Disclaimer: If I owned any of this besides the OCs, I would totally be living it up somewhere warm and sunny.
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3. Night Errant
Joclad turned his lightsaber over, running his fingers along the grooves in the hilt. The nagging sensation of something about to go wrong had only intensified once his shuttle was well on its way to the Redeemer, and the weak jokes that his clone escorts were swapping barely distracted him from it. He flicked his thumb just over the switch several times, half-expecting the bright blue blade to spring out on its own.
His other lightsaber was still tucked away under his robe, safe from prying eyes. He did not know how many of the clones actually knew his name or who he was; those he'd worked with simply identified him as the one with two sabers. He felt the moniker suited him well enough.
These particular clones had given up socializing with him after he proved unreceptive to their overtures, and he decided he liked it that way. Joclad firmly believed in keeping an aura of mystery from time to time, particularly when in the company of living things that he did not quite consider real humans.
He tried to relax, leaning back against the seat. This would likely be his last dose of comfort until his return from Rhen Var, or the end of the war. Oh, let Kenobi pull this off. Joclad quietly harbored a darkly enthusiastic hope for the droid-general's demise; the Code spoke often of forgiveness and the release of old anger, but Grievous had burned them all too deeply to wish for much more than his end – by any means.
Maybe, the knight reasoned, it's just the war, doing what war does best. Bitterness was a feeling Joclad Danva had grown well-acquainted with after what remained of Depa returned.
She'd said something to him in the days before Haruun Kal: This is not our war, but they will make us try to fight it. She had protested at length in Council meetings, even using her considerable pull with Master Windu to keep the Jedi out of it. It will taint our souls and drive us mad. Her words drifted through the temple corridors, viewed as ironic in the wake of the clone victory on Geonosis – in her own contribution to it – and even more so when Depa insisted on taking on a sabotage mission against the Separatists on her own.
Pretty hypocritical for a Chalactan, huh? Dack had asked when word of Depa's plot got out, winking at Joclad from his bed in the healer's ward. Dack's entire ribcage had been rebuilt following his brief stint on Geonosis, and because of that injury, Joclad refrained from throttling him good-naturedly.
One clone muttered to the other, and Joclad returned to the present. Has it really been almost three years?
Three years, and nothing but dead memories and dreams, most of them broken in the fury of the Clone War.
Now, as he studied the weapon of his trade, he marveled at just how clearly Depa had seen things.
A comlink chimed politely, and one of the clones lifted his palm to his face. Joclad and the other clone exchanged weary smiles. It was likely Captain Tarkin, demanding to know why the Jedi was running behind schedule. The man was as punctual as he was brutal. Joclad rather liked him, aside from a rather macabre interest in combined firepower rather than actual strategy.
"It will be done, my lord," the clone on the comlink said. He stood up, appearing to stretch.
Joclad looked over at him fully as the device was put away. "'My lord'? Do I get a fun nickname, too?"
Both clones stared at him, and there was something new and intent in their dark gazes.
Joclad stared back, and the uneasy feeling erupted into a full-blown warning. He flung himself off the chair and landed hard on the deck, rolling to the side as blaster fire tore into the seat and the grate behind him. He jumped up, the lightsaber casting its blue glow over the twin faces before him. He deflected the bolts carelessly, marching on them with relentless precision. His blade singed the bulkheads, and it took only one sweep to strike through both guns. Joclad flicked his wrist slightly, and one clone toppled to the ground with a smoking hole in his side.
Joclad looked at the other and raised an eyebrow. "It wasn't that bad a joke, was it?"
Beep-beep-beep. Joclad looked at the thermal detonator the clone grasped, and then back up at its determined features. "All right, maybe it was. Are you going to do something with that explosive device?"
"It must be done," the clone said.
Joclad leaned toward him, pouring all of his strength into the unfamiliar game of the mind trick. "You don't want to do this," he said, his voice soothing. "You want to put the thermal detonator down."
He met no resistance, but also nothing on which to imprint a suggestion. Nothing to manipulate. Granted, Joclad's particular strength did not run along the lines of suggestion, but the trooper should have at least wavered. The clone just looked at him, a blinking thermal detonator the only sign of any rational thought going on in its head.
Joclad decided to try a different approach. "Are you going to shut that off?"
"No."
"I see." A simple upswing, and Joclad caught the clone's severed hand in his. The downswing cut the man neatly in half, and the Jedi let his lightsaber hang in midair as he pried the explosive from dead fingers. "Blast, how do you deactivate these things..."
He found the proper switch, and the beeping ceased. Joclad looked around, not entirely sure of what had just transpired. Well. I've just killed some clones. That's...unexpected.
He left the bomb on the floor and plucked the hilt from empty space, marching directly for the bridge. "Boys, there's been a mis--"
He stepped away from the six clones that launched themselves at him, shoving one into the bulkhead hard enough to crack the man's skull. "So this is a widespread thing?"
The blatant way the clones fired on him in the confined starship spoke of little care for their own safety - and thus, total dedication to a mission. Joclad noted this and adjusted his own style accordingly; if they took no prisoners, then neither would he.
