a/n: Episode III. I do hope you guys enjoy the direct quotes scattered through these chapters, 'cause to me they're like bacon bits. This chapter's got all sorts of bacon bits. Delicious, copyrighted bacon bits that I don't own. Feel free to do quote bingo, quote shots, whatever. Double points if you get the one at the a/n at the end, it's not star wars related. Interactive reading, eh? Happy Easter!
"Kill him." The words came through a haze, the haze of pain radiating from his wrists, his stumps. "Kill him now."
He jerked his head up and locked gaze with Anakin.
Blue.
Stormy.
"I shouldn't."
Scrunched.
"Afraid to do it in front of a downed Jedi?"
Tense.
"Even with what he did to your arm? What he did to your mother?"
Flickering.
"Is it true?"
Hardening.
"Do it."
Gold blossomed.
Obi-Wan woke to a most peculiar sensation. His feet were dragging along the ground, his face bumping against a metal chassis, and his belly was lumped around round metal. He felt awful. Sore throat, sore strips across his torso and legs.
Whiny beeps and whistles revealed that his mode of transportation, R2-D2, had reached their destination. A quick rock back and forth and Obi-Wan tumbled to the floor.
He groaned and sat up. "That was quite unnecessary, R2."
He felt at his leg, but despite his last memory being of part of the ship decking collapsing on him (courtesy of Dooku), it was not broken. In the face of good news he frowned. Why wasn't it broken?
Beep beep whistle.
"What?" He finally took in his surroundings. A docking bay with a couple of ships (one of which R2 was probing), a view of space distorted by the shielding, and a multitude of burning debris. And the view wasn't as much space as one could have hoped for this size of ship, as it was rapidly filling with a planet. Coruscant. "And here I was worried about getting the Chancellor home."
His eyes widened. "The Chancellor!"
He stood to find the man and Count Dooku, but a tirade of strange sounds from R2 stopped him.
Obi-Wan couldn't catch all the meaning. It sounded like a joke: Dooku, Palpatine, and another human did something on the ship, the punchline was that it was Obi-Wan's fault, and the ship was crashing.
He ignored the complexities and settled for the last bit. "Does that fighter work?"
Whistle beep bop!
"Alright." Running a hand through his hair, Obi-Wan asked, "And you're sure the Chancellor is safe?"
More angry beeps. He groaned. This droid may be the best, recognized by the Queen of Naboo and other high honors, but it was unbelievably rude. "Okay, okay! I'm coming."
He stumble-ran over and slid into the cockpit, as R2 lit his propulsion system and settled into the astromech hole. They started up the engine, and Obi-Wan directed the fighter outside of the dying ship and back to Coruscant's surface, but R2-D2 wrenched control from him and sent the ship in a different direction.
He scoffed at the droid, but let it do its thing. The moment of quiet provided Obi-Wan's brain time to process, and his processing led to a frown dominating his face. "R2, what exactly do you mean, it's all my fault?"
Padme hustled from the emergency senate meeting to her office, Bail Organa close behind.
"It's ridiculous!" she fumed. "Maybe if it were another Jedi, one I didn't know personally, I would believe the attack. But to say there was a whole conspiracy?"
"It is troubling," Organa concurred. Others passed by in a similar hurry, excited chatters and chitters from happy, confused, and angry speakers. Padme and Organa slipped and shouldered past the groups infesting the usually empty or at least reverent halls. This would happen any time there was a big announcement, and wasn't what Padme took issue with. "Do the Jedi know of the accusation?"
"I'm not sure." She couldn't remember the last time she'd seen a Jedi in a senate meeting. "But I intend to send them a message, in private. The main ones I'm worried about are the Jedi at the temple here. Everyone else currently fighting...with the Clones..."
A wave of disgust and fear swept upward from her belly.
"Padme?" Organa looked at her, concern furrowing his brow, and she shook her head.
"Ahsoka," she whispered, mind frazzled with the implications. Was the girl still on planet? Padme took a breath, calmed herself. In a louder voice she asserted, "The Clones may be more pre-programmed than we thought."
"I thought that was the point?" The crowds were thinning, her heart was thumping, and Padme was glad to see her rooms coming up. "Perfect soldiers."
"'Good soldiers follow orders,'" she quoted, and he nodded, confusion on his face. Again the wave rose, and again she bit it down. "But what orders are they programmed to follow?"
"Highly irregular." Madame Jocasta tutted as she herded younglings, the gangly Gungan her assistant in the task. "And how did you come upon your information?"
He stumbled, and his ears flapped as he glanced over at her. "Mesa have a muy muy respectable friend?"
A likely story. "And who might this respectable friend be?"
"Ahe." Representative Binks rubbed the back of his head, looked to the side. Madame Jocasta hmphed. He was an exceptional example of questionable intelligence, but today she might experience his renowned, unnatural ability to achieve a positive outcome for herself.
Explosions, with crashes and vibrations, suggested that at least his information was correct. She grimaced. "What a bother."
The younglings in front of her screamed and clutched, hindering her and Representative Binks as they hung off limbs. She forced a cheery note to get them moving, "Just right out this door, dearies, come along."
Wails and sniffles abounded, but the sense of feeling safer by her than away encouraged them to cooperate. Poor dears, stuck in this mess, too young to have any accountability or understanding of the situation. They knew enough, though.
"There you go," she congratulated them as they entered the docking bay, the twilight sky visible but hazy beyond.
"Look! The ship isa right there!" Representative Binks added, and a couple of the younglings did perk up at that. She let him herd them in while listening sharply for what was happening in the temple. The guards must be slowing the advance of the Republic troops, but she can hear blaster bolts and lightsabers getting closer.
The docking bay had a number of ships, and masters and padawans had the majority primed for when the temple guards made their final retreat. She wasn't sure that the final ones would escape, and Madame Jocasta sighed.
A bolt came through the door they had used, and a guard stumbled out, normally biege and pristine robes scuffed and ruffled. When he caught sight of her and the younglings barely visible in the ship behind her he called out, "Get out of here, there's no time!"
And it was true-as he turned around he was gunned down. Troopers poured out the door, with faint hints of lightsabers visible behind them. A slash and a leap-one temple guard made her way over the troopers to a ship.
"Force be with you," Madame Jocasta whispered, then yelled to the cockpit, "Take-off!"
She can see the other craft preparing to lift-off as well, burners changing angles, determined pilots looking through their main viewports, hoping for any other survivors. The troopers took potshots, and the ships started to leave.
Still on the ship entry ramp, Madame Jocasta felt her feet press into the floor as the ship lifted, angled for the exit. But she still had a good view of the invaders, and in that moment her blood ran cold.
A tall (for a human) humanoid, obscured by black robes, burning eyes and scarlet weapon his only colors, hate roiling off of him.
She stumbled back, finally allowing the ramp to close. His eyes made contact with hers for a split second, then were hidden by the rising ramp. It shut with a dull clank, and Madame Jocasta wilted against a wall, careful of buttons and controls.
Despite being full of younglings, the ship was silent but for the engine's thrum. She numbly maneuvered to an empty seat by the Gungan, the silly Gungan who had helped avert catastrophe. She should thank him, thank his source, thank the Force and who knows what else she should thank right now. But one thought glared in her mind.
The rumors were true-the Sith had returned!
a/n: "roll credits!" Not as many quotes in this chapter as others, but whatevs.