabited world, reaching for the sun they would rarely see.
It was through this strange landscape that Aayla Secura, the Rutian Twi'lek Knight, led Commander Bly and the rest of her troops. They had originally come to Felucia to rescue some captive Jedi. Now they were on a mission to save the planet itself.
The leader of the Commerce Guild, bitter over her loss of the planet, would soon activate hidden pumps in the planet's water treatment plants that would release deadly chemicals and toxins into Felucia's water table. If the Guild could not keep this world, then no one would have it.
Picking her way down a narrow path, Aayla scanned her surroundings for lingering Separatist forces that sought to stop her. Behind her, her clone troops, riding both armored transports and native Felucian Ground Beetles, followed her, equally alert. She paused near a stand of enormous mushrooms and fern-like plants and looked around as a feeling of unease swept over her.
A small flying creature that the natives labeled a bird, even though it wasn't a real bird in the traditional sense, burst out of the brush. Startled and distracted, she turned to stare at it as it lifted off into the sky. And this distraction proved to be fatal.
The Twi'lek Jedi never saw what hit her as Commander Bly and his compatriots shot her in the back until she stopped moving…
Soaring through the misty atmosphere, Jedi Master Plo Koon led an aerial patrol through the skies of Cato Neimoidia. Even though the Republic had conquered this world, there was still great unrest that required a Jedi to oversee it. So here the Kel Dor Master was, seeking any outbreak of violence.
He prowled the airways in the outdated but still serviceable Delta-7 while his clone wingmen piloted a pair of ARC-170s. They flew from city-span to city-span as they were needed. At the moment, they were almost to their next destination.
Suddenly his Astromech unit warbled in confused alarm as it detected something strange. Squinting through his protective goggles that kept the high levels of oxygen in his cockpit pod from damaging the delicate membranes of his eyes, he studied his displays to see what the problem was. His wingmen seemed to be powering up their shields, weapon systems, and had spread their S-foils into the attack position.
Without warning, they opened fire before he even thought of bringing up his own shields. Suffering a direct hit, the back half of his Delta-7 caught fire, throwing him forward in his seat. The controls shorted out and spewed smoke as the thrusters, wing flaps, and engines were destroyed.
Now little more than a ball of smoke, flames, and molten metal, Plo Koon's Delta-7 spiraled out of the cloudy sky to crash into the skyscraper-covered suspension span below…
It was growing dark as dusk settled over the arid world of Saleucami. The dry rugged planet was host to no intelligent life and had been held by the Separatists and used in an attempt to grow them their own clone army. Aside from the strange almost balloon-like plants, the world had nothing significant to set it apart from any other barren planet in the galaxy.
Jedi Master Quinlan Vos had been victorious here a week earlier, driving the Separatists away before he shifted his troops on to fronts on Boz Pity. Now only Jedi Master Stass Allie and a small detachment of clones remained behind to mop things up. There still could be active droids out here that could cause problems.
As the shadows continued to deepen, Stass Allie led two troopers on a speeder bike patrol through the fringes of an old battle field still strewn with wreckage and corpses. She was a Corellian and a cousin to the famous Adi Gallia. Out of admiration for her older cousin, she had taken to wearing the same odd style of headdress. Though instead of becoming a diplomat and warrior like Adi, Stass had gone on to study healing.
However with the outbreak of war she had been forced to polish up on her old lightsaber techniques and take up the mantle of command. It wasn't something she was happy about, but this was where she was needed now. She'd return to healing when the battles were won and peace was returned.
She rode on her lightly armed basic speeder-bike in the lead while the two clones that flanked her followed slightly behind on much more heavily armed BARC speeder-bikes. Her eyes and senses were fixed forward, scanning for threats. She was completely oblivious to the movements of her two soldiers, even when the suddenly cut their speed to fall further behind her.
Being attacked from behind was something that Stass wasn't prepared for, something she'd never thought of because her clone soldiers were there to protect her. Her speeder-bike exploded beneath her before she had time to process the fact that she was being attacked. Still carried by her momentum, she continued on for several more yards before slamming into the hard ground.
