A/N: Thank you to Pulsar, Brick, and Walt-Disney and Anime for the wonderful reviews (high praise indeed, Brick; I'm grateful)! And wait no longer for Anakin; he's back in the midst of things in this chapter as the Republic stands on the precipice (while the Separatists have problems of their own to worry about) …
He offers no opening statement. The time for words has long since passed. There is no one to speak to, anyway: For all of the Separatist senators in this chamber, Maul sees only two people truly here: Tyranus and himself.
Maul leaps up to the front-row senatorial seats as politicians scramble for safety like crazed animals. Ignore them. Distractions. Summoning the Force, Maul vaults up to a higher platform, then uses the momentum of his leap to jump a final time until he is face-to-face with Dooku on the Parliamentary Speaker's platform. Dooku hardly has time to draw his lightsaber in defense before Maul swipes with his blade, sword on sword, the Sith setting aside all lesser arguments and claims and bringing their contest before the oldest and most final of tribunals: The court of life and death.
Wordlessly they clash. Maul swings, half-spins, counters Dooku's strike, then swings again. Light fractalizes through the great crystal windows of the Separatist Senate as the two Sith Lords duel for nothing less than the fate of the Dark Side. Death swings its scythe with abandon, and only a timely dodge, a precise block, and the stroke of luck—or the Force—keeps him at bay.
Maul twirls away from Dooku's attack, spins about, and kicks his foe in the chest. Dooku grunts as he topples off of the podium. He flips in the air and lands in the senatorial seating as politicians scatter; his opponent is right on his heels. Maul drives his saber downward with lethal intent, missing an evading Dooku by centimeters as he impales a seat. A Gossam senator nearby topples to the floor, shrieking and jumping out of the way as Dooku leaps at Maul and launches a burst of lightning.
Too slow. Maul sidesteps and thrusts. Dooku backs off, saber twirling, red light bathing the hall in a bloody dusk. As Maul attacks again, Dooku flips off of the stands and lands at the bottom of the Senate, mouth contorted in frustration, eyes sharp and narrow. Already his chest is heaving. Old man.
To Maul the fight is invigorating, enlivening. Nothing so fruitful as battle. He drops down over the side of the seats and lands, flourishing his double-bladed lightsaber as the remaining Separatist senators scurry for the exits. Now that those insects are gone there is but the two of them, two Sith with the Force and the universe to watch as judges.
"Bold of you, Lord Maul," Dooku sneers as Maul advances on him. In the setting sunlight, Dooku's shadow falls just short of touching his rival. "To come to Raxus itself. No lack of courage on your part."
"There is nowhere you can run. Nowhere I can't find you. The Dark Side is mine. And I will burn this whole galaxy to claim my right," Maul hisses as he marches forward.
Dooku scowls. "You will go no further, beast. Bold your attack is, but foolish. Tens of thousands of battle droids patrol this city alone. You will never leave here alive."
"We will see," Maul seethes.
Once more he is on the attack. He rushes Dooku, lightsaber aflurry as he strikes, again, again, again. Dooku backpedals slowly, carefully. Rage versus experience. Passion against precision. Chaos and order. They are opposite sides of the same face of the Force, dark against dark, the shadow bifurcated as they trade blows, one after another after another. The man who dreams of empire versus the phantom menace.
Maul backs away from another blast of lightning, rips a seat out of the Senate stands, and hurls it with all his might at Dooku. His opponent leaps to avoid the chair as it races by, the missile blasting through the floor-to-ceiling windows at the chamber's north end and shattering the stained glass. As Dooku leaps, Maul concentrates another burst of the Force and lets loose. His push slams Dooku head-on. Flying back, Dooku careens through the shattering glass, still managing to land on his feet on the foyer outside. Maul can feel the fallen Jedi Master's move before it comes. With a rush of hatred, Dooku brings down the rest of the great window before launching the breaking glass like a sandblast at his enemy. No time to evade, and nowhere to evade to: Maul drops to one knee, pressing his hand to the ground and repulsing a burst of Force that repels the flying glass shards like a shield. He looks up once the attack is past, then charges.
Fight. Fight on. Fight and finish.
Dooku is ready as Maul breaks out into the sunlight. Their sabers meet in the brilliant sunset glow, orange and gold aura painting the backdrop for their flaring, snapping crimson blades. Dooku swings to attack. Maul blocks. As their blades lock, Maul snarls at his enemy. "You were never anything but Sidious's pawn," he spits. "I am his apprentice. I am the heir to the Sith. And when I have killed you, history will forget you."
"Look around," Dooku growls. "History has already forgotten you. I rule half of the known galaxy. You are nothing."
A blast echoes from below the Senate tower. Then another. Black smoke hanging in the light. Gunfire and blaster shots lighting up around Raxulon as Maul's men begin their attack across the city. "I am everything," Maul says, his eyes locked on Dooku. "I am the future."
