"First, I want you to go to the Jedi Temple. We will catch them off-balance. Do what must be done, Lord Vader."

The door slid quietly open, and Marco poked his head out into the corridor. Night had fallen over the Jedi Temple and the lights had been dimmed. Marco quickly checked that no one was coming and then darted out into the hall, his steps so light that he moved in almost complete silence. He pressed his back against the wall at the corridor's end and peaked carefully around the corner. The adjacent wall on the left opened up into a balcony that overlooked the central atrium of the Temple where, down below, it was still brightly lit, making it easy to see that no one was coming. He turned and continued along to his destination, another door identical to the one he had exited from, and with the knuckles of two fingers lightly knocked.

*tap* *tap tap tap* *tap-tap*

The door opened at the completion of the secret code and Marco found himself roughly jerked through the open doorway by the front of his Jedi robe, followed by the quiet hiss of the door closing again behind him.

"I know you do that every single time I come over here," Marco said quietly as Star let go of him, "but it still scares the daylights out of me when you yank me through the door like that."

"I just really don't want to get caught. Being yelled at isn't fun."

"Have you ever actually heard a Jedi yell at a youngling?"

"You know what I mean. They may not actually raise their voice, or say anything that actually sounds angry, but...you know...they're still yelling at you."

Marco sat down on the edge of Star's bed. "So...what's up? It's the middle of the night."

Star let out a deep sigh and sat down beside him. "I couldn't sleep."

"How come?"

She shook her head and looked at the floor. "I was just...thinking about..." Star fell silent.

Marco put a hand on her shoulder. "You know you can tell me anything, right?"

"Yeah...I know..." Star took a deep breath. "I...was thinking about our duel with Master Fisto today."

Marco noticed for the first time that Star was clutching her lightsaber in her hand. "You did great," he attempted to say encouragingly.

Star didn't acknowledge his compliment. She was staring hard at her lightsaber. Like all Jedi, she had very meticulously constructed it. It was made of polished durasteel that reflected every tiny glint of light in the dim room. At the head end below the emitter, the metal was ballooned into a perfect sphere, a third of which was sliced off flat. The flat face had set into it a yellow gemstone cut into the shape of a five-point star that Star had purchased from a peddler's stand in the market district of Coruscant. A pair of bird-like wings cast from durasteel protruded from opposite sides just below the headpiece. Star had added on the entire top part of her lightsaber after an early training exercise in which the hilt had slipped through her clenched hand. The blade had badly burned her, and even though a night wearing a Bacta-filled glove had healed her scorched fingers, she added the wings and sphere at the top as a blade guard to ensure it would not slip through her fingers ever again.

Finally, she said, "When I struck at Master Fisto, I was aiming to behead him. I stopped because it wasn't a real fight, but..." She clutched the lightsaber to her chest. "...what if I hadn't?"

Marco was rather puzzled, not understanding what was bothering her. "...but you did."

"But what if I hadn't, Marco?!" Star exclaimed, still trying to keep her voice down. "What if it was a real fight? What if instead of Kit, what if it was, like, Asajj Ventress? And we were trying to prevent her from hurting innocent people. I...I would have had...to kill her. It...it's not in my nature to kill, Marco. I almost never thought about it before, but...Jedi...we say we're peacekeepers, but sometimes to keep the peace, we have to do some really...deadly...things. Cutting up battle droids is one thing, but what about...real flesh and blood beings. You can't take back a blaster shot, and you can't take back a stroke of your lightsaber, either."

"Well, you know they said Master Kenobi ki- er, defeated General Grevious today. From what I hear, the war is as good as over! You won't have to get involved, so you won't end up in that kind of situation now."

Star shook her head and stood up, slowly pacing back and forth across the room as she spoke. "But it's not just this war. Jedi go on missions outside of war time, too. What if I got called on to protect a village from a gang of pirates? Or deal with some rogue bounty hunter? The galaxy is a dangerous place, there's still lots of ways I could end up having to take someone's life."

"Yeah...yeah, you have a point. Jedi aren't supposed to aim to kill, we're supposed to try to find a non-deadly way to resolve conflict, but...yeah...sometimes it does come to...that." Marco thought for a moment. "But being a Jedi means that you have to put the safety and well-being of others above your own feelings."

Star sank back down beside her best friend again. "I just don't know if I can do that. Someday, at some point, I'm going to be responsible for protecting others, and if I have to kill someone in order to do that...even if it was the most despicable and evil being who ever lived...I just don't know that I could do it."

