Chapter 37 - An Offering of Peace
The younglings were sent away to Serreno before any others began to move or any announcements were given.
They went in small unmarked transports with the Temple Guard and some the Orders strongest Jedi Knights. They slipped away in the night with none the wiser.
The second stage of the evacuation of the Jedi was another matter altogether.
The hologram of the Council Member, Master Mace Windu was met with scorn and apathy.
"The Jedi Order made the Galactic Republic. And though we were never perfect, when we stepped back from leading the government, we did so with the understanding that keeping the peace would be our primary function. But the Republic has broken and now goes against all that the Jedi believes in. We will not continue to support corruption, we will not support a government that seeks not to help their people but to profit from them, nor will we support a Galactic civil war."
And people laughed.
The Chancellor laughed.
For those who thought they knew anything about the Jedi Order, they said the Jedi were nothing without the Republic to support them.
That the Jedi would have no friends in their exile, that they would have nowhere to go.
The Republic, the galaxy, had been aware of the Jedi Temple, of the Jedi Knights, but only marginally. There were, after all, only about ten thousand Jedi Knights, with maybe a thousand or two more Padawan learners at any given time.
Yet the Jedi Service Corps, that was an entirely different matter.
For while Jedi Knights had been forbidden, with few exceptions, from marriage in the last four thousand years, those in the Service Corps had not been held to such restrictions.
Officially speaking, the Service Corps had about a hundred thousand members living that had been raised at the Temple.
But including their families, and the descents of those generations long past, those who worked and lived and made up the settlements of the service corps numbered in the millions.
And the movement of these peoples, though long unacknowledged by the citizens of the Republic, or even the Senate they served, did not continue to go unacknowledged.
From the Exploration Corps, the security and research they had been providing went dark for the Republic. Teachers from the Educational Corps said goodbye to their students and entire schools were forced to shut down. From the Medical Corps things became complex. They didn't just bring their families, they brought some of their patients along with them as well. Most of that Corps brought little with them, and like the teachers, they opted to leave their medical supplies and hospitals completely intact behind for the citizens they had been serving.
As for the Agricultural Corps…
Their absence was immediately felt.
There just weren't that many people in the galaxy who worked for free and gave people food freely.
The Senate was the first to stop laughing when demands for economic help became heard.
And the Republic at large stopped laughing when hundreds of thousands of ships entered Coruscanti orbit. The media went wild with conspiracy theories. Though, no one was fool enough to call the assortment of shuttles, fraters, and deep spacer ships as an invasion.
In a matter of weeks, every member of the Jedi Order and their extended families and communities were present.
News pundits went even deeper with their speculations: What do they think they are going to do now? Hide in their Temple?
None in the galaxy, least of the Sith Lords, expected what followed...
They started with the archives.
Plo Koon wasn't certain that he was ready to move, yet in all his life he had never felt so connected as when all of his brothers and sisters across the galaxy arrived in a single place.
The action of moving became not a thing of sorrow and loss but something of reverence and a time of coming together.
The phrase 'many hands make light work' became evident in everything they did. Disassembling the archives, for instance, did not take them days as Plo had feared, but rather hours.
He was told that moving the Corps had taken so long because of quitting their duties and the distance travelled. As in large, the Jedi as a people, even their descendants, were not highly materialistic. Few of their people had more than a box of clothes and a handful of belongings outside of the things they needed for their work.
At the Temple, the library and equipment were the taxing part. Yet starting at sunrise, the Temple was empty by noon.
Which preceded the fun part.
In retrospect, it might have been easy to put up a shield and simply bomb the building.
But this had been their home, their people's home.
And more than that this was a symbol of hope in the galaxy. So they did not bomb it.
They took it apart, brick by brick. They rotated Knights and even strong accolades that had not continued their training at the academy, to lift the stones and put them into the two new and extremely large fraters they had purchased for this occasion.
In working from the top down and in disturbing the stones and the other materials that made up the building the infection from the Sith Shrine became more and more obvious.
But no one treated their duty of dismantling the Temple with any less dignity, the Darkness they felt was only reassurance that what they were doing was right.
They worked through the night, and as the power of the Temple was out, they worked in darkness, the Force guiding their motions for those with less superior night vision. The Temple's basement and lowest levels were the hardest to pull apart. The centre of the shrine Master Yoda himself dismantled and carried to the fraters to be put with the rest of the Temple.
As the sun rose, Plo was blown away by their Argercultural Corps as they took over. Having come prepared, they dumped shiploads of rich soil into the cavern the Temple and shrine had left behind.
The earth was packed and by midday they were all taking orders from the farmers who gave them bags of grass seed.
The people of Coruscant gathered around at the edges of the grounds to gawk, as the absence of the Temple was replaced by sweaty beings covered in dirt and dust digging at the earth that probably hadn't been cultivated or seen direct sunlight in… well, four thousand years.
Their farmers showed the galaxy the real magic that the Jedi held as they encouraged sprouts to grow from seeds, and they turned a field of turned dark earth into a garden of sweet-smelling flowers, new grass, and treelings.