"I have seen the future, and you are not part of it," Dooku says. "You are powerful, Lord Maul. Strong in the Dark Side. But you are still but a novice. So much you have never learned. Your very words betray you, because you have never seen the value of a pawn."
He throws Maul back with a push of the Force. Maul moves to attack again, but a thumping sound from within the Senate stops him. It isn't the blasts of the attack on the streets below. It isn't his heartbeat, nor the war-drum pounding in his ears. It is someone new.
From within the Senate, a green lightsaber flashes on. Then a blue saber joins it.
Then the metal-encased monster that is General Grievous charges.
Maul does not have time to evade. He braces for the blow as Grievous bats his lightsaber aside, plants his shoulder into Maul's chest, and drives the two of them right off of the balcony and into the air. Seventy stories of freefall below. Grievous whirls in mid-air, fires a grappling hook from his right arm, and secures a viewing platform two stories beneath the Senate Chamber. "So long," he taunts just as the hook latches into the duracrete and Maul flies past him.
A pang of fury spears Maul as he tumbles in the light. His enemy was so close. Right at the end of his lightsaber. One twinge of fate, one ounce of luck, and Tyranus would be dead, his beast Grievous nothing but scrap metal, and Maul the unchallenged ruler of the Sith. Instead he is now ten stories away and falling faster and faster as Separatist security droids converge in the city, the chaos unleashed but Maul's plan in tatters.
It infuriates him. Enrages him. He channels his hatred, bottles it up until he can no longer contain it, then unleashes all of that anger in a primal scream as he tumbles. He reaches out his hand as the ground comes up to meet him. Maul throws all of that Dark Side energy into one massive blast, shattering the duracrete, arresting his momentum, and blasting three waiting battle droids into detritus as the Sith Lord smashes into the ground like a meteor, one palm pressed to the broken earth, the other balled into a fist.
He looks up as more battle droids rush in. I could have killed you, Tyranus. I could have done it right there. But you have not defeated me, even if your pet has saved you this one time. You coward, you imitator, you pitiful cockroach who clings to power like a parasite and then has the gall to claim the mantle of the Sith. I will not let up now, and I will not let up until you are dead and the Dark Side is mine. Even if it takes me another day. Another year. The rest of my life. I will not rest until I have what is rightfully mine.
Sae hears the blasts, sees the first burst of black smoke, and her lightsaber is in hand. Explosions near the Parliamentary Building—chaos coming to Raxus. Just as Dooku foresaw.
Already panicked crowds hurry away from the commotion. Sae tries making her way upstream against the pedestrian surge, but this narrow-alley bazaar has turned into a flash flood of people seeking refuge. Brilliant fabrics and bright gems scatter as people push and shove and scamper to get away, luxuries abandoned and left to litter the vacated stalls and jam-packed street. "Let me through," Sae shouts as a panicking Herglic bumps into her, nearly knocking her down. "Clear a lane! Let me through!"
Her protests ineffective against the crowd, Sae ignites her lightsaber. Immediately a hole in the crowd gapes around her as the people scream, panic flowing away as if she has sprung a wound in the river of traffic. No time to worry about that, however; they have to fend for themselves. With the Force as her aid, Sae leaps up atop a stall, balancing with arms askew for a moment before finding her footing and leaping a second time to the rooftops. From this height the view clears, and Sae spots red and green blaster fire flashing in the distance, near the south end of the Parliamentary Building.
Shit. Under orders from Dooku to keep watch and maintain security, she'd sent Pella to stick close to the Senate while she held the merchant wards and commercial sectors. She'd expected any clandestine attack of the type Dooku expected to originate here, where foot traffic is thickest during the day and it is easy for even armed and armored men to disappear into the crowds. Instead, it seems, this unknown assailant has gone right for Dooku and the political heart of the Confederacy. Republic? Or someone else?
No time to think about it. With her lightsaber out, Sae sprints over the rooftops, jumping across an alley, landing in a somersault, and surging forward. A well-coordinated attack could mean dozens dead with a wasted moment. One hesitation is the difference between defusing a bomb and watching it take a hundred civilian casualties. One delay trades life for death for any unlucky senators fleeing for safety.
Sae leaps from a rooftop over a wider avenue just as a landspeeder lifts off. She plants a hand on the vehicle's cowling, handsprings into the air, and bounds onto the opposite roof just as her first opponent of the day rears up. A scruffy-looking Weequay with a back-mounted, crusty old jetpack belching black smoke, like a cross between a Hutt thug and Lendon Rust. Just the thought of that scum fuels a surge of anger in Sae, and she sprints at the Weequay as he lands, sees her, and leaps back in shock. "Ah! Jedi!"