The room fell eerily quiet. For several moments, Star tried to bring herself to say the words she knew Marco did not want to hear, but her vocal cords refused to utter a sound.

Marco broke the silence. "You have to leave, don't you?"

"...yes. This just...isn't the life for me."

To her surprise, the next occurrence was not Marco begging her to reconsider. Instead, Marco's arm draped across her shoulders, and he pulled her into a hug.

"Okay," he said. "Then we'll go." Star looked at him and was met with Marco's ever-reassuring smile. "Together."

His head covered by the hood of his Jedi robe, lightsaber at the ready in his hand, Anakin Skywalker marched up the steps of the Jedi Temple's main entryway, followed by the the 501st legion, marching in perfect synchronization.

No trace of light remained in his eyes. Ordered by Chancellor Palpatine to execute every Jedi at the Temple, urged on by his loyalty to his new master, Anakin felt only hatred, and he saw only blood.

"Do what must be done, Lord Vader," Palpatine had said.

I will, Anakin thought. The Jedi have betrayed the Republic. They are enemies of the state. He repeated the reasons for his mission over in his head as if needing to remind and convince himself that what he was doing was right. I will make sure not even one will escape. They will all perish for what they have done.

A pair of Temple Guards flanked the entrance to the Temple, standing at attention, not even flinching at the sight of Anakin Skywalker approaching. They had no reason to suspect anything was out of the ordinary...

...Even if he did seem to be leading an awful lot of clone troopers.

Anakin ignited his lightsaber and commanded his troops. "Open fire."

"Really? Just like that?"

"Just like that. I said I would, didn't I? In fact..." Marco looked into Star's eyes. "Let's leave right now. Right this second."

Star pulled herself away from Marco's arm and frowned at him. "Really? Right now? What...what would we even do?"

"We'll go to the closest spaceport, use our Jedi credentials to hitch a ride on the next shuttle off of Coruscant. Doesn't even matter where we go. When we get there, we'll ditch any evidence that we're Jedi, and figure it out from there. Maybe we can get a job as an extra set of hands on a freighter or something."

Star didn't even know what to say. "But...but...you...you're really ready to leave just like that? I know you said you'd come with me, but it doesn't have to be right this second. We could wait a couple days or a week. Don't you even want to see Master Fisto one more time?"

"Star, all that matters to me is that you and I are together. It doesn't matter if that's as Jedi or living off the land on Dagobah. Which sounds horrible, by the way, but if that's what you want to do, we'll do it."

Star giggled.

"Besides," Marco said, pulling Star to him again. "The sooner we renounce our affiliation with the Jedi Order, the sooner doing this won't get us into trouble." He drew in Star towards him and kissed her on the mouth, reveling in the soft, warm sensation of her lips against his. He wished it could go on forever and ever, but someone was calling his name.

"Marco? Marrrrrco? MARCO!"

He jumped. "Huh, what?"

Star was staring at him, visibly confused. "I said 'Don't you even want to see Master Fisto one more time?'"

Marco blushed. He hadn't even realized he had drifted into a fantasy. He was glad the room was so dark. Perhaps Star wouldn't notice that his cheeks were as red as Tatooine's suns. "Oh, yeah, I mean-"

Something caught Marco's attention before he could finish his thought; a muffled noise pricked at his ears.

Catching the look of confusion on his face, Star asked, "What's wrong?"

"Do you hear that?"

Star listened carefully. "It kinda sounds...like blaster fire."

"Yeah...and..." Marco's eyes widened. "And screams."

They quickly jumped off the bed and hurried to the door. Star pressed the button on the activation panel on the wall and the door slid open.

Over the edge of the balcony opposite the door to Star's room, the two Padawans could see that the interior of the Jedi Temple was in chaos. Clone Troopers fought in small groups everywhere they looked, firing upon every Jedi Knight and Padawan in the Temple. The corpses of Clones and Jedi alike lay where they fell, and there were more piling up by the second.

Far below, Anakin Skywalker was engaged in lightsaber combat with a Rodian Jedi Knight who was clearly outmatched. A few short moments later and the Rodian fell, impaled by Anakin's blade.

For a moment, Marco and Star stood frozen in shock, unable to process what was happening. At last, Star willed her hand to press the button again and close the door. When the room was once again sealed, Marco and Star looked at each other...

...and they screamed.

"AAAAAAHHHHHH!"

"What in the galaxy is happening?!" Marco cried.

"I don't know! Why are our own troops attacking us?!"

"I don't know! Why does Master Skywalker look like he's helping them?!"

