"...the Force is strong in our family..."
"...there is still good in him..."
"...that name no longer has any meaning for me...it is too late for me, son..."
"...you were right...tell your sister, you were right..."
"It is secured, Master Dooku?"
"It is, General Skywalker. I will proceed at once with your orders.
Anakin nodded, not at all upset that the old Jedi still addressed him by the title recently lost. It was a small gesture, but small gestures meant much right now.
"Thank you, General." He turned to the other holo, this of Senator Wipper'lom, perhaps the most faithful of their friends in the Alliance. Likely, the only friend he had left at this point. "Kara, you will await my signal?"
"I am ready," the twi'lek Senator said. She looked compassionately at him through the comm projector. "Good luck, Anakin. I know you will succeed."
"Thanks, Kara," Anakin said softly, as a friend, rather a politician. "I will not fail her."
"May the Force be with you, young Skywalker."
Both the transmissions ended, leaving Anakin alone once more in his quarters. He looked back at the bed, fond memories of Padmé returning to him. The past few months of his life had been exhilarating, the chance to fight for freedom alongside his wife exceeding any dreams he might have had toiling away, slaving for Watto in this universe's version of Hell. They were all memories now, and nothing would remain the same going forward. But he had the power to dictate which direction that change would take.
There was clarity in his mind, clarity in the Force, for the first time in years. Padmé's arrest on Coruscant was predictable enough, as with his own demotion. But there was no certainty until the Force brought visions into reality, and since that moment he had confined himself to his quarters, meditating on not just the way forward, but exploring pathways and possibilities in the Force long hidden to him. Out of his own denial, perhaps. Or other variables. But there was no point in procrastinating any longer. He opened the door, and two Clone troopers were already waiting outside, helmets on.
"Fives. Appo."
The two troopers seemed ready to bear arms, but Anakin sensed a deeper conflict underneath their armor. Holding his hands out, one lightsaber in each hand, he offered the weapons to them.
"Take them. I will report to General Rex on the bridge." He sensed relief after he spoke.
"Thank you, Genera...sir."
The long procession to the command room of the Liberator did not take long thanks to their brisk pace. Arriving, Anakin saw Rex conferring with the other Jedi, Quinlan Vos, apparently discussing how to pull off a difficult strategic withdrawal from Nar Shaddaa. Quinlan sensed him first, and both tensed visibly at his arrival.
"General Skywalker," Rex said uneasily. His helmet was off, his anxiety towards the situation revealed naked for the room to witness.
"No longer. I will not fight you." He stood, back straight, facing his former subordinate directly from across the bridge. "Are you going to arrest me, Rex?"
For several moments the Clone general did not have a response, having expected either a straight surrender or a fight to the death, the latter more likely in his mind. But a question, a polite request that allowed him time to think...that Rex did not expect.
"No," he said finally, looking down in shame, the act of disobeying an order so fundamentally distasteful to him. "They can arrest me as well, but you will always be my General. When those other politicians wanted to stick a chip in us, make us barely better than these clankers...you and your wife were the only ones who stood up for us."
Behind him, Appo handed him his lightsabers. "Your weapons, General." Anakin could feel the smile underneath his helmet.
"Thank you Commander." Clipping it into his belt, he walked over to the Jedi in the room. "Jedi Vos. Do your intentions match your General Rex's?"
"I...," Quinlan stuttered, "no, Anakin. And if it makes any difference, Anakin, I made it clear to Obi-Wan that I did not approve of his plans."
The young Sith stepped forward threateningly. "You knew. And you did not tell me."
The tension in the room, so recently eased, now crept back as the Clones gathered watched the only two Force users aboard the ship face off.
"I could not, Anakin. There was no path open to me where I could do justice to both your wife and Obi-Wan."
"Because of loyalty to Obi-Wan?"
Quinlan nodded, and wondered if Anakin was going to draw his swords. He did not want to fight the boy, but he had no intentions of dying without a fight. To his relief, Skywalker relaxed his shoulders.
"I understand Jedi. But I will not forget this. You will never have my trust." He turned to the Clones, once again relieved that the bridge avoided yet another duel. "General Rex, will you allow me to address your brothers?"
"They're your men, General," Rex answered happily.
"That is for them to decide," Anakin said as they moved to leave for the barracks. He felt a tap on his shoulders near the doorway, and turned to face the Quinlan, whose sense of shame seemed to only have increased since their encounter.
"Is there...is there anything I can do? Help with for the siege?"
Anakin shook his head coldly. "Take a sabbatical somewhere. You want no part of what's to come."