Not quite. She spins away from his first shot, reflects the second, then reaches out and pulls with the Force. So easy. She drags him into the path of her lightsaber, takes off his head with one clean swipe, and keeps moving. Another rooftop, another, then an intersection. Below a trio of Falleen—better-dressed and -armored than the Weequay, this lot—have a pair of Nemoidian security personnel and a gaggle of silken-clothed civilians under fire. Sae vaults off of the rooftop, grabs a loose panel and wrenches it free in mid-air, and hurls the debris at the Falleen as she falls.
The impromptu missile impales one of the attackers. The two survivors roll away, looking for the danger. Too late. Sae cleaves through one with her blade, then half-spins and kicks the other's gun out of his hands. She finishes turning, lightsaber whirling in her hands as she drives it into the Falleen's stomach, throwing the dying enemy away with the Force without a glance. "Get them out of here," she says, gesticulating at the Nemoidians. "Now. Go."
It almost feels good, killing and winning like this. It's the first thing Sae's felt she has real control over in ages—the power over life and death, swatting away attacks and ending foes with so little effort. This is the draw of the Dark Side. Not power, not authority, not base cruelty, but control, the control over a chaotic galaxy, order in person. Even if that means a fight against this assortment of faceless nobodies, whoever they are. Like a Hutt syndicate or a crime band, but why would they go after one of the most fortified locales in Separatist space? And how?
Questions for another time, because now Sae spots a familiar flash of red light a block away, just three blocks off of the Parliamentary Building's south entrance. A lightsaber. Pella. Damn. Not again. She won't let it happen again.
Ignoring the growing stitch in her side, Sae bounds along the rooftops, hurdling obstructions and air vents and pumping her arms. A little closer, come on now. Run. Run.
When she lands on the street, however, she looks that lightsaber-wielder dead in the eye and knows she has not found Pella. She has found something, someone, far more interesting. She has found revenge. Old, old revenge.
That vision from the Celestial on Ziost. Yellow-and-black tattoos. Horned head impaling Master Gallia. Flash of red. Death.
Zabrak.
He is huge, this monster. Muscles like duracrete blocks. Gouged yellow eyes aglow. Cranial horns like spearheads. The double-bladed lightsaber in his giant hands seems a toy. And all around him are bodies—bodies of the moneyed, of the elite, of richly-dressed corpses who in life bore titles like merchant, executive. Senator. All of them dead in this raid, this quick attack, dead at the hands of a name Sae has only heard a few times yet has ingrained into her head. Savage Oppress.
"Finally," the Zabrak, the monster, Savage, says as he turns to face Sae, "a real foe." He spits and looks her over, eyes settling on her lightsaber. "What are you supposed to be, human? Another of Dooku's pets?"
"Revenge," Sae says, her tone flat, her head suddenly empty. One word is all she needs. It is all so clear, the world so simple, everything in its place. She knows exactly what to do here and now.
Kill this monster. Avenge her master.
She lunges at Savage. He roars and counters, blocking her blow, pushing her away, and throwing all of his strength into a swipe. Sae blocks, but Savage's attack carries so much power that her guard is thrown aside in one swipe. The Zabrak twists for a killing follow-up, but Sae backpedals, lurching to the side and watching. He has power. He has strength. He has hate. But he has no technique.
She stabs. A feint. Savage buys it, throwing his leverage into an attempted parry and finding only air. Sae holds back, surrendering the opportunity for a potential strike in order to secure her footing. Patience, patience. She is learning.
"Weak," Savage growls. "You fight like a Jedi. Come at me."
He charges. Sae spins away like a matador. She can feel it: He is growing frustrated at her denial. Savage rushes her again, and as he launches with his lightsaber outstretched Sae slides her saber along its blade, just enough to give resistance but not enough to take the force of the blow. Then, again, she backsteps, maintaining distance. The Zabrak is growing angrier. Reckless. Rash.
Savage howls and stabs downward. Sae trots away as he buries a hole in the duracrete. Her heart is pounding but her thoughts are clear, so clear. Keep it up. Don't give in to the Dark Side mania surging in waves off of the brutal Zabrak. He shouts and slices, stabs, air meeting him each time as Sae dances around in a half-circle, her lightsaber a ringmaster's baton, her eyes never wavering.
She knows enough. The next time Savage charges her, Sae grabs one of the fallen bodies, grips it with the Force, and throws it in the Zabrak's way. She already knows his reaction: Rather than dodging the body, he cuts upward and slices it in two, thundering through the blow. But Sae is not there: She ducks under his uppercut, too quick for Savage's strength, and as he whirls to intercept her, she stabs her lightsaber just far enough. The tip gouges the side of Savage's knee and he stumbles, shouting in pain and surprise, swiping wildly with his blade.