"I don't know! But we need to stop yelling or they're gonna find us in h-"

"Hey, I heard voices. They're coming from in here."

They both froze at the sound of the slightly electronic voices outside.

"Must be some Jedi hiding in there. I'll open the door. Prepare to fire."

Star's lightsaber was still in her hand. She shoved Marco out of the way, ignited the emerald blade, and slashed at the door controls, carving a sizable gash into the wall.

"The door won't open. They must have disabled the electrical panel."

Star extinguished her lightsaber. "That should buy us a little time. Marco, what are we going to do?!"

"I don't know, but we gotta get out of here!"

"How?! There's so many troopers out there, we'll never be able to fight our way out!"

"Yeah," Marco said, rubbing the back of his neck nervously. "Especially since I, uh...don't have my lightsaber."

"What do you mean you don't have your lightsaber?!" Star cried. "You never go anywhere without it, and you don't have it now?!"

"Hey, you hailed me on the comm while I was sleeping, and I don't sleep with it on my belt! That's just asking for a severed limb. Look, we can discuss this some other time. How are we gonna get out of here? Is there an air vent we can crawl through or something?"

"You mean this?" Star pointed to the vent on the wall, too small to even put a leg into.

"Okay, that's clearly not an option. Why doesn't this room have a window we could climb out of?"

Star looked at the lightsaber in her hand again. "Well...I have always wanted a room with a view." The blade lit up the room with its emerald glow as Star ignited it.

Marco raised his eyebrows. "That...that'll work."

Star stepped to the room's exterior wall and plunged the blade in all the way up to the hilt. The wall was nearly half a meter thick, so cutting through it required some effort. It took nearly a full minute for Star to carve out a section of the wall as high as she was tall and two meters long. When she finished cutting, she extinguished her lightsaber, clipped it to her belt, and raised her hands and closed her eyes, focusing on the wall with the Force.

"Wait!" Marco said. "Don't push it out!"

"Uh, how else are we supposed to escape?"

"We don't want to attract attention from anyone outside, and a big chunk of the wall crashing to the ground from a couple hundred feet up is probably a pretty good way to do that."

"Good point."

"I brought the charges."

"Good. Attach them to the door. If we can't open it, we'll just blow the door off!"

"Did they just say-?"

"They sure did," Star said, cutting Marco off. She pointed towards her bed. "Move over there, I have an idea."

Marco stepped out of the way. Focusing hard, Star used the Force to pull the freed section of the wall into the room. It floated upright through the air across the floor, and Star dropped it in front of the door, leaning against the wall on either side of the doorway. The room became a bit brighter, illuminated by the lights of the many surrounding buildings now shining through the makeshift window.

"Charges are set. Detonate on my mark."

Marco clenched his teeth, nervous. "Star...?"

She took him by the hand and pulled him into the corner at the foot of her bed. They crouched down and huddled together. Marco threw his arms around her and held her close. Star held him back just as tightly. Even though blocking the door with the section of the wall was her idea and she was fairly confident in her plan, she was still worried.

Should I just tell her now? Marco thought. What if these are our last few seconds together before we're both executed? I don't want to die without her knowing. "Hey, Star?" She met his eyes. "I-"

"Detonate!"

There was a loud *BANG* as the charges exploded. On the other side, the door buckled, but, braced by the section of stone wall behind it, it did not give.

"They must have it braced somehow. We'll have to cut through it."

Star and Marco slowly stood up, their arms still around each other. "Hopefully that buys us enough time to figure out a way out of here," said Star.

"Uh, yeah, right," Marco stuttered, his mind still clinging to the words he had been about to say.

Letting go of each other, they rushed to the gaping hole in the wall, looking around for an escape route.

"Any ideas, Marco?"

"Hmm..." Marco looked straight down to the Temple's base. Far below, he could see the massive opening that led into the hanger. "Well, we are directly above the hanger. Maybe we can carefully climb down and-"

He stopped mid-sentence at the sound of an LAAT/i gunship approaching. He and Star watched as it swooped in, slowed to a hover a hundred meters out from the hanger entrance, and fired a salvo of missiles into the hanger. The sounds of multiple explosions reached their ears as the hanger spat fire from within.

Marco slouched over, feeling defeated. "Orrrr...maybe not."

"Yeah, maybe not..." Star looked toward the gunship still hovering down below. "What about the gunship?"

Marco's brow furrowed. "What about the gunship?"

"We could highjack it."

"...How exactly?" Marco asked, holding up his hand awaiting an explanation.