Jedi Master Stass Allie died instantly without ever realizing that it was her own soldiers that had killed her…
The sun had set less than an hour ago and the sky still held some color and glow. All was quiet and Nejaa Halcyon was in a rather good mood as he hiked back through the woods to the Corellian Temple. There was a road he could use, but it was a long twisting one, and he preferred walking a straight line through the trees to trying to follow a boring old road. He'd just finished a visit to Mina and baby Valin and was a little disappointed that he'd had to leave. He was expected for a meeting early the next morning and if he stayed over night in Coronet with Mina, he'd be late.
Valin was just over a year old now and was toddling everywhere and even starting to talk a little bit. Mina had spent all afternoon and evening showing off all the new things he could do and the memories of it still had him smiling. It had really been nice to spend some time with his family; he never could be with them as much as he wanted.
In fact, it had taken nearly an hour to get Valin to warm up to him. Nejaa was away so much that Valin had no idea that the funny man in the cloak was his father. He just thought that Nejaa was a friend of his Mommy's.
The Corellian knew he would never get to spend as much time with his wife and son as he would like. He was a Jedi Master and he had many important responsibilities that had to come first. But with the war still raging all over the galaxy, he was able to spend even less time than he would've been able to otherwise.
But rumor had it that the war would be winding down soon. And then he could spend more time with Mina and Valin. Who knew, maybe Valin would even get the chance to figure out that the funny man in the cloak that visited all the time was Daddy…
Nejaa stepped out of the fringes of the forest and paused to look over the small but sprawling Corellian Temple. Some windows were lit, but most were dark, showing just how empty the Temple had become. He would be surprised if there were more than a hundred Jedi present, and most of them were Healers, aged Masters, the injured who were recovering here, and the very young.
He was about to start walking again when a sound reached his ears. It sounded like the dry growl of the engines of the ARC-170, a whole squadron of them. And they were getting closer.
Frowning he looked up in time to see them swoop overhead. He watched them make a wide arcing turn and line up again to make another pass over the Temple. His confusion at the odd evening maneuver turned to shock and then horror as the ARC-170s locked their S-foils into attack position and started firing proton torpedoes into the Temple buildings and strafing the gardens with their lasers.
In seconds a good third of the Temple was destroyed and the fighters started another wide turn that would bring them back on target. Horrified by the unexpected destruction, he almost missed the clones. The entire battalion stationed in Coronet seemed to be here now, marching down the road to the Temple with their heavy blasters in their hands.
Nejaa stood frozen to the spot as the carnage intensified. He was still close enough to the trees to escape notice from the attacking clones and that was the only thing that kept him from being shot. He was just paralyzed by the shock and the feelings of all his comrades in the Temple dying.
One particularly large explosion was enough to physically jolt him back into motion. He took one step towards the besieged Temple, but stopped. Now he was frozen in indecision rather than shock.
It was his duty to defend the Temple and all the Jedi in residence there. Not only that, but he had many friends and students there. But there were just too many enemies there. He'd probably be killed if he tried to go there. The Temple was in flames. Was there really anyone left to save?
Then there were Mina and Valin back in Coronet. Where they safe? Or had they been targeted too as being connected with a Jedi?
Closing his eyes, he forced himself to turn away from the ruined Temple. And then he did the more difficult thing he'd ever done in his life. He ran away…
As he surveyed the raging battle on the beach below from a Wookiee platform up in a tree, Yoda staggered. His gnarled gimmer stick cane fell from his clawed hand. Clutching at his chest, he sank to his knees and gasped in pain.
The Jedi, his children, were dying. He could feel them. Every death was another stab in his heart. And so many...so many...
Distantly, he was aware that the two clone troopers that surveyed the battle with him had drawn nearer. There was the faint clicking sound of blasters being drawn and cocked. He knew then.