But again Sae is too quick. She moves through and under the counterattack, somersaulting and swishing her saber where Savage's guard fails. A quick cut against his chest, a mere flesh wound, but the two attacks hitting home have enraged him into animalistic ferocity. He roars and cuts wildly, then throwing a massive push in the Force that just misses Sae as she evades. She feints, takes a step and draws his attempt at a block, before leaping to the side and making her move.
It is quick. Savage slices at her and Sae raises her blade as if to parry. But as the Zabrak's sword comes in, Sae deactivates her blade. His lightsaber moves on past as it cuts through air, and before he can react, Sae stabs at his head and lights her saber once more.
The blade reaches out and pierces Savage's skull, entering through his right eye and exiting his occipital bone. There are no dying words. There is no noble death. Only the killing blow, and immediately thereafter Savage crumples to the ground, dead, no more dangerous than inanimate matter.
Sae switches off her lightsaber and lets out her breath. "Weak, huh?" she says as she looks at the still body. All that strength and all that power in the Dark Side, yet now he is no more than any other body amidst the others. No different than Adi Gallia now. "That's for my master, you animal."
She does not have time to relax, however, because she can feel that she is not alone. A wave in the Dark Side like a tsunami, rage and hurt and fury. She hears the scream before she sees his face.
Another Zabrak. Thin. Wiry. Red-and-black tattoos, his black tunic scarred by a blaster shot. But his yellow eyes are alive with anger as he looks between the fallen Savage and his killer. In the new Zabrak's hands is a double-bladed lightsaber just like his ally's.
Great. Two of them.
Sae readies herself for another fight, but this new Zabrak will not give in to blind brutality so easily. He reaches out with the Force and grabs Savage's lightsaber, igniting it and marching towards Sae with four red blades lit. Sae backs up, measuring the fight. There's a chill to this one that balances out his fire. A calculating darkness.
"Master! Sae!"
No, no.
Pella rushes in from a side street, her lightsaber ready. The red-and-black Zabrak sees her just as Sae does. He reaches out with the Force, and Sae is helpless to stop him. "No!" Sae shouts.
The Zabrak grabs Pella about the neck. She struggles as he lifts her into the air and throws her aside like a doll. She crashes into a building, lightsaber deactivating, groaning, alive but battered. Sae leaps to put herself between her new enemy and her injured apprentice, blade at the ready. Not again. Not on her watch. "No further," she hisses at the Zabrak.
He stops. Straightens up. Looks her dead in the eye. "An apprentice for an apprentice," he says, his voice cool. "If it is death you seek, then allow me to provide."
He takes a step towards her, but one step is all he gets. The building to his right shudders, the stone splits, and the wall explodes as a heavy object thunders through the breach. Sae ducks and holds her lightsaber out in defense. The Zabrak flies backwards, struggling to find his footing as General Grievous plows through the remnants of the wall with two lightsabers outstretched like spears and another two mowing like razors out in front.
"Die!" the cyborg booms. He slams two of his sabers down into the ground as the Zabrak lurches away, glancing between Grievous and Sae, his eyes narrowing. His odds are grim, and he knows it.
As Grievous rushes him, the Zabrak leaps up to the rooftops and sprints away. "Coward!" Grievous storms, ignoring Sae and bounding down the adjacent alley. "Come back here! Get back here and die!"
Sae lets them go. She rushes over to Pella, wraps an arm around her woozy apprentice's shoulders, and helps her sit up. "You're okay. Up you go. Come on. Be strong," Sae says, patting her shoulder. "You're okay."
Pella groans and rubs her head. Sae stretches her lightsaber out as she huddles with the girl as if warding off wild predators, the battle behind her, Adi Gallia's killer just another corpse and Raxus still under attack. But the immediate danger has passed, Pella is all right, and Sae is not dead just yet.
"Get out of here. Get out of my way! Go!"
Anakin bounds out of his airspeeder where he's parked it right in the middle of the Avenue of the Core Founders, the statue-lined plaza carpeting the way to the smoldering Senate Building. Crowds have already gathered about—media journalists and reporters, bureaucrats and pages, even average pedestrians simply coming by to look at what the news has already announced to all of Coruscant: A bomb has detonated in the Senate during a session. Causalities are in the four digits.
Remarkably, the grand old building is still standing and, outside of the smoke trailing out of several vents, looks none the worse for wear. All the worse for everyone inside, however: According to the early reports, the Senate's hardy construction, designed to withstand limited orbital bombardment, acted as a shell to compound the bomb's force against itself, greatly increasing the internal damage as the fiery blast found nowhere to go except to leak out into the building's commercial and bureaucratic corridors.
Anakin doesn't care about the thousands dead, that nameless, faceless blob of politicians and attendants. He only cares about one name. One face. One love.
Padme. Padme.
She said she wasn't attending today's session, but he will not be sure until he sees her face again, feels her warm body in his arms. "Move!" he shouts as he shoves members of the crowd aside. "Move! Now!"