Quinlan curled his mouth in understanding. But he was not finished. "I know I'm in no place to ask this, but, I..."
"You want me to spare Obi-Wan's life."
"This war has shown that there are different ways to be a Jedi. Obi-Wan and I differ in this matter, but he is a good man. He is orthodox in his ways. Though I thought there was a chance he might sense the shifts in the Force...that the old ways are no longer viable...ultimately, one cannot ask a man to change the man he is. But he does not mean any ill will towards you. Or Padmé."
Prescient of the Rex and the other Clones waiting outside, Anakin nevertheless took his time in considering Quinlan's request.
"Padmé is my only concern," he finally answered. "I will do what I can, though much depends on Obi-Wan's own choices. But if my wife is harmed in any way, if she was touched inappropriately, if she felt pain of any sort..."
Knowing he did not need, or want, to finish his sentence, he turned away and marched at the head of his men towards an army standing in limbo.
The thousands of troopers rose in uniform salute as they entered the docking bay, though it was unclear to all as to whom they were actually were saluting. Deciding to address the bantha in the room, Rex spoke first.
"Men of the 501st...General Skywalker will now address you. I ask that, whatever your thoughts, whatever we have been ordered, you allow our General to at least speak his piece."
"Thank you, General Rex," Anakin acknowledged, hugging the man before stepping forward to face the horde before him. He paced the dais several times, gathering his thoughts, before he began his harangue.
"Soldiers! Your brother believes I am still a General. Your general. But legally, in the eyes of the Alliance, and the Republic, I am a criminal. A fugitive."
Low murmurs grew in the squadrons below before Rex motioned for silence.
"It's fine, Rex. I will not ask your men to break the law. Arrest me, soldiers of the 501st! Or shoot me, it matters little. I stand here today, exposed before you. I am armed, but I cannot withhold the march and aim of an entire battalion of brothers joined in cause and fervor. Rid the galaxy of one Sith, and you will be rewarded! The Alliance will thank you, the Republic will throw you a parade, and you will have earned the everlasting trust of the Jedi Order."
He walked forward into the masses of men, striding between the lines and square formations, staring through the helmets of each trooper he passed along the way. Seeing each clone stand perfectly still, fearful of being the first to move or speak, he stopped beside one particular soldier, patting him on the shoulder.
"Tup. I remember our first battle on Sern Prime. None of us had faced true combat before on such a scale. I was as nervous as any of us, but we persisted, and with that first victory, we dropped the first pebble in the current, pushing back against the tide of the Trade Federation's ruthless onslaught against the free and decent peoples of this Galaxy."
"You led us brilliantly, General," Tup replied under his helmet.
"Thank you. And you fought brilliantly, you and all your brothers." He moved on, turning and walking down another column until he identified another masked Clone. "Echo, you and I singlehandedly freed nearly a thousand slaves in between skirmishes on Zygerria. You will be happy to know that Padmé and I have found homes and settlements for many of them on Mandalore, under the generous auspices of their Duchess Satine Kryze."
"It...that warms my heart, General."
Anakin smiled warmly at the trooper. "Me too, Echo. We hoped Zygerria was but a starting point for our good work, but alas..."
Shaking his head regrettably, Anakin continued. Walking back towards the front of the battalion, he stopped before yet another familiar friend.
"Dogma. We camped together after that last siege on Nal Hutta not so long ago. We talked about what our plans were going to be after the war. Whatever becomes of us, Padmé and I wish you and your brothers that same bright future."
"We won't let that happen," Dogma said, defiance rising in his voice. Turning back, he shouted towards the rest of his brethren. "Brothers! We can't let this happen to our General!"
Once again, Anakin patted the soldier on his shoulder. "No matter." Returning to the front of the room, he stood and faced the entire battalion once more. "Soldiers, shoot me down today, and I will not die happy. I will die thinking about my beloved wife, your former Consular, who fought beside you in the same battles as I. If I am to die today, I will die with unrequited worry and concern for the fate of my Padmé."
His voice breaking, his eyes red and swollen with emotion, he paced back to the spot where he began his speech, next to Rex, Fives, and Appo. "But my only consolation in those last moments will be this gratitude...gratitude not for the battles and the struggles we shared, though I treasure them immeasurably...but gratitude for the good we did. To the people and planets we helped. Together. If that be our legacy, may it last against those who seek to reverse it."
The silence in the room was solemn, heavily contemplative, but to Anakin, the emotional tumult swirling the bay felt on the edge of erupting. Sensing, not through the Force, but through the kinship with his brothers, that it was now his turn to act, Rex stepped forward.