Leaping upwards he drew his tiny lightsaber, lit it, and in one fluid swing decapitated them both. He landed easily and graceful, and put his lightsaber away. Behind him, the two clone corpses fell to the floor like broken dolls.
Chewbacca and Tarfful, who had watched the attack in stunned silence, yowled in alarm. Without a second thought they invited the tiny Jedi Master to follow them. Yoda hobbled after them and scampered up Chewbacca's arm to ride on the lanky Wookiee's shoulder.
And then the three of them vanished into Kashyyyk's dense tropical jungle...
It was times like these that Anakin hated being right. Absolutely hated it. Because now everything was going to hell, just like he'd known it would.
The 501st was, as he'd said, the best of the best. The members of the legion had been attached to various other units to gain experience from a wide range of campaigns. Their training went above and beyond the training of other clones, and they had fought on every kind of terrain. They were especially skilled in fighting in urban situations, taking control a city block by block, a block building by building, a building room by room. And that's exactly what they were doing here.
They marched down the halls, checking every room, killing any Jedi they encountered. When they hit a particularly tough Jedi, some would hold his attention, while others would circle around and attack from behind, or from a side hallway. As soon as all the Jedi were dead in an area, they moved on. And they blocked every entrance and exit to the outside as they went, slowly transforming the Temple into a sealed slaughterhouse.
After spying the 501st approaching, all four of them had hurried for the Temple foyer. The Temple was just too big though and they didn't make it. The clones of the 501st in their blue and white armor had stormed through the front gates and slaughtered all the Jedi who had been waiting long before they could get there.
The troopers met them halfway. The hail of blaster fire and the chaos of blades and shouting divided them. When Anakin broke free of the fight and made it to a calmer, empty hallway, he was alone.
He knew a lost cause when he saw one, so when he ran into another Jedi, he passed along a new order to them. Get out, get off Coruscant, go as far away as possible, and hide, survive. If they asked, he claimed it was an order from the Council. It wasn't entirely true, but he was a Council member still, his membership hadn't been officially revoked yet, so what he said was as good as an order from the Council since the Council wasn't around to discuss it.
Many refused his orders. They didn't believe him, or they wouldn't. To abandon the Temple, the only home they'd ever known, was something they could not do. Death seemed to be the only thing they could accept now, death in protecting their Temple, their home. A rootless survival was something they couldn't even contemplate.
But some did listen. It hurt them, but they listened and did as he said. And as they fled, Anakin charged them with evacuating any children or wounded they came across.
He himself did not leave though. He didn't really know why. It was stupid. The longer he stayed, the more likely it was that he wouldn't make it out, that he'd die here. But still he stayed.
His arms felt heavy, stiff, almost like lead, as he swung, sliced, deflected. His lungs burned like fire as he gasped for breath while he ran. His legs shook as he tried to stand, run. And yet he kept on moving, fighting, shouting.
And now he was beginning to find Jedi already dead or dying. He was beginning to find places were the clones were so thick, he didn't dare try to break through them. The air was rank with the smell of ozone, burned cloth, charred flesh, and an acrid whiff of smoke.
The Archives were on fire. A firefight had set the ancient paper volumes on fire. And now millennia of collected knowledge was going up in smoke. And the fire kept on spreading…
After nearly an hour of examining the document, a letter written to her, she finally set the datapad down. At first she'd skimmed over the letter, dying of curiosity to see what it had to say. But then she stopped, and started over again, slower. And then she read it again, and again, and again. It didn't seem possible, but the more she read it, and the more she thought, the more it all made sense.
Numbness was mainly what she felt. Numbness because she was pulled in so many directions by so many emotions that all she could feel was numb. This just changed everything.
She was angry, of course. For years they'd been friends, spent time with each other, and never ever once had he said anything. He'd kept it from her, let her believe he was somebody different, when he wasn't. While he hadn't really lied, just withheld information, it was no better than a lie.
She was also shocked. Never in a million years would she have guessed that she had known him long before he had ever been assigned to protect before the outbreak of the war. Never would she have guessed who he truly was.