Too many onlookers. Too many gazing faces. Anakin reaches up above his head and ignites his lightsaber.
The crowd parts at the sight of his blue blade, murmurs and shrieks abounding. A journalist with a floating camdroid nearby exclaims, "Oh! A Jedi! Master Jedi, here, Master Jedi!"
Anakin ignores her, still surging through the crowd. Padme. You better not have been in there when that bomb went off.
"Master Jedi! Master Skywalker!" the journalist persists, hurrying through the crowd after him. "Master Skywalker! Can we get a moment of your time?"
"No!"
"Master Skywalker, reports say two Jedi Masters were inside at the time of the blast. Can you give us a statement on behalf of the Order?"
He grabs the camdroid with the Force and hurls it out of his face. "Get out of my way!"
The journalist shrinks as Anakin bursts through the crowd at last. Behind a cordon of security personnel clothed in the gray armor of the Judicial Forces rises the Senate. In its shadow huddles a small group of people with their heads down, accompanied by a team of red-blazoned clone troopers, the Coruscant Guard. And among that huddle—
"Padme!" shouts Anakin when he spots her. He pushes forward against the Judicial Forces guards as one of them stops him with his hand. "Let me through!"
"Sir, this is a restricted area," the guard says.
"I'm a Jedi Knight, damn it. To hell with your orders!"
"Sir—"
Anakin's anger boils over. He grabs the guard with the Force, constricting his neck and picking him off the ground. The guard chokes, gasps, grabs his neck as Anakin scowls and tightens his grip. Little meddling bastard, getting in his way, getting between him and his love. You should know your place.
A voice stops him from letting his anger swallow him up. "Guards, get back. Let him through."
Padme. He drops the guard, looks up. His anger washes away. And he is walking forward, now jogging, running, until he crashes into Padme and throws his arms around her, anger replaced with thankfulness. He doesn't care who sees. He doesn't pay a single thought to what they think. Let them think. Someone bombed the Senate, and they're going to care about attachments and the Jedi Code now? Forget them. This is his whole world.
"I thought you might've been in there," he breathes as they detach from each other. "I came as fast I could."
"You're all right," she says, eyes watering. "I'm fine. It's…" she looks around, suddenly aware of the situation, of all the eyes. "We shouldn't—"
"Forget them"
"Ani—"
From behind her, Bail Organa clears his throat. Anakin grimaces and lets Padme go. "Master Skywalker," Bail says. If he thinks anything, if he suspects or accuses, his tone does not betray him. "It's good you're safe."
"Senator Organa," Anakin murmurs. "What's the situation?"
"I've heard from a number of senators who weren't present today. Halle Burtoni, Lux Bonteri, Riyo Chuchi," Bail says, "but many more who were. Over half the senators are gone. Seventy percent of the body reported in for roll call, and all were wiped out in one blast. And…not just them."
"Meaning?"
Padme grits her teeth. "Master Windu and Master Tiin were in there as well," she says. "A few more Jedi were also on hand to watch the proceedings. I don't know all of them, but Master Coleman Kcaj was one, at least."
Seventy percent of the Senate. Three members of the Jedi Council, including Mace Windu. Anakin balls his hands into fists. "Who did it?"
"No idea," says Bail. "Search and rescue teams are still combing through the Senate now, but I haven't heard of a single survivor yet, let alone any trace of who planted the bomb."
Anakin points to the nearest clone. "You, trooper," he says. "What's your name?"
"Sir," the clone says, straightening up. How much more dedicated they are compared to those Judicial Forces clowns. "CC-4477, sir."
"I said name, soldier, not designation."
"Thire, sir. Commander Thire."
"Have your teams found any survivors, Commander Thire? Any indication about who was behind this?"
The clone shakes his head. "Sir, we have scanner traces of the bomb blast. The weapon wasn't designed to destroy: Most of the Senate's structure is still intact, including the various promenades. It was an incendiary device meant to superheat the air. It cooked the senators alive, vaporized them in an instant, and those who didn't burn suffocated when the oxygen burned off. If the culprit was inside, they're dead. If they're alive, they wouldn't have been on the premises—at least not deep within the Senate—when the explosion happened."
"Stars above," Bail exclaims. "This is a crime beyond belief. You have no idea who could've done it, trooper? No clue, even?"
Before Commander Thire can answer, one of the few news screens outsides of the Senate blurs to life, still intact and connected to an independent power grid. The holographic form of a journalist blurs to life, quickly replaced by the camera-fed scene of the podium at the Republic Military Center utilized by the admiralty for military public relations announcements. But this is no mere announcement being broadcast: It is Grand Admiral Tarkin who now steps before the podium, delivering words before all of Coruscant, all of the Republic: "Less than an hour ago," Tarkin begins as Anakin's chest tightens, "an atrocity beyond measure struck at the heart of the Republic. A bomb planted in the midst of the Senate killed countless senators, along with onlookers—even Jedi Masters were caught in the blast. With one blow our enemies have struck us deeply, wounding us grievously. Preliminary reports say that the Separatist Alliance, our sworn enemies, were behind this cowardly attack. Our hearts cry out in mourning. But so too do our hearts demand answers. Vengeance. Action."
