Mara estimated that there were probably about a thousand Jedi in the Temple that night, including padawans and initiates. Of that number, maybe five percent were full knights or masters—by which reckoning there were, actually, technically, fewer than fifty Jedi in the Jedi Temple when a crowd of hundreds of Coruscanti amassed at its doorstep.

By this arithmetic, it really should have come as no surprise when Master Dralllig called out on the short-range channel that the building had been breached.

"The priority is containment," he instructed. "I have reinstated the full lockdown on all levels. Elevators and security doors are closed, so you will have to radio me for manual admittance if you need a passage opened up. All exposed computer terminals have also been disabled. Our greatest point of vulnerability now is the library. I want all available bodies to report there. We can weather a little vandalism, but the data in our archives is to be protected at all costs."

While she was still without a lightsaber, Mara considered that she did still count as an "available body," and redirected herself from the refectory, where she had been half-heartedly checking for someone lurking under tables, toward the grand staircase that would get her down to the second floor and the archives. After the disturbance that she and Anakin had sensed, Mara had become fairly certain that the marauder they had sought was not actually creeping somewhere in the Temple, but she had continued to follow through on the task of checking if for no other reason than she was afraid where her mind might go if she let herself be at rest. This rote patrolling was, as is, barely enough to prevent her from fully contemplating that a little over twenty-four hours ago Quinlan Vos had still been alive. As unthinkable as it was that the Temple had been penetrated by intruders, at least it promised to be a better distraction.

On the third level above the main hall, she encountered a group of about fifteen of the interlopers on the landing and she thought for a moment that they might be about to enter a fifteen-person-to-one showdown. She liked her odds. But one of them just shoved a vase off of a nearby pedestal and the whole group ran, laughing and cursing, the soles of their shoes squeaking on the polished floor. Mara almost chased after them until she remembered the priorities that Master Drallig had expressed. She let the group go and continued on to the archives.

There was, clearly, no plan among the intruders, no focused point of attack, and so she did not have to contend with a very large crowd before she could push through to stand with the other Jedi, interposed in the series of airy archways between the library stacks and the hall. The architect who had designed this part of the building had probably meant to express an ideal of 'knowledge being open and available,' but they had thereby also neglected to create a good chokepoint. Another point for Master Drallig to gripe about later.

Evari Karr spotted and pulled Mara out of the (relatively) small crowd and into the line of defense just as one man shouted, "I want to borrow a book!" and thumped Mara on the shoulder blade. It did not escape her notice that a large percentage of this mob were humans. Humans were the majority species on Coruscant, but it was still one of the most diverse planets in the galaxy. Nor did she fail to see that a fair number of them were armed, though conflict for the moment remained limited to shouts and shoves.

"Alright, Jade?" said Evari over the din, and when Mara nodded, "I think we're just drawing their attention by being here." She was right, of course. This lot were making a statement. They wanted to be seen, and their number being held off at the archways was steadily increasing by a trickle.

Somewhere, Luke and Leia were afraid.

"Well, there's nothing to do now but hold the line," Mara responded.

"For how long?"

She gritted her teeth in a showy display of resolve. "However long it takes."

If Master Mundi had heard her say that, he could only have approved. She was being patient and dutiful. One of the mob even spit in her face and she felt no spike of anger or even disgust, while the padawan at her left shoulder, Imwa, gasped in astonishment. But, really, she knew it was coldness she was feeling, not inner peace. She was supposed to be with Luke and Leia, with Anakin, not because they were her charges and he was her master but because they were each her friends. She should have been able to let them all go, but even if her heart had worked that way, the Force did not. All that time that she had trained with the kids and with Anakin, they were bonded to each other now.

The mob was reaching a critical mass, teetering on the edge of trying the Jedi line.

And somewhere Anakin was fighting a real fight and his sword was perfect and his hands did not hesitate. And somewhere he was picking a body up from off the ground and it was not his enemy.

And there must have been fear then in Mara's eyes that the man opposite her mistook for being of him and he lunged. She rebuffed him with her power and sent him sprawling on the ground, but by then it was begun. The mob had decided to try their luck and pushed in on the line of padawans and scattered knights. A Sentinel officer in her gold-trimmed robe and mask was running the length of the defense, calling for the Jedi not to use their blades. They kept the discipline of their weapons, but their line was failing. They had the Force, but, even so, their numbers were too few and the gap they were trying to block too wide. And the crowd pressing on them kept growing.

Mara thought of the riot at the Senate Plaza and of the brawl at 79's. In different ways, she had failed at both of those battle tests, failed to protect her friends or meet her opponents with measured force. She would not let herself fail a third time. Her helpmates buckled on either side, but Mara was determined that she would hold her position if she had to suffocate under the mounting pressure of blows that pounded and pushed and scratched at her shoulders and face and arms. Their attackers were yet holding back from the full force of violence that they might have marshaled, in either the ferocity or weight of their blows. Perhaps they feared to provoke the Jedi too far, but if that was the case their restraint was slipping. An older woman clawed at Mara's cheek before she could repel her, and Mara felt the warm wet of blood welling on her skin.