Where the centre of the Temple had been was laid a circular mosaic in white and darkest blue Alderaanian marble. The mosaic made up the Jedi insignia, of which Grandmaster Yoda laid the last stone.
For as long as Plo would live, he would never forget looking down at what they had created together as they rose in the air on transports.
Where the Temple had been was a space of something so infinitely more beautiful than any building could ever be. The Jedi grounds seemed like a emerald jewel as they rose further and further away from the surface. It was the largest stretch of greenery on the entire planet of Coruscant.
It seemed right that this would be their legacy. That the Jedi would leave the Republic with an offering of peace.
Of life and wellbeing when the Republic was throwing itself into an unnecessary war.
Upon reaching orbit and were clear of all other ships, they fired on the two fraters they had packed with the remains of the Jedi Temple and Sith Shrine. Nothing living had been on those two ships and the explosives they used left nothing but dust and shards of shrapnel behind.
From the surface, it must have looked like they had been attacked. But the media had followed them up into the atmosphere, they had been recorded heavily enough that the news would report that the Jedi themselves had blown up their own ships.
Their own Temple.
It was an end.
It was a beginning.
In a matter of weeks, the Jedi Order in its entirety had left the Republic, and in two standard days, their Temple had been removed from existence.
He wondered how the galaxy would respond to this, and he felt some satisfaction at all the Senators that had mocked them, who said it was impossible for them to leave and that they were not brave enough to let go of their past.
"Master Plo," Feral asked, staring down at the planet they were leaving, "Isn't the Republic going to accuse us of being Separatists now?"
Plo laid a hand on his Padawan's shoulder, "Perhaps, but attacking us now would be a fool's gambit."
Feral nodded, his golden eyes still huge.
Plo smiled, he had anticipated today to be one of sadness.
He hadn't expected to feel so hopeful for their future, for this new path of the Jedi.
"How was it?" Rey asked him as they stepped off the transport.
Obi-Wan was covered in so much dirt he was thinking of just throwing himself in the nearest river.
Rey on the other hand was bright-eyed and smelled like the soups they used in the nurseries. In her arms she held two toddlers, both asleep and drooling on her shoulders.
Obi-Wan motioned to the younglings as Qui-Gon waved hello and good-bye as he went straight for the river he himself had been eying.
Rey grinned at him, and spoke in a normal voice, "This is Eekie and Sirue, they could sleep through an asteroid bombardment."
He shook his head, and sighed, "It was… I've never worked with so many other Jedi before. And the Jedi in the Corps… I always thought my life would be terrible as one of them but Rey… they are truly incredible."
Rey smiled, "Well that's good, seeing as we'll all be living with each other now."
Obi-Wan looked around at the camps being made, parked ships insides and outsides being used as shelters.
Taking apart a Temple was easier than making a new one would be. For one, the Temple on Courscant wouldn't have had the room to house everyone making themselves at home in this field on the edge of a wood.
No, their population might require a city. But likely they would stay spread out, make more modest homes and join the smaller towns and cities already on Serreno.
The new Temple would be a place of meditation, training, and gathering, not a home in and of itself.
This really was the perfect planet.
Taking in a deep breath, Obi-Wan let his mind settle, the clean air beckoning his thoughts to clarity.
"Were there any problems?" Rey asked.
He shook his head, and opened his eyes to meet her gaze. She had gone with the first groups to be with the younglings and initiates, both because she powerful enough to be a great asset if Serreno had been attacked before the rest of the Order could settle and because no one had wanted to risk her having a vision when they were literally taking apart a Sith Shrine.
Quinlan had stayed on Serreno for the same reason, though he was notably less useful in tending to the little ones.
"No, no problems, though no one is sure what is going to happen to the Republic now," he said, stepping out of the way others disembarking to make camp and take a dip in the river.
Rey offered, "It'll work out, whatever happens, it will be better than encouraging a civil war."
"This is the end of the Republic," Obi-Wan stated with a sigh, "Even I didn't realize how much our Corps were supporting the economy."
Rey smiled, "The Republic planets can take care of themselves if they put the work in. But we're in the Outer Rim now, trust me when I say there are plenty of peoples out here that will need Jedi aid."
Obi-Wan smiled back at the light in her eyes, "You're right, and for now, I don't think we all won't benefit from taking care of ourselves for a while."
A group of children from one of the Agriculture Corps campsites started singing in what appeared to be in competition with the Medical Corps kids who sang back the verses in a call in response.
Rey grinned, "Good thing the Council removed the marriage restrictions. I heard some of the Temple Guards talking about what will happen to the Corps with more oversite, but my credits are on the culture from the Corps dominating over the Academy Temple habits."
As Obi-Wan watched Jedi Knights meeting with people they likely hadn't seen since their initiate years and then meeting their spouses and children, he had no doubts that Rey was right.
The Jedi Order was going to be more than an organization of like-minded sisters and brothers, they were going to become a people that the galaxy was going to recognize first by their culture and only second by their powers.
AN: Short chapter but I will be posting another chapter tomorrow. Thoughts, reactions, turtleducks?