"Not long ago, I, alongside the Jedi Order, was elected as custodian of the Senate," Tarkin continues. Padme is silent; Bail watches wordlessly. "I swore to maintain order, to uphold the righteousness of the Republic, and to protect democracy. I swear to you, brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, citizens of the Republic—I swear to you that we will not let this insult go unanswered. The criminals who perpetrated this massacre will pay with their lives. And we will not dither and wait on a decision: We will act. We will fight. We will destroy the Separatists who have burned our galaxy and thrown it into chaos, and now strike at our foremost of institutions."
"I call upon the surviving members of the Senate, along with the Jedi Order, to defend those fallen, to sound off in the silence of their lost voices. Stand and shout with me today. Shout, shout. Shout as I do, shout against the Separatist menace so that we may triumph and win this war," Tarkin says, raising his hands above his head and bringing them down as fists. "In order to secure the retribution our worlds and people so deserve, I am moving the Republic into true war footing. These past three years have seen us struggle, but no more shall we fall back. Not one step back. Not again. I promise you that. So confident am I that I hereby proclaim myself—as a temporary measure to secure the order of the Republic and destroy our enemies—Supreme Chancellor of the Republic!"
Silence. Stunned silence. Then Bail Organa presses his hand to his mouth, shakes his head, and murmurs, "You bastard."
"He can't do that," Padme says. She looks between Anakin and Bail frantically. "Someone bombs the Senate and he immediately jumps in and uses it to promote himself? He can't. He can't."
"He just did," Anakin says. It is strange, his feelings. For so long he has wanted someone to do exactly this: To seize power. To unleash the full strength of the Republic, to cut out all the fat and waste and release wrath upon their enemies. But Tarkin's speech is too convenient, the timing too quick. And his focus, his blame—the Separatists—much, much too easy. Who else would bomb the Senate, after all? Who else would strike so deeply, so harshly, at the Republic's heart?
Who indeed? Anakin remembers what Tarkin said to him when they met on Lola Sayu: I needn't worry about my career. I've fallen into favor with the Chancellor.
Slowly, surely, Anakin's anger grows. Padme could've been in there. One twist of fate, and Padme would be dead right now.
"I'm going in there," he says.
Commander Thire looks to him. "Sir, we have SAR teams on site already."
"I don't care, soldier. I'm going in."
"Anakin, there's no point. We need to regroup after what Tarkin just said, we need to—" Padme begins.
Anakin cuts her off. "Go somewhere safe. Get out of here. You too, Senator Organa."
Bail regards him quizzically. "You're searching for survivors, Master Skywalker?"
No. He cannot tell them what he heard on Sullust. What he felt. What Dooku revealed to him and him alone.
My master stood at the heart of galactic power. Darth Sidious.
Palpatine.
"I'm searching for answers," Anakin says.
Without another word he turns and marches into the ruined Senate.
A thousand gunshots ring out on either side as the dunes of Mandalore explode into chaos.
Bo-Katan rises on her jetpack and fires her back-mounted missile at Malicos. The Sith apprentice leaps aside as the blast hits the sand, throwing him back with its force. Then Bo is away, flying towards the Mandalorian lines as the Separatist army charges forward.
Saw grabs Tamri as the lasers fly. "Get down, Jedi!" he says as they both hit the dirt. "We're sitting ducks out here! We need to get back to our line!"
Ventress drops to one knee alongside them, reflecting blaster shots as they come. "Don't worry about that," she shouts over the sound of battle. "The lines are coming to us."
Down the hill rushes Saw's partisan army, all shouts and passion and battle vigor. Basilisk war droids burst skyward from the doomsday vault's hanger, lifting into the air and roaring with metal-born rage as their Mandalorian riders urge them forward, wielding rifles and pistols to complement the droids' weapon systems. From the other side the Separatist army surges forth like a tidal wave. Spider walkers and AATs close in from all sides, and the two clashing armies collide in a mass of fire and light and will, a struggle for the soul of Mandalore.
"We can't stay here!" Tamri shouts as a tank blast hits to her left, throwing up a cloud of sand and smoke. "We need to move!"
"To our right," Saw says, pointing to a rocky outcropping. "Regroup with—"
A primal scream of rage cuts him off as Taron Malicos bursts through the smoke, his lightsaber leading the way. Saw levels his rifle and fires. Malicos bats the shot away with ease and throws Saw back with a push of the Force. Tamri rises, lightsaber ready, getting between them. "It's me you want," she shouts. "Come get me."