"Brothers of the 501st!" He turned towards the holoprojector broadcasting the scene to the entirety of the Clone armies. "Brothers of the 212th, the 167th, the 309th, and every single Battalion in the Allied armies! General Skywalker was my General. General Skywalker remains my General. I ask you now, who commands you?"
The response was as deafening as it was predictable. After letting the cheers roar then settle battalion after battalion, Anakin raised his hands, as if pleading for calm.
"Soldiers! I ask for restraint! I do not ask you to make this decision in haste, or ignorance. You must understand both sides." Activating his holoprojector, he immediately pulled up one of the live news broadcasts.
"...shock through the Galaxy as the leaked footage spreads of practically every Senator remaining within the Republic engaged in various crimes and misdeeds ranging from adultery to even more perverse crimes, succumbing to every bribe and offer of embezzlement, graft, corruption, extortion, slavery, even murder, from Interim Chancellor Tub'r Fafi himself down to minor notables including Senator Rush Clovis from Scipio. These events seemed to have occurred almost two years prior on a summit on Cato Neimoidia, and it can only be surmised that was the pivotal meeting which led to the moral demise of the Republic and the rise of former Chancellor Nute Gunray. Already, riots are breaking out on Coruscant and spreading to Mid and Outer Rim worlds, especially in light of the allegedly crooked agreement made by Fafi with Alliance Consulars Bail Organa and Mon Mothma in their coup against their political peer, Sith Master Padmé Amidala, though accomplished with the cooperation of the Jedi Order. Rumors are the former Queen, Senator, and Consular is currently being held in the Jedi Temple, where already crowds have gathered demanding her release..."
Dooku had done well. Before he died, Sifo-Dyas had confided in both his old friend as well as Padmé and Anakin where on Takodana he had hidden the holocron footage taken of all the compromised Senators on Cato Neimoidia. Dooku was assigned to retrieve the holocron upon the completion of the negotiations with Duchess Satine, the crafty old Jedi holding on to the footage solely for a situation such as this. Smirking, he ended the transmission, and activated another one, this of the discussion between Padmé and her colleagues mere days before.
"I see that I am outvoted in this measure"
"Do you really believe Fafi and Amedda will negotiate in good faith?"
"There are options on the table palatable to all. Let Fafi keep his ill-gotten fortunes. Let Amedda keep his seat in the Senate, perhaps even as a minority Councilor..."
"And let their crimes go unpunished? Let their followers see our leniency towards the corruption and vice that got us here in the first place, and reunite the Republic under the same flawed foundation we pretended to ignore before these Clone Wars?"
"Though my objections remain, I accept the decision of the Tri-Consulate."
Disabling the holos for the last time, Anakin watched with satisfaction as the acclaim and exuberance in the room shifted to anger and rage.
"Betrayal!"
"They are the traitors, not Generals Skywalker and Amidala!"
"We must avenge them!"
Even Rex seemed in shock at both the revelation of the extent of the Senate's corruption, as well as the supposed willingness of Mon Mothma and Bail Organa to conspire with said corrupt Senators.
"Soldiers," Anakin shouted, resuming his proclamation, firm in the knowledge that the day was his. "I implore you towards calm! Revenge is not our way. We seek justice, as we always have, from before even the formation of the Alliance. The accusations against and actions taken against Consular Amidala are a miscarriage of justice. You see now the enemy we face! You see now what they stand for! Their actions tell us they will stop at nothing in order to preserve their ill gotten gains! They speak of compromise, but the enemy wishes nothing more than to reverse our great victories at Sern Prime! At Zygerria! At Nal Hutta! They wish to erase our legacy, and they will stop at nothing until either we are destroyed, or brought down to their level against our collective wills!
See who decides for you! Consular Organa, born into royalty. Consular Mothma, born into aristocracy. You were born on Kamino, in bondage. I was born on Tatooine, a slave until I freed myself! My wife was born free on Naboo, but manipulated into bondage under a vile master for many years, until she chose to break free from her chains!
We both learned long ago that there is no freedom in this galaxy except what we pry forcibly from those who wish to deny it! There is no justice except what we pry forcibly from those who wish to evade it! Today, you have reacclaimed me as your General! Do you stand with me tomorrow? With Amidala? For justice! For freedom!"
"Not bad," Rex said as they departed the hangar bay.