He cut through them with precise, almost-bored slices. A laser bolt grazed his arm, and he hissed slightly as pain spread from his bicep to his shoulder. Relax—if you feel pain you're still alive. He filed it away as he knocked the last man down, stalking forward to the pilot's seat.
The empty pilot's seat.
Joclad extinguished his lightsaber and took in the bodies, incredulous. "The entire bridge crew jumped me?"
He sat down in the pilot's chair, grasping the controls and turning off the autopilot. He opened all frequencies, switching first to the Redeemer's line. "Redeemer, this is Danva. There's been a mishap--"
The shuttle jerked horribly to the side, and Joclad almost slammed his head into the forward console. Green fire blossomed through the windows, and an alarm warned him of missiles locking on. Instinct partially took over as he hit the accelerator, and he had but an instant to realize--
Not just two clones.
Not just the clones on the shuttle.
Clones everywhere.
And Jedi all over the galaxy…
"Tarkin!" He barked into the comm, "What in the name of the underlords are you doing?" Captain Tarkin wasn't a clone. Captain Tarkin had worked with him too often to—
CRASH! The transport bucked sharply, and it became quite clear that Tarkin was not about to spring to the rescue. "Son of a jumpin—"
He had no time to fully comprehend the scope of the situation, for the Redeemer was not about to let her quarry escape. The Force offered him no alternatives beyond taking the transport into a tight roll, switching gears and diving for the planet's surface amidst heavy fire. He could seek shelter amidst the surface buildings; clone betrayal or not, the Redeemer could hardly afford to destroy the capital city. Joclad flicked on the shields as an afterthought; nothing on this bucket would hold off an attack cruiser, but he might as well make the effort.
He adjusted the frequency to the temple's line. "It's Danva," he snapped at the security perimeters. "Let me through!"
"Danva?" A puzzled-sounding padawan asked. "You're due on the Redeemer...five minutes ago, actually."
Joclad pushed the ship into a steeper drop, atmosphere screaming around the hull as the shields burned away. A common transport like this was not intended to go zipping back and forth like the Aethersprite fighters he was so fond of, and already he saw warning lights flashing on and off as key systems overheated.
A look at the sensors showed the Redeemer following, and a host of new missiles to evade. "My clones turned on me. I want to issue an alert--"
"Your clones turned--what?" The padawan in charge of communications sounded as though she'd turned around to speak to someone. "Oh, Anakin, can you--"
Her words terminated in a startled gasp, and the distinct hum of a lightsaber filled the shuttle's audio receivers. Joclad stared at the receiver in silent horror, fully expecting a sinister voice to start issuing commands. Instead, there was only the click of an ended transmission.
The transport's sensors revealed nothing, so he pushed the Force to its limit, managing to grasp at the bright spark in his mind that comprised the temple and its inhabitants.
He did not receive messages or words; just the barest scraps of feelings and vague images dancing across his mind – of white-suited soldiers with blasters, of darkness and light clashing, of death – the soldiers, always the soldiers - the clones are everywhere!
And then he saw it: the statue of Kildara Sunrider, toppled and used as a ram – bashing the doors of the temple wide open for all the soldiers – the clones – to come through—
No – it would take more clones than that to bring down the Sunrider – more clones and more explosive power than—
His mind hurt from the stretching, but he persisted in his search, heedlessly dodging a turbolaser here or a missile there.
The clones marched through--
--and he reeled in the sudden sensations from his home even as his hands worked the controls. Shock, horror – fear, gradual and sudden, spreading through the ranks as encounters were passed through the Force.
It was as much as his admittedly weak grasp of foresight had ever granted him.
A code flashed onto his monitor: the standard all-clear. Return to the temple. Return to the temple. Return to the—
The shuttle lurched sickeningly, and the computer warned of a missile striking the aft shielding unit.
Joclad swore and cut the line off, throwing the shuttle into a dizzying series of loops and twirls. Missiles and turbolasers stabbed at the areas where the shuttle should have been, though increasing shudders and jerks told him that the targeting systems on the former were finally adapting to his flying style.
Screech-crash!
"There goes the armor," he muttered, pushing the ship beyond safe measures and trying to pull on crash webbing. He ripped a handful of wires out of the console, re-routing useless weapons systems into the engines. Urgency crept into his senses, demanding that he go faster, faster - faster still. There was no time to waste.
The shuttle screamed past the delicate buildings of the city proper, and he realized the shooting had ceased. Somewhere in the back of the bridge, a speed warning broadcasted freely.
He steered by instinct to the temple, honing in on the sudden outbursts of surprise, fear, and anger emanating from it. He had to get there. He had to.
He recognized home, inasmuch that it still resembled the massive building he'd left behind a mere half hour before. But in the greater vision of the Force, it looked wrong – the protective shield of light that had surrounded it, that Joclad had recognized even as a boy of barely six years – that light was gone.
In its place lay a darkness he dared not touch.
The hanger bay loomed up ahead, and its doors refused the code he sent over. Joclad ground his teeth, ripped the shuttle up onto a new course, and aimed directly for the open area at the base of the Council tower.
The darkness spread, and he dove into it.