And she was happy. There were finally no more secrets (well almost none, she'd still like to know just what he was thinking). She knew who he was, and she knew what had happened to that little boy, little Anakin, who she'd felt so terrible about leaving behind.
Anakin, she swallowed, her eyes stung. Anakin, why? Why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you say anything before? Why didn't you trust me? I would've kept your secrets if you asked me too…
Really, what had he been thinking? Was he afraid that she would think less of him if she knew who he was, where he came from? Had he thought she would be so angry with him for being dishonest that she wouldn't ever speak with him again?
It was hard for her to reconcile her memories of Anakin with what she knew of Vader. She had a hard time seeing that sweet, innocent, wonderful little boy be the same person as the enigmatic Vader. And yet it did fit when she thought hard about it.
Once they'd gone to Naboo and Vader had learned her real last name, he softened his attitude towards her. And after Geonosis, his old childhood crush on her seemed to have resurrected itself. Then there was that one time after their little drugged romp that he'd asked her if she was an angel…
Shaking her head to clear it, Padmé looked up and around for Sabé. She'd read the letter to her satisfaction, and now Sabé could examine it if she so chose. But Sabé wasn't in the chair she was supposed to be.
Padmé found her by the window-wall of her common room, standing with Artoo. Both of them stared out in the direction of the Jedi Temple. Curious, Padmé got up and walked over to join them.
"Sabé, what are you…looking…at…"
Numbness firmly shifted to horror, deep and absolute. Between the towering neighboring skyscrapers on the edge of the horizon she could see it. The Grand Jedi Temple was on fire.
A column of thick black smoke billowed up into the sky. It was lit from the sides by the hazy city lights. It was lit below from the glow of the flames.
She couldn't actually see any of the flames themselves. But the very fact that the Temple was on fire was shocking enough. Why was it burning?
"Sabé, what's going on?" Padmé asked. "Was there another Separatist attack?"
"I don't know," Sabé mumbled. "It's been burning like this for almost a half an hour. Why don't the firefighters come and put it out?"
"I don't know," Padmé swallowed. "Artoo, call Captain Typho and have him try and find out what's going on."
Artoo warbled an affirmative and rolled away.
Now alone, Padmé and Sabé continued to watch in horrified fascination as the smoke continued to rise. They did not speak; they had no words to say. But then something occurred to Padmé.
Anakin could still be in there!
Padmé raised a trembling hand and pressed it to the transparisteel window, a futile attempt to reach out to him, touch him. She tried vainly to press the idea from her mind, tried to think of the possibility that he had left, escaped. But it was no use. She bowed her head and began to cry.
Anakin! Oh Anakin…
Bail relaxed in his ruby red hot-rod speeder. He'd had dinner with Mon Mothma at her favorite restaurant and they'd stayed for hours after their meal, bouncing ideas off each other. And now it was time to head back to his Coruscanti apartment and try to get some sleep.
But as he cleared some tall buildings, he was met with a shocking sight. The Grand Jedi Temple had a terrible column of black smoke rising from it. There were no firefighters with their specially equipped speeders in sight.
Deeply concerned, he decided to investigate. He shifted his course from home to the Temple. In ten minutes, he'd found his way to a side entrance halfway up the towering main body of the structure. There was a walkway and landing pad for speeders and small air taxis there, and he landed on it.
"What's going on here?" Bail demanded as he strode towards a group of clone soldiers who where loitering there.
"There's been a rebellion sir." One of the clones informed him. "Don't worry, the situation is under control." He assured the Alderaanian Senator, but then he cocked and raised his rifle, as did his companions. "I'm sorry sir; it's time for you to leave."
Bail stared at them in shock, before he gathered his wits together. "And so it is." He agreed and turned to leave. Something was wrong here, but it wasn't worth getting shot to find out now. He'd learn of it later, he was sure.
"Get him!" Another clone trooper shouted and Bail spun around in alarm.