"I learned from the best," Anakin replied, his steps lighter than earlier in the day, yet a dangerous edge to his voice. He looked over to his wife's favorite R2 droid, another bittersweet reminder of Padmé. She's not dead yet, he had to remind himself. "Artoo."
The small droid beeped in response.
"Did you record everything?"
Artoo beeped affirmatively.
"Good. The moment we emerge into Coruscanti airspace, fucking release this to the fucking masses."
"What is the troop count?" With the army his secure once more, there was no rest for the young Sith warrior as he studied the ongoing skirmishes on the surface of the Hutt moon.
Rex rattled off the list of squadrons and battalions engaged in each conflict on Nar Shaddaa.
"I see," Anakin said pensively. "So we have few to spare for an assault on Coruscant."
Rex shook his head. "Not without losing all the gains we've made on Nar Shaddaa thus far."
"And the clan headquarters the Hutts have scattered with slave hostages in each compound. So we can't just behead the serpent, bombard it to death."
"No," Appo said. "Taking out the control centers will require the same delicate extraction operations as Nal Hutta."
Studying the map of the moon, Anakin scrolled through quadrant after quadrant until he located a relatively peaceful sector on the southern half of Nar Shaddaa.
"This is where the clan leaders are keeping their families?"
Rex nodded. "All the hatcheries, the noble clans, mates..."
The clan leaders seemed content to leave their families in opulent quarters, confident that the Alliance would not go after them, so much so that they hoarded all their slave hostages themselves, believing their families and offspring immune to the wages of war. It was not an unreasonable assumption, considering that the Alliance thus far in the war had limited their targets only towards military and political sites.
"Obliterate them," Anakin said, the ruthlessness in his voice ever more accentuated in the soft, even sensual way he said each word. "For millennia the Hutts have destroyed not just entire families but hundreds of systems wholesale. They don't just profit off the suffering, they revel gleefully in it.
He slammed his fist onto the counter.
"Today they finally reap a fraction of what they sowed. Commence the assault with a light bombardment, enough to draw upon all their reinforcements in panic." He pointed and drew vectors from several of the military barracks. "Let them believe there is hope to save their own. We destroy their deployments while en route. Then we flatten the familial sector until it is as barren as the mountains of Mustafar."
"Harsh," Rex commented, "but this will cripple their resistance."
Anakin nodded. "Leave the 212th on site and blockade the system. No one gets out," he paused in thought, "though I will allow in medical and foodstuff transports, and only after a thorough inspection." He knew that with slaves would be the first to starve, so unless more than enough supplies were provided for the Hutt clans, the slaves were as good as dead anyway.
"The 501st will lead the assault on Coruscant. I will recall Dooku and the 309th from Felucia to reinforce us." Brushing away the projection of Nar Shaddaa, he replaced it with one of Coruscant. "We will focus our targets on the Senate and Jedi Temple, though care should be taken. My wife's still down there somewhere."
"Understood, General Skywalker..."
"Rex," Anakin said, pulling the clone general back as he set forth to deliver his orders. "Call me General Vader for now. It would be...more suited to the occasion."
His comments confused him slightly, but Rex didn't really care that much about names. After all, any name he and his brothers may have now came not from their breeders on Kamino, but from their own. "Very well, General Vader."
Saberstorm: For Obi-Wan. Or the Sith. Or both, or neither?
jckgwk: You're not alone. But much easier said than done..., in canon as in this story.
j: We shall see, and oui, this chapter found Anakin playing the Napoleon to Rex's Marshal Ney.
Nightshade's sydneylover150: You are correct. They not only underestimated him, but they overlooked him entirely. While he was biased and predisposed against trusting the Sith, he was open to the idea of the miraculous change in the Sith. He suspected Padmé's murder of Jamillia, but it was only after the wholesale slaughter of the Hutts when he decided to investigate further into Jamillia's death. Padmé thought they were being discrete, but they weren't. But to a certain point, she also didn't care, so wrapped up as she was in the Dark Side at that point.
Praetor-Canis: They do, but it should be said that Padmé has carefully cultivated the support of the masses, from the Sith point of view, for years now.
PaulLenzen: Thanks! It looks like the Sith have completely neglected their backup plans.
1saaa: Thanks! As for the legality card, Padmé knows that Obi-Wan will eventually be able to prove her murder of Jamillia as well as all the Hutt masters. As Obi-Wan stated at the end of the last chapter, while he kept a careful eye, it was Padmé herself who chose to commit those crimes, technically still crimes by the Republic and especially the laws of both the Jedi and the Alliance, and leave herself vulnerable to the persecution of the Jedi.