Into his open hand, Star placed her lightsaber, and Marco's eyes to widened in surprise. "You take this. You're better with it than I am, anyway. Then you just jump to the gunship, take out the troopers on board, and then I'll jump down there with you."

Nervously, Marco looked to where the gunship hovered. Even though it was far below, it was still at least fifty meters out from where he stood on the edge of Star's new window. "Even if I use what little Force ability I have to launch myself, that's an awfully far jump...I don't think I can make it."

"Don't worry. I'll give you a boost with the Force from here when you jump."

Outside in the corridor, they heard the voices of clone troopers conversing. "I got the plasma cutter."

"We'll have them in no time, now."

They were running out of time and Marco didn't have any better ideas. "Alright. Let's give it a shot."

Star smiled at him. "Don't worry, it'll work."

Marco smiled back, and then glanced behind him. "Guess I'd better at least take a running start." He backed up to the wall opposite the gaping hole while Star got into position, prepared to give him a push with the Force. "Ready?"

"Heh heh, not really, but let's do it."

"On the count of three," Star said. "One..."

Marco braced his right foot against the wall, prepared to push off for quick acceleration.

"Two..."

He slightly adjusted his grip on Star's lightsaber. The entire plan would fall apart if he dropped it.

"THREE!"

Marco bolted forward across the tiny room. He pushed off from the ledge as he jumped through the hole in the wall, focusing with the Force as much as he could to launch further than his own legs could push him. He sailed away from the Jedi Temple, and a second later he felt himself propelled forward through the air from behind as Star sent him flying forward with the Force.

As his forward momentum began to run out, he dropped toward the top of the Republic gunship. Forty meters away from touching down, he realized that he was still traveling awfully fast.

"UuuuuhhhhhhAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!"

He focused on the gunship as best he could, which was difficult to do while screaming in terror, and attempted to use the Force to slow himself down. He managed to decrease his velocity enough that he didn't break any bones, but he still crashed down onto the top of the gunship in the least graceful way possible. Marco fell forward and rolled as he bounced across the durasteel hull, coming to a rest on the far side just above the troop bay door.

"Ow..." he moaned as he picked himself up, certain he'd have some pretty serious bruises in at least a couple of places that would make sitting very uncomfortable.

"Hey, what was that?" came that familiar electronically modified voice from inside the gunship.

"Scanner shows something on top of the hull."

"Better check it out. Open the door."

Marco quickly slid off the top of the gunship, grabbing onto the top edge of the starboard-side bay door with his fingers. The sealed door shifted out a few inches and then retracted backwards toward the rear of the gunship while Marco dangled by his fingertips. The port-side door opened at the same time.

The helmeted head of a clone trooper leaned out of the troop bay, looking toward the top of the hull. Then he noticed Marco hanging onto the door. Marco swung his right leg forward, the toe of his boot connecting with the bottom of the clone's helmet. The trooper was knocked off balance and tumbled out of the gunship, screaming as he plummeted toward the ground.

Seeing his compatriot knocked out of the gunship, a second clone popped out of the troop bay, this one with his blaster at the ready. Marco let go of the door with his right hand, the hand that was still clutching Star's lightsaber, and ignited it as the clone fired at him. He deflected the blaster bolt, and then a second, and then a third. The fourth shot ricocheted off the lightsaber's blade directly back at the clone trooper who had fired it, striking him in the chest and sending him flying out of the gunship after his brother.

"Two down," Marco said to himself. He switched off the lightsaber and quickly climbed up off of the door.

"There's a Jedi outside!" one of the other troopers inside the gunship cried. "Don't let him escape!"

The four remaining clones drew their weapons and hurried to the starboard side door, but when they looked out, there was nothing there.

"He's gone!" one trooper yelled.

Another said "He may be trying to trick us! Close the doors!"

"Oh, don't bother," came a voice from behind them as the doors slid shut.

The clone troopers whirled around to find Marco standing on the opposite side of the troop bay. He smirked, feeling rather proud of himself. "I'm already here."

And the troop bay was lit up by a green glow as Marco ignited Star's lightsaber.

From high above in her bedroom, Star watched through her hole in the wall as Marco dove inside the LAAT/i gunship just before the doors to the troop bay slid closed. Through the vents in the doors, she could see a green glow emanating from within. She grit her teeth anxiously.

Force be with him... she thought. Please be careful, Marco.

Star watched as the green light flashed around inside the troop bay as Marco fought the clone troopers inside. There was nothing she could do but hope that he was okay and wait.