A young boy, a Jedi Padawan, perhaps ten years old, burst into view. He attacked the four clones that had sent Bail away and managed to kill them all in less then a minute with his blue lightsaber. But reinforcements were quickly on the scene and they opened fire on the child. The Padawan deflected a few shots, but then his defenses failed and he crumpled to the floor.
"No!" Bail cried in horror.
The troopers jogged over, ready to finish the prone child off with a shot to the head–
Suddenly they were gone. It was like there was an invisible broom had swept them all to one side and off the walkway, down into the depths of Coruscant's lower levels. Only he and the injured Padawan were left.
Bail blinked, stupefied. What…just happened here?
"Senator Organa?"
The Senator in question snapped his head up to see a man striding towards him from the Temple. He wasn't a clone trooper; he was a Jedi, dressed in dark robes. In his shock, it took him a moment to recognize Vader, a Jedi he'd seen just yesterday evening.
"What are you doing here?" Vader asked.
"I…I saw the smoke and…I came to see what was going on." Bail stammered, stunned at the display of power. Did he knock all those troopers away all by himself?
Vader stared blankly at him for a moment, then turned to stare at the fallen child who was gasping and groaning in pain. "Senator, do you have a private doctor in your employ?" He asked slowly.
"Well-well yes," Bail blinked. "Why?"
The tall Jedi knelt beside the Padawan and carefully scooped him up. He carried him over to Bail's speeder and gently deposited him in the passenger seat. "Please take him," Vader pleaded. "But be careful. If you are caught with him, they'll probably kill you too."
"What is going on?" Bail asked worriedly as he climbed back into the driver's seat.
"The Chancellor has no more need of us." Vader replied. "We are a threat, and now we are being exterminated."
"What?" Bail gasped. "What do you–"
"I have to go," Vader said abruptly and ran off, back into the Temple.
Bail stared after himself in both shock and deep respect, then he shook himself and took off. The longer he stayed there, staring like an idiot, the greater the chance was that more clone troops would appear and fire on him for saving the Jedi child. And the boy needed a doctor, quickly.
As soon as he felt he was safely away from the Temple, he pulled out his comm-link and made a call. "Captain Antilles?"
"Yes, sir?" The captain of his private ship replied after a moment.
"Prepare the Tantive IV for take-off immediately. And summon Doctor Brinks there." Bail ordered. "I should be there in…fourteen minutes."
"Yes sir, it will be done." Captain Antilles assured him and cut the connection to carry out his orders.
The Senator replaced his comm-link and stomped on his accelerator, desperate to get to his ship faster. But when he glanced over at his passenger, a new worry presented itself. The young Jedi looked awful.
The boy was deathly pale, his brown eyes glassy with shock and pain as he stared dazedly back at Bail. Blood oozed out of his scorched blaster burns, one on his shoulder, one in his thigh, one on his side. Bail began to wonder if the child would last the fourteen minutes it would take to get him to safety.
"Hey, stay awake," Bail warned. "Tell me, what's your name?"
"Zett," the Padawan wheezed after a long minute, his young voice thin and weak with pain. "My name…is Zett…Jukassa…"
Yoda's two Wookiee allies carried him out of the jungle in the deep dark of night. Clearings as large as the one they brought him to were rare on Kashyyyk, a world of dense jungle. Chewbacca carried him to the top of a small hill while Tarfful began digging through the lower brush. Camouflaged under large leaves and branches was something metallic.
When the greenery was cleared away, it was revealed to be a small spacecraft, little more than a modified escape pod of some kind. It was very small, much too small for an adult Wookiee to use it, but a very young, very small Wookiee might be able to fit inside. It was perfect for the tiny fugitive Jedi Master.
Master Yoda hopped down from Chewbacca's shoulder and stopped halfway to the craft. He turned and addressed his Wookiee allies and friends for what he sensed would probably be the last time. "Good-bye Tarfful. Good-bye Chewbacca. Miss you I will." He told them sadly.