"Commander!"

And just like that, she could breathe again. The pressure was gone, the frenzied faces of strangers were gone, and Mara was looking instead at the familiar, single face shared by a thousand men.

Captain Rex was standing in front of her and by the looks of it he had brought a whole legion of his brothers along. Many had even donned their old plasteel armor, Rex included, and the variety of paints decorating the standard white breastplates showed that it was not just members of the 501st who had been mustered.

"Rex! What are you all doing here?"

"Heard your home base was in need of support," said Rex, checking her up and down for damage and looking satisfied that she was still fit for duty.

"Well," said Mara, "yeah, your information was good, but how did you get it? Are comms back up?"

"Not yet," said Rex. "I'll explain later. First, let's clean house."

Mara remembered what Anakin had told her about the programming that had been implanted in the clones' minds. If she tried to warn Rex about it, would that set it off, activate him against the Jedi? Was it that delicate?

It would have been sensible to fear him for it, even though he could not control, or even precisely because he could not control it, but Mara could not make herself mistrust him. It was just Rex. She knew him too well. That, she supposed, was all a part of the fallen Dark Lord's scheme, that the Jedi would form bonds of trust with their clone units, that they could, in fact, become so close that the grand betrayal he plotted seemed inconceivable. Well, congratulations to him; it worked.

Mara clasped Rex's wrist. "As you say, Captain." She pulled her communicator from her belt and hailed Cin Drallig. "Master, reinforcements have finally arrived."

The brothers divided into units of twenty—plus one knight or padawan—and the mission of sweeping the Temple was undertaken once more.

"They haven't got the discipline to put up real resistance," Rex stated as he and Mara made to check the one accessible sub-level beneath the main hall. "That bunch that were on you practically melted away as soon as they saw they were outflanked."

"Well, sure," Mara agreed, "we just have to encourage them to melt in the direction of the door. At the risk of sounding unambitious, I really don't want to detain anyone if we can avoid it. It'd just be another headache we haven't got time to handle."

Rex frowned. "With respect and sympathy, Commander, I would urge you to reconsider. Prisoners are vital sources of information, once you have the time to lean on them a little." They turned to descend a stair, and Rex reflexively threw out an arm to stop her before signaling to his squad. A pair of brothers sprung silently forward and down the stair, checked the corners, and returned their own signal of 'all clear.'

"And what information do you imagine we'll wring out of them?" Mara asked once this, to her mind, excessively cloak and dagger maneuver had been executed. "That they were all pissed off and bored?"

"You asked how we knew the Temple was under siege," said Rex. "Well, it was 'cause this attack wasn't spontaneous. One of our lads got a tip-off and sent out the call to organize a counter-offensive—metaphorically speaking. This was after long-range comms went down. A lot of legwork involved. It's why we didn't arrive sooner. Sorry about that, by the way."

"You…arrived right on time," Mara reassured him, taking a moment to absorb all this information. She added, "You didn't owe it to us, I hope you realize. You're people, you men, you've done enough for us Jedi already."

"Good soldiers," Rex told her, "don't leave friends behind," and while he had not meant it that way, his words made her stomach clench with shame. She thought of the blasters she had seen some of the intruders wearing and hoped against hope that Rex was right and that they would not offer resistance. She did not want another of the clones to lose his life for the Order, not after the war, the lies, and the unshared truths.

And here she was without her lightsaber. How was she going to defend them?

You'll have to be diplomatic, Jade, she told herself. Your forte.

She was further resolved that she had been right, though. Trying to arrest the interlopers was not worth the risk, even if it did mean they never learned the full shape of this conspiracy Rex had sketched for her.

They were drawing near the entrance to the Room of a Thousand Fountains and Mara could see that the door was open, spilling silvery light into the hall that was currently still lit only by yellow lamps that were flickering at half-capacity.

"Someone's inside," Mara warned Rex. "No, no," she pulled down his hand as he tried to signal to his men to secure the entrance. "Let's just, not, none of that, OK? Come on, I've got this."

Rex looked mildly affronted at this dismissal of good, careful operations protocol, but he only shrugged, said–

"It's your call, Commander," and let her take the lead.

Mara approached the doorway and felt a tingle in her spine and a further sensation that she could only compare with catching a familiar scent. There was a memory here. They did not often call out to Mara like this and she had half a mind to simply ignore this one. Now was, after all, not the time. However, her recent efforts to chase down a resonance so deeply buried in layers of cold and dark had left her feeling nostalgic for those visions that sat open and waiting, just wanting to sing their little songs.

She ghosted her fingers upon the door jamb and let the memory in.

It was, predictably, of the same room that Mara was now entering, though in the full glow of daylight. Much stronger, though, than the impression of the light or the spectacles of the fountains was the feelings engendered by them. In fact, Mara felt such a surfeit of awe and surprise and this other odd, tender feeling that they challenged the capacity of her head or maybe her heart (whichever organ one took to be the muscle of such emotion) to realize them.

