Rest
Chapter 13
After stealthily sorting their way through to the tenth level of Pau City, Anakin and Obi-Wan approached to find Grievous commanding Separatist leaders to leave to the Mustafar system. As he dismissed them, Anakin and Obi-Wan nodded to each other from the rafters above. They jumped down to the lower floor together at once. "Hello there," greeted a sly Obi-Wan.
Grievous turned around, "General Kenobi, Knight Skywalker. How bold. Kill them," he motioned to the surrounding droids.
Lightsabers ignited, they took their battle stance. The droids approached them, but Anakin stood up, and used the force to drop an air shaft from the ceiling on their heads. One droid was only partially stuck under the mass, but Obi-Wan flicked his lightsaber to cut the droid in two.
As quick as it was over, the next round of surrounding droids took aim at the Jedi.
"Back away! I will deal with this Jedi slime myself!" commanded Grievous to the droids.
"Your move," said an unimpressed Obi-Wan.
"You fools! I've be trained in your Jedi arts by Count Dooku," replied Grievous, as he shrugged off his cloak. His four mechanical arms reached to his saber belt, and he equipped each hand with a different lightsaber, and all ignited.
"Attack, Kenobi and Skywalker!" Grievous let out a menacing, guttural laugh.
Grievous' higher arms began to swing around his person, creating two helicoptering shields of lightsabers. Obi-Wan took the lead, and as Grievous approached the two Jedi, he timed the swing of his lightsaber just so as to stop the attack.
Lightsabers flashed and collided as the fight commenced. After the first few minutes of the duel, Grievous had already lost two of his hands.
All of a sudden, beams of light flashed around them. The droids were shooting towards the landing bay… they looked, and noticed the clone army had finally arrived to take down the Separatist droid army.
"You must realize," threatened Grievous, "You are doomed."
"Oh, I don't think so," responded Obi-Wan, and he force-pushed Grievous back into the ceiling's overhang.
Grievous landed back on the ground, and crawled over to a stationed wheel bike, and climbed in to flee. Anakin and Obi-Wan whistled, and out of the distance sprang their varactyl mounts, which they jumped onto to follow Grievous on his wheel bike. Laser shots fired all around them.
After a prolonged chase and running duel, the trio crash landed onto Grievous' private landing platform, where his personal customized Starfighter was docked. The wheel bike had fallen off over the cliff of the platform, and the varactyls abandoned them.
The two Jedi swung their lightsabers around in an attempt to maim Grievous, who was now fighting with an electrostaff in one hand and a saber in the other. Anakin stepped forward to lunge his lightsaber to slash the spear in half, but Grievous moved at the last second, and Anakin fell incapacitated by the electric shock.
Obi-Wan stepped up his game and used the Force to knock Grievous to the ground, both weapons flying out of his hands. Grievous quickly stood up and kicked Obi-Wan back, who was already dangerously close to the edge of the platform. Obi-Wan slipped off the edge, lightsaber lost, and he clung on to the edge rafter. Grievous let out a hiss of laughter, and approached Obi-Wan with the electrostaff in hand, ready to jab him with a final blow.
At the last second, Obi-Wan used the Force to direct a fallen blaster into his hand, and he held himself up over the edge of the landing just in time to shoot Grievous in the gut. Grievous stepped back, his alien insides flaming out of his hybrid exoskeleton. Obi-Wan shot again, and Grievous stumbled back and burned to the ground.
Obi-Wan lifted himself back onto the landing. He tossed the blaster to the ground, looked at the fuming corpse of Grievous, and muttered to himself, "So uncivilized."
Anakin was just regaining consciousness as Obi-Wan approached him. He looked over to see what was left of Grievous. Obi-Wan offered him a hand to stand up and said, "I guess we can call the last time you saved my skin even now, then."
Anakin smirked as he hazily stood, "It still doesn't make up for the last ten times."