Yoda then limped up the tiny ramp and took a seat in the equally tiny chair inside the escape pod. The ramp raised, sealing the pod, and then it blasted upward into Kashyyyk's night sky. Chewbacca and Tarfful howled farewells until Yoda was well out of sight.
"(Do you think we'll ever see him again?)" Chewbacca wondered.
"(It's possible,)" Tarfful replied, "(but I doubt it…)"
Bail strode through the pure white confines of his personal ship, the Corellian-built Tantive IV, beside Captain Antilles. Doctor Brinks was still in the middle of working on the rescued Jedi child, Zett Jukassa, and had pressed a few of Bail's aides into playing temporary medical assistants. The doctor had only given the boy a fifty-fifty chance of making it.
"Hopefully we'll be able to intercept a few Jedi before they walk into this catastrophe." Bail muttered to his captain as they walked towards the bridge.
Captain Antilles nodded as they entered the small bridge. "Where to, Senator?"
"Set a course for the Kashyyyk System," Bail decided after a moment's thought. "Master Yoda was deployed there. Perhaps he will have some answers for us…"
Anakin slumped against the handrail of the lift car as it headed for the top. He was so tired it was ridiculous. There were still a few Jedi lingering here, alive; he could sense them. But it was unlikely that he could help them. It was time to go.
He glanced up, caught sight of the lift number, and moaned in despair. Damn it! This is the wrong lift! It's not taking me to the hanger, it's taking me to the top of the center spire, the Council chambers! He'd been so tired, he'd stumbled into the wrong lift!
No! He moaned. Now it's going to be even harder to get out of here! Agh!
The lift stopped and opened out onto the highest floor of the Jedi Temple with a cheerful ping. Anakin grumbled darkly and was about to jab a lower floor that give him access to the right lift when he paused. He sensed something…something in the Council chamber.
Deciding to risk wasting a few precious seconds, he stepped out of the lift to investigate. The chamber was dark when he opened the door and stepped inside, though not as dark as it had been when he was knighted. And at first glance, the room was empty.
But the instant he took a step inside, he found his first glance to be incorrect. Several small children, Initiates, five to six years old at the most, came out from their hiding places behind the chairs, in the shadowy corners. There were at least ten, perhaps twelve of them.
"Master, there are too many of them, what do we do?" One little boy asked, staring up at him with wide eyes.
Anakin's eyes rapidly flickered over the tiny children and their wide eyes, hopeful that now that he was here, they would be saved. They were terrified; he didn't need to sense their fear to know that. Yet they remained model Jedi children. They didn't tackle him, cling to him. They stood closer to him than they normally would, yet none of them cried or screamed. They still spoke politely, as if they were only worried. Their deceptive calmness probably won't last much longer. Not with what they would soon have to endure.
"What do we do?" Anakin repeated stupidly, before he snapped out of his shocked daze. "We leave, that's what we do. Come with me."
He turned and marched from the room and, obedient as ever, the children followed him. They all crammed into the life and Anakin selected the lower floor he'd meant to moments earlier. And then they were on their way.
As they skulked through the nearly deserted Temple, dodging clone sweeper patrols, looking for anything they missed earlier, Anakin wondered just how the children had gotten up there, and why. It didn't seem like the best hiding place. The Council chambers were isolated at the highest point of the Temple, with only one way up or down. It was a place to be safe for a while if you could defend it, a better place to get trapped and die if you couldn't. They were barely more than babies though, they probably didn't think about that. Maybe they just hopped that the home of the greatest Masters would keep them safe somehow.
Fortunately for him, things went surprisingly smoothly. They never got stuck anywhere on the way, never got caught and had to fight them off. But the further they went, the worse it was for the children.
Dead Jedi were everywhere. Friends, teachers, Jedi they'd never met before, all lay there, full of blaster holes, staring with dead eyes. The poor kids would have nightmares about this for years. But it couldn't be helped. It was years of nightmares, or death for them.