"We're almost through," came a voice from the hallway. Star looked back and saw the sparks from a plasma cutter eating through the piece of the wall she had propped against the door.

Be careful, but hurry up, Marco!

The green light abruptly vanished. For a moment, nothing happened. Each second that passed felt to Star like an eternity as she waited.

And then the cockpit canopy flew open and the pilot launched out into the air before falling out of sight. A second later, the canopy closed again and troop bay doors opened. Star smiled as Marco's head popped out. He had her lightsaber in his outstretched hand and ignited it, waving it back and forth to signal to her.

"There! We're through!"

Star watched as her makeshift barricade blew apart in a cloud of dust. She could see the helmeted figures of several clone troopers through the haze raising their blaster rifles to aim at her.

No time to wait for Marco to come to me! With no time to lose, Star leaped out the window, pushing off from the ledge with her foot and using the Force to propel herself forward. She plummeted toward the gunship below, falling through the night air.

"Oh, boy!" Star realized that, despite her massive Force-launch from her bedroom, she was going to come up a meter or two short of touching down on the gunship.

"MARCOOOOO!"

Marco watched his best friend dropping like a rock from high above, heard her yell his name, and made the connection: she wasn't going to land on the gunship.

His heart started beating so hard and fast that it felt like it might break through his rib cage.

I'll never be able to stop her fall with the Force, Marco thought. Maybe I can just pull her close enough to grab her hand...?

With no time to lose, he clipped Star's lightsaber to his belt and grabbed the handhold above his head with his left hand. He leaned out of the troop bay as far as he could, his right hand outstretched, and closed his eyes, concentrating on Star with all the panicked focus he could muster.

Star could see Marco reaching out his hand to her. How does he expect me to be able to reach- am I getting closer?

Marco no longer seemed quite so far away. Star stretched out her arm, hoping that she'd be able to grab Marco's hand before she fell past.

The distance between them shrank and then vanished. Marco and Star both grabbed for each other's hand and successfully took hold, but Star was falling so fast that her momentum jerked Marco's left hand free from where he was holding onto the handle inside the troop bay.

"GAH-" he cried as he fell forward. Marco hit the floor with a loud crash. Over the sound of the collision with the floor, he heard another sound. Something popped, and he felt it in his shoulder.

Now he lay on his side, his right arm and head outside of the gunship, Star dangling precariously several hundred feet in the air as she desperately clung to Marco's arm.

"AAARRRGH!" Marco yelled. "My arm! Agghhhhh!"

"Marco!" Star called up to him. "Are you okay?"

"No, I am definitely not!" He groaned in pain, struggling to hold Star. "I think my shoulder is dislocated! I can't pull you up! You're gonna have to climb!"

Star's arm burned in pain, too, both from the jolt of the sudden stop and the difficultly of supporting her entire weight solely by her right arm. She stretched out her free arm as high as she could and came up just a few centimeters short of being able to grab onto the ledge at the edge of the troop bay.

"Marco," she gasped. "I can almost reach it! Can you pull me up at all?"

"Rrrrrrrr," Marco growled through his gnashed teeth as he tried not to scream in pain. "I'll try!"

He kicked his feet over closer to the bulkhead at the head end of the troop bay and found the edge of the opening into the cockpit with the tops of his boots. Pulling against the edge of the bulkhead with all of the strength he could muster, Marco slowly slid himself further into the gunship's troop bay by his feet, lifting Star higher in tiny increments.

Star stretched out her arm as far as she could reach. Her fingertips grazed the metal hull at the edge of the troop bay. "I'm...almost...there!"

With one last Herculean effort, Marco pulled himself backwards enough that Star could grab onto the ledge. She let go of his hand, and with both arms now able to assist her, she pulled herself up and crawled into the gunship. Without even rising from her hands and knees, she quickly pushed Marco away from the edge, then helped him up to a sitting position against the bulkhead and wrapped him in a hug. He could not hug her back; both of his arms dangled at his sides. For a moment, they sat quietly, both panting hard to catch their breath. Then Star released him.

"Marco?"

"Yeah?"

"This was a really stupid plan."

Marco frowned, confused. "Why do you say that? Other than my shoulder getting dislocated, I thought it went off without a hitch."

"Oh, there's a hitch, there's a biiiig 'ol hitch."

"What?"

Star gestured to the cockpit. "Do you know how to fly?"

Marco's eyes went wide. "I thought you did."

Star slowly shook her head. "Noooooooo..."

Marco looked toward the cockpit again. "Yeah, that could be a problem."