Obi-Wan, with a penchant for self-depreciating humour, cut him off, "—Nine times… that business on Cato Nemoidia doesn't count."
Anakin shook his head with a smile.
-break-
Padme woke up to two very excited, very giddy nieces trying to contain themselves about who they found sleeping on their couch in the morning. "Mommy, mom!" she heard from her place on the pull-out bed. "Auntie Padme is here!"
Padme cautiously opened her eyes and hugged her arms around her middle. Small movements fluttered from within. A young girl's voice spoke up "Momma, her eyes are open. She's awake!"
Ryoo and Pooja climbed up onto the pulled-out bed, and with much commotion, clung on to Padme with quite the biggest hugs they could manage. "Auntie Padme! You're heeeeeeeeeeere!" they sang.
Sola walked into the scene of the room and scolded, "Girls! Ryoo, Pooja, give her some space – she's just waking up!"
The girls let go of their beloved aunt. Padme used her arms to support herself as she sat up in the bed, and Pooja cuddled in next to her. Ryoo stood up from couch and observed Padme's form with narrowed eyes, but Pooja was the first to say something.
"Auntie Padme, you're fat!"
Sola turned red and scolded, "Pooja! That is not kind." But to the confusion of the girls, their aunt just laughed.
"I am not fat Pooja," she explained as she rested a hand on her middle, "I am going to have a baby."
Sola quipped, "Girls, you're going to have a new baby cousin!"
Ryoo and Pooja's faces turned from confusion into brightened smiles. "A cousin! A cousin! Yay!" The girls jumped up close to Padme again and pressed their bodies in a firm hug against her middle.
Padme smiled in realizing that, for the first time in her pregnancy, she shared her news about the baby and received nothing but authentic, unquestioning happiness in return.
-break-
"Something feels off," Anakin said in puzzlement.
"I sense it too," responded Obi-Wan. "Shall we?" He motioned for them to investigate General Grievous' Starfighter, Soulless One.
They began to rummage through cockpit's the data information and transmission links. While everything seemed in order normal order, Anakin had a sense there was something to be found in an other-wise innocent looking holo-transmitting comlink stored next to the seat. He was then more suspicious to find the data on the link encrypted by retina scanner, something very specific and complex for such a simple device.
Anakin stared at the link in his hand. "It's this," he declared.
"Encrypted for retina scan? Anakin how…?"
Before he could finish his sentence, Anakin was out of the ship and headed towards the half-robot, half-alien corpse of General Grievous. Obi-Wan ran after him, and approached just as Anakin held Grievous' limp eyelids open for the scan. He selected through the comlink's history and out played the only holo recording that was left for Grievous to see.
A cloaked face appeared in blue light from the projector. It spoke in a quivering voice, "Order 66 approaches, General. Prepare your droids for deployment. Meet my apprentice on Mustafar for further instruction."
Obi-Wan's eyes widened. "Apprentice? We need to check all Jedi intelligence about Separatist travel to and from Mustafar. I'll contact the Jedi Temple now." He retrieved his comlink from his robes.
Anakin's mind raced at the feeling of a puzzle playing out before him. "Order 66? I'm going to look back through the starfighter, Obi-Wan, there might be more information." He went back to the ship.
"Order 66… order 66… order 66…" Anakin muttered to himself. He momentarily laughed as he realized it sounded like a combo meal Obi-Wan would order from Dex's Diner back on Coruscant…
Anakin wasn't sure what he expected to find in the ship, but instinct told him that the holo they had just viewed was incredibly important.
He turned on a datapad that connected to the starfighter's information system. It was encrypted, so he bypassed the security measures and looked through the data on the system. He brought up the search command and looked at the screen for all files involving the digits "66".
Too many files were returned in the display back to him.
Think, think. He tried search "order 66" and "order66" but that came up with no results.
Hmm… He went back to searching "66" alone to see if he could find any patterns, any information, anything at all in the results.