And then, just yards away from the hanger doors, they hit a block. Two full squads of troopers guarded the entrance. Anakin stuffed himself and the children in a side hallway to stay out of their sight.
Great! Just fantastic! Now what am I going to do? He wondered morosely. I need to kill them all at once so they can't call for back-up…
Normally it would be a simple matter of using the Force to get around this roadblock. He could distract them with a mind trick, make them think there was an emergency elsewhere, or he could kill them all very quickly. But that wasn't a real option here.
After a few hours of fighting, killing, running, hiding, he was all but spent. He had been drawing on the Force almost non-stop and now his skull felt like it was going to burst. And he was so tired that even without the headache it would be difficult to focus.
But then the decision on what to do was taken out of his hands. Someone attacked the troopers from a different hallway. If Anakin wanted to get out of here, he had to help, and he had to hurry.
"Stay here," he hissed to the children, and then he was off.
Dashing down the hall with all the speed his exhausted body could muster, he crashed into the clones from behind, desperately hacking away at them. Caught off guard by his sneak attack, they dropped like sand flies. In moments he and another Knight managed to cut all of them down.
Trembling with fatigue, he started to drag some of the bodies away from the doors so the children wouldn't have to step on corpses. Haze was starting to drift around the corners of his mind, but he couldn't rest yet. One little mistake now would get more than himself killed.
"It's you," someone muttered in dull surprise.
Anakin glanced up to see that the other Knight who had been attacking the clone troops was Ferus Olin. He looked about as bad as Anakin felt. He had a slight blaster burn on his cheek, but otherwise didn't seem to have been hit.
"Oh hi Ferus, you still here? And alive?" Anakin blinked wearily.
"Yeah," Ferus nodded.
"Good. Good, I'm going to need you." Anakin mumbled, mostly to himself. He jogged back down the hall to where he'd stashed the children. "Come on, we're almost out."
When he brought the children to the hanger door, Ferus had disappeared. Anakin frowned in fuzzy annoyance, but didn't waste his time thinking much about it. He opened the doors, looked around inside, and only then allowed the children to come inside with him.
The hanger was mostly untouched. All the staff was dead, but most of the vehicles had been left alone, which was a good thing. A very good thing. Anakin jogged over to a data terminal and began running a search on any hyper-capable shuttles.
"Where did all these younglings come from?" Ferus asked, reappearing from wherever he'd disappeared to.
"I found them hiding in the Council chamber." Anakin replied, not looking up from the terminal. Aha! Two shuttles on the third level…Theta-class…whatever that is.
"What were they doing up there?" Ferus wondered.
"I don't know," Anakin sighed, turning around. Oh hey! There's Darra! He must've gone to go get her…
Darra wasn't in the best shape. She'd been hit in the leg and perhaps somewhere else, and she was forced to use Ferus as a Human crutch. Her face was tight and pale with pain.
"You two, take them" – Anakin gestured towards the clump of wide-eyed children – "up to the third level. There are some shuttles up there, Theta-class. Pick one and take it."
"Take the younglings?" Darra wheezed.
"Take the shuttle where?" Ferus frowned.
"Anywhere!" Anakin shrugged. "Anywhere away from here, away from the Republic, as far as you can go. Take the most twisting route you can calculate."
"What about you?" Ferus asked.
"I have decoy duty." Anakin explained. "I'll take a fighter, lead off whatever air support is around here, and then you leave five minutes after I do and go."
"No Master!" One of the children cried.
"Don't go!" A little girl begged.
"Stay with us!" Another pleaded.
"Don't you like us?" The youngest one, who Anakin suspected could be just four years old, whimpered.
"It's not that I don't like you," Anakin assured them before they could jump to any more crazy conclusions. "This is the only way that we'll be able to get out of here safely." Well, it's not safe, but it's the only thing I can think of…
"Will we ever see you again?" A boy asked worriedly.
"Sure," Anakin grinned. "Can't say when, but I'm sure we'll run into each other again." Kids, I've known them for barely twenty minutes and already they're worried about never seeing me again….cute.