"Gladly, Jedi," Malicos says. "Sae is going to be so upset when she learns she fell to the Dark Side for nothing. That you were here and alive all this time. But no matter. I'll give Dooku your head, and she'll know you're dead for good."
"You don't know anything about my master!"
Malicos roars with laughter. "I know her better than you do by now, girl. I know just why she embraces the darkness. I even know that she has a new apprentice. You've been replaced," he taunts. "To think it could've been you at my side if things had gone differently. It could've been you kneeling before Dooku now, if only Sae hadn't gotten in the way on that asteroid. But so it goes. Stand and die, Dallin."
"Try it!"
Malicos launches a blast of lightning at her. Tamri raises her lightsaber in defense, but she isn't ready for the strength he throws behind it. The electricity glances off her blade and shocks her, throwing her down as she cries out, pain coursing from head to toe. She rushes back to her feet. Set aside the pain. You have to fight. No matter what. This is what a Jedi has to do.
Malicos raises his saber. "It's over," he says as he brings the blade down on her.
A red lightsaber bursts forward and catches his strike. Ventress leaps forward, shoving Tamri back with one hand while maintain her defense with the other. "Get out of here, girl," she snarls. "Go back to your friends. This fight is mine. Apprentice and apprentice."
"Move aside, banshee!" Malicos snarls. "You had your time. You're a failure. Lay down and die with the rest of these failures."
"Make me, beast!" Ventress hisses. "Your head can give Dooku my regards. Now fall!"
Malicos shouts and crashes down on her guard, the two Sith apprentices—former and present—striking at each other as Tamri scampers back. She is torn: Ventress could use her help, another lightsaber against the Sith apprentice. But Malicos far outclasses her, and Ventress is striking at him so ferociously, so passionately, that Tamri can only stand back and watch. As if Ventress's whole existence is on the line, the entirety of her past and her service to Dooku unleashed in a bloody roar as she unleashes her fury and the rage at her betrayal by the man she once called master.
Blaster shots draw Tamri's attention away. Super battle droids rush forward, firing as they go, and she knocks away shots with her blade as she sidesteps towards Saw. The first of his partisans reach their leader as they let loose a flurry of rifle fire against the battle droid lines, charging forward without a care towards safety or self-preservation. "Come on," Saw booms as he rises, rifle ablaze. "Kill 'em all!"
Tamri rushes with him into hell. They engage at knife-fight range, closing with the enemy to stave off any orbital bombardment from the Separatist fleet above. But at this close range the enemy armor is on top of them: An AAT scissors through the partisan lines, unleashing a hail of anti-personnel shells as it goes. "That one," Saw says, pointing with his rifle to the AAT. "With me, Jedi; men, with me!"
Cutting through a pair of battle droids in the way, Tamri jumps and lands on the AAT's cowling as the tank fires. She ducks under the swiveling barrel, leaps up to the turret's hatch, and jams her lightsaber into the armor. Cutting a hole takes only seconds, and with a push of the Force she caves in the metal. "Saw!"
He needs no prompting. As soon as the hatch bores in Saw pitches a grenade into the tank. He and Tamri leap free as the AAT explodes, pitching into the sand as a smoldering wreck.
"More coming, right side," one of his partisans shouts as battle droids and spider tanks close in.
"Hold 'em off, just hold 'em off," Saw orders, firing and moving, moving and firing.
As the spider tank bears down on them, it suddenly erupts in a flash of flame and metal. Ursa Wren roars past on her Basilisk, the Mandalorian droid mount howling and unleashing a torrent of plasma blasts at the Separatist infantry as Ursa adds to the carnage with her rifle. "Damn," Saw says as he takes cover behind the downed spider droid. "Four thousand years old and those things still pack a wallop."
"I'm not arguing," says Tamri, sending a blaster shot back at a battle droid. "More tanks coming in."
Saw shakes his head. "Let the Mandalorians take 'em," he says. "We handle the infantry that's bugging the fliers. Those droids with missile launchers—we gotta take them out."
Tamri peaks out from behind the downed spider tank. A gaggle of battle droid infantry armed with mobile surface-to-air rocket launchers unload on a passing pair of Basilisks, the two Mandalorian fliers evading just quickly enough to dodge the missiles. "I see them. Let's go," says Tamri.
She charges at the battle droids with Saw and a team of partisans alongside her. Infantry fire comes at them like a hail of knives. She defends, holding her ground, taking down one battle droid with a reflected bolt before reaching out with the Force, pulling the downed droid's gun to her off-hand, and shooting back at her attackers. One, two, three. Shoot, deflect, move. Shoot again. Maybe it's uncivilized, but blaster fire has a way of making a statement.