As he scrolled through them, he realized something very confusing. The internal network of this private, Separatist starfighter was returning search results that could only be generated from Galactic Republic intelligence sources.
"How…?"
Anakin went back from the search command to the main interface of the ship's information network. Everything seemed in normal order for what Anakin had seen in Separatist ship computing systems over the course of the clone wars. Nothing except for these few Republic documents, which contained important private information about Republic battle plans…
"But if they have access to the Republic's war information, why haven they not eliminated us yet? Did Grievous understand what he had access to…? And how does this access even exist?"
Anakin looked through the Republic information he was able to access. Maybe he could find information about which Republic user account was insecure and giving the access to the Separatists?
He sent a quick, ghost-written ping from the starfighter's private network into hyperspace. This would allow him to see if he could locate the planetary IP address of the Republic user account giving information access to the Separatists. The following IP was displayed:
CR.517378.27730.4781.2110
"CR? Somewhere on Coruscant?" Anakin copied the planetary IP address into his own datafile to send to the Jedi Temple later. They could likely locate the physical location of the user back on Coruscant to correct the error immediately…
"But…" thought Anakin, "Perhaps there is no error?" If the Separatists had not used this information yet to dominate the Galactic Republic in the war and battlements yet, why would they start now? They could have already completely destroyed the Republic with this information, if they knew it existed. What were they waiting for?
"Order 66…" the words of the hooded figure flooded back into his consciousness.
Then he remembered something. "Aren't clone army commands sent through ordered listings?" Anakin went back through the data that gave him access to Republic war plans. He found a file specific to clone soldiers and scrolled through to the ordered listing of clone commands. He scrutinized the list until finding number 66…
"66) Specify alternative enemy targets"
Anakin's eyes widened. This command could be modified and used through the computing system to change who the clone army soldiers were programmed to fight against. They could be told to target each other, civilians, Republic leaders, or the Jedi. "An army that size who turns against their leader? The Republic would not stand a chance."
All of a sudden, Anakin realized how important his findings were. He also realized it might have been an enormous danger to send that ghost ping to located the planetary IP address in case the user somehow noticed it… How odd it was that the planetary IP address was accessed on Coruscant. Who was informing the Separatists?
Anakin ran back from the starfighter to inform Obi-Wan of his discoveries. He found his Master facing a holocall image of Masters Yoda and Windu.
"Troublesome, this new information is," came Yoda's voice through the device.
Obi-Wan saw Anakin approach. "Count Dooku is reportedly heading to Mustafar. He must be the apprentice the Sith master in the holo is talking about…"
Anakin put his thoughts together as he spoke, "It's possible the Sith leader is on Coruscant. Masters, I am sending you a planetary IP address used by a private Republic intelligence account. This account has been sharing our battle information with the Separatists, possibly through a security breach but perhaps intentionally."
"What?" the same expression of disbelief came from Obi-Wan and Mace Windu at once.
Anakin explained his findings from the ship, bringing the other Jedi up to date. He continued, "It is likely that whoever holds or informs this user account is responsible for sharing battle information and access to clone army battle commands. They could use this 'Order 66' to turn our soldiers against us."
Realization dawned over Obi-Wan. "When I retrieved access to the clones on Kamino a few years ago, they said Jedi Master Dooku was the one who ordered them. This must be the Sith corruption that we've sensed is underlying the Separatist side of the war!"
"We will search for the user responsible for the information leak and close the account access immediately. Thank you, Anakin," stated Master Windu. He left from the view of the holo.
"Obi-Wan, Anakin, a great importance this information is. Go to Mustafar to end apprentice Sith Count Dooku, you must."
"We will leave at once," replied Obi-Wan.
"An end to this war is near, I sense," declared Yoda.
"May the force be with you."
"And you."
Anakin marveled at their discoveries. If anything, they really were one step closer to ending the war, beginning now with the end of Dooku…