Like she was possessed by its phantom, she traced the vision's steps into the fountain room until she stood in the middle of the pseudo-clearing, hearing the water gurgle through a stranger's ears and feeling the tall grasses brush their knuckles. It was still like this for a moment and then the memory echoed the words "thank you" in a voice that Mara knew.

It was Qi'ra's voice, unmistakable even without the low, challenging tone it usually took in Mara's presence. It was Qi'ra's memory.

And then the memory ended and with it, the light, and Mara was left feeling oddly bereft. She was, she realized more ashamed than bitter, going to have to apologize to the girl. As much as she was still certain that Qi'ra had not had sincere designs on obtaining Mara's friendship, that her inserting herself into the investigation of Hurc's death had been a kind of junior political exercise in recovering standing, she had still not deserved the treatment Mara had given her. She was certainly not evil and, if the vision was anything to go by, she was not even truly shallow. If she had not wanted to be Mara's friend, well, who could blame her?

I'm gonna have to grovel, aren't I. Qi'ra will enjoy that to an indecent degree, but I suppose it's what I deserve. The Force loves to make me its fool.

"Hey!" A voice called out to her that did not belong to one of the clones or to any Jedi she knew. Mara blinked as her eyes adjusted to the darkness, though the room was not as dim as it ought to have been. "How do you get it to do that?"

There was a man, human, maybe in his early thirties, standing not too far from where Mara had stopped in the grass and looking about as dazed as she felt. Rex, who had been lingering with his squad close to the door, had started to spring into action at the sound of the stranger's voice, but Mara hastily waved at him to stand down again. Alone and all, this man was not a threat.

"How do we get it to do what?" Mara asked, picking her way over to him. He was standing by a great frondy plant, casually holding one of the leaves between his thumb and forefinger, almost like a child might hold a nurse's hand. He pointed at the ceiling.

"That. That business with the light."

Mara looked up. There was something up there, some light source, though its position seemed to shift as she tilted and craned her head at it. It was the cause of the silver light that filled the fountain room and glinted in the cascading falls and streams. Did it have a power source that Drallig, in his wisdom, yet allowed to be diverted to it, or was there some other trick to it? Mara had called the Jedi Temple home for ten years now and was still uncertain of the answer.

"I'm not sure," she told him honestly. "Isn't that funny? I think it might be mirrors, like, directing the light inside. It looks like moonlight, doesn't it."

"Yeah," agreed her new friend. "Mirrors, eh? I can believe it. Guess some clever folks made this place."

"Cleverer than me," Mara sighed. She looked away from the shifting light and over at the man next to her. Without threading any Force persuasion into her voice, she asked, "why did you come here tonight?"

"What? Oh," the seemed only then to truly notice her for the first time. He looked slightly embarrassed. "Well, I just did like I was told."

"Told by who?" Again, Mara made no push against his mind in the Force or even tried to sound intimidating. They might have still been discussing the light or some other topic of equally paltry consequence.

"Oh, you know," he said, "the bosses. I can't–I can't say who all, exactly, you understand. But you messed with their business." He added quickly, "We weren't gonna hurt anyone! Just make you lot draw back a bit."

Mara frowned in confusion. "Slow down. Tell it to me again. Why were you sent here?"

"The Jedi closed the ports," said the man, "and they're everywhere now. You can't walk down a street in the lower cities without passing a pair of them hounding for the marauder. It's put people off. The slowdown in traffic off planet and all that scrutiny, it's bad for business, isn't it. Look, I don't know why I'm telling you any of this." He started to back away from her, raising his palms defensively. "I'll never swear to it, got that? I've got my own skin to look out for—and I don't even properly know anything. I just heard what I heard. I did what I was asked."

"Easy there, y—wait, what's your name?"

"It's Tadeuz," he answered warily. "Or, y'know, just Tad."

"Tadeuz, I'm going to let you go," Mara reassured him. "I believe that you didn't want to hurt anyone. I don't appreciate all the weapons I've seen on your pals, but I believe you. I'm not interested in making petty arrests. My friends back there," she said, jerking her thumb towards Rex and his brothers, "are of a different mindset than me, but the Captain will follow my lead on this. Just tell me what you know and we'll call it square, yeah? No one needs to know that you were here or that we spoke." This offer, Mara had to admit, did finally contain the undertone of a threat, but offers of mercy always implicitly did.

"Yeah?" Tad glanced around her shoulder at the clones. "I seen their kind before working for the same bosses as me. Did you know that? How do I know one of them won't squeal?"

"I did know that," said Mara, recalling what Rex had told her about how they had been tipped off on the assault. "But maybe you can be satisfied that all of them came to thwart your super secret bosses' plan. Is that sufficient counter-leverage?"

"Sure," Tad muttered, "I guess so."

"We're talking about the underworld, then, aren't we," said Mara. "You