This seemed to reassure them enough for them, as a group, to wander over and attach themselves to Ferus and Darra.
"Are you sure you want to do this?" Darra asked.
"Of course," Anakin snorted. "I wouldn't do it if I wasn't sure that I wanted to, or thought that I could do it. Now go find your shuttle. I'll be leaving in five minutes, you leave five minutes after I do."
"Right," Ferus nodded and helped Darra limp along with him. The children trailed along in their wake.
Anakin sighed and jogged off to check on the green Eta-2 he'd left his gear in. It thankfully looked untouched and he grinned slightly in relief. And his grin widened when he spied a familiar Astromech waiting for him.
"Hey Petey!" He greeted softly.
The green Astromech warbled in delight upon seeing him.
"Yeah, it's bee a long time." He sighed. "But hey, it seems that I've got a starfighter that matches you now," he smirked, pointing to the green starfighter.
Petey let out a sound that brought to mind laughter.
"Well hop in and start her up. We've got less than five minutes." Anakin stated with a hint of forced cheerfulness.
The R4 unit cheerily agreed and began to lock itself into the Astromech socket in the right wing.
Rubbing a hand over his face, Anakin pulled himself into the cockpit, strapped in, hooked in his headset, and ran through the start up procedure. A quick glance down confirmed that his stuff was still safe and sound, tucked under the chair. A few minutes later, everything was green and the engines were hot.
"Okay Petey, let's go!" Anakin mumbled, keying in his code to open the hanger gate.
RIGHT! Petey whistled.
Wrapping his hands around the joystick, Anakin nudged the Eta-2 up off its landing pad and towards the opening hanger exit. He could instantly tell the difference in the handling of this fighter compared to his old one that he'd lost, but there was no time to fix this one. He'd just have to deal with it.
Darting out of the hanger into the night sky, he almost flew right into the billowing smoke that rose from the Archives as he circled over the Temple. He strained his tired eyes, searching for whatever was waiting to stop him. He didn't have to wait long.
Four gunships lifted off from the roofs of nearby buildings to pursue him. Anakin grimaced as he settled in for some crazy flying. It was time to play follow-the-leader liberally mixed with a game of chicken.
Raising his shields to full power, he peeled away from circling the Temple and lurched away over the city. He carefully made a show of flying slowly and clumsily, drawing his pursuers in. And then when his shields began to take a little too much damage, he got serious.
He poured on the speed and swooped down to a lower, busier altitude. They all followed him, just as he hoped they would. And then he doubled back on them, laser cannons blasting.
One gunship went down in flames, the other three got angry. Anakin cheerfully yelled some disparaging things about their source material into his headset at them and then shifted back to the follow-the-leader phase. Two more gunships decided to join the chase.
Ah, the more, the merrier! Anakin snorted sarcastically as he fly even lower, weaving in and out of speeder traffic and skyscrapers. Catch me if you can slowpokes!
In the end, Anakin managed to fry six gunships and severely damaged three others. Hopefully it was enough for the attacking clones to miss the Theta-class shuttle lifting off. But he couldn't stay any longer or he would lose his shields for good and get blasted out of the sky.
Diving down insanely low, so that at times he was skimming mere feet over street surfaces, he went with a flying style that reminded him of his old pod-racing days. He boosted the speed to dangerous levels for the risky flying he was doing. And it was too risky for the gunships that were still chasing him. They peeled off and left him alone…for the time being, anyway.
Clenching his teeth, he went into a steep climb and rocketed out of the atmosphere. Thankfully there were no Star Destroyers or fighter patrols in the area. But it probably wouldn't be that way for long, so he wasted no time in finding a booster ring that would fit his starfighter.
As he locked in some hyperspace coordinates, an ache began to form in his chest that had nothing to do with how tired and banged up he was. Padmé… I'm so sorry… I'm not even going to get to say good-bye to you…
And then he was gone.