As the battle droids converge on her, a missile slams into their position and blows several apart. Then a Basilisk drives into the ground and smashes a crab droid with one armored forearm, howling and leveling its other arm like a plow as it throws aside Separatist forces. It turns to the right, fires a plasma shot, and burns a hole in an advancing AAT. From atop the Basilisk, Korkie levels a pistol and shoots a straggler. "Tamri!" he calls out from atop the mount. "Come on, get on."
"Go Jedi," Saw says. "We got things down here."
She doesn't hesitate. She knocks away a stray blaster bolt, leaps, and lands atop the Basilisk behind Korkie. Sitting down on the cowling behind him, she grips his waist and says, "You're a flyboy now, huh?"
"Oh, shut up," he says, kicking his heels into the Basilisk. "Yah! Go!"
The Basilisk snarls and leaps airborne, shooting its frontal wave cannon at an incoming spider tank and takings its legs out from under it. Then it thrusts forward, engines going from zero to maximum, and Tamri tightens her grip on Korkie to keep from tumbling off. "Sorry!" she shouts.
"Don't worry about me, worry about the things shooting at us," Korkie says.
An AAT blast misses them by a meter, and the Basilisk pulls hard to the right. Again Tamri just manages to hold on. "Well, don't try to throw me off!"
"I can't really help it, okay? It's kind of got a mind of its own."
"Can't you tell it to slow down?"
"I don't know, what do you want me to do, give it a scolding?"
"You know, Korkie, if that works, I'm not going to judge you."
A red laser burst flies overhead, and Korkie ducks. "Damn, too close."
Tamri ignites her lightsaber and looks back as a vulture droid zooms past them, banking away and lobbing an energy torpedo at another Basilisk. It strikes home: The war droid howls a death scream as it erupts in fire and smoke, peeling towards the ground while its rider leaps free and ignites his jetpack. "Gah," Korkie exclaims. He taps his wrist comm and says, "Aunt Bo? They've got air support."
"I see it. Fighters coming in," Bo-Katan replies. "Stay alert up there."
A flight of hyena starbombers drop down over the Separatist army and charge the onrushing Basilisks, but they don't make it far. An ear-splitting clang forces Tamri to cover her ears and wince. She looks up in time to watch a flock of torpedoes race out like falcons at the droid bombers, picking one out of the sky, then another, then another. Another clang, and a massive blast plumes out of an AAT on the ground. Then, with a rush of exhaust the War Maiden thunders by overhead, its point-defense blasters raking the ground with rivers of automatic fire as it rushes at full tilt towards the perimeter of the battle. "I thought you told them to stay out of the battle?" Korkie shouts.
"Yeah, so much for that," Tamri says.
A squadron of vulture droids races behind the War Maiden, lasers lighting up the patrol ship's shields. The vessel steers away and launches into a spin, point-defense cannons unleashing a triple helix of auto-fire at the pursuing fighters and plucking one out of the sky. "Fighter cover's getting thick," Tamri says.
"I know," Korkie says. "Hang on."
The Basilisk peels about and unleashes a salvo of plasma shot at a pair of pursuing vulture droids. One fighter takes the barrage head on, the plasma melting its wing hinge and sheering the wing off. The other dodges, but sticks close to return fire. Too close. The Basilisk howls and reaches out an armored claw, slamming it into the vulture droid and swatting it like a fly. "Blazes," says Tamri as she ducks while debris flies by.
"Head down," Korkie says.
"A little late for that!"
"Hey, I'm just trying my best here, Tam."
More vulture droids come in with each passing minute. Korkie's Basilisk veers past the thickening air battle and batters the Separatist ground forces, taking a shot from a spider droid, snarling, and blowing the offender apart with a pair of warheads. "Bo," Korkie shouts into his comm as they burn overhead of the faltering tank. "Aunt Bo."
"What?" Bo-Katan shouts. Over the comm comes the sound of blaster fire and explosions. "What?"
"We're getting overrun," Korkie says. "If we keep at this, they're just going to keep sending down more fighters."
"Ursa's anti-orbital missiles are warming up inside the vault. Just stay alive," Bo urges. "Stay alive. Keep fighting. A little longer, come on!"
"Drop me down on the ground," Tamri urges as the Basilisk peels away from fire. "Korkie, I can't do anything up here."
Korkie shakes his head. "It's a death trap down there. Saw's partisans are getting ripped up."
"I have to help them."
"It's too dangerous."
"Korkie!"
He looks over his shoulder, his teeth gritted, eyes darkened. "Fine," he says, kicking his heels into the Basilisk. As if knowing what he wants, the war droid drops down to the ground, settling beside a pair of dwarf spider droids and smashing its claws atop them. "Tamri, don't get yourself killed."
"I'm just trying my best," she murmurs to herself as she dismounts and lights her blade. A whole horde of Separatist infantry bearing down on her and the few partisans about. But she has no choice: Fight or die. And she has no intention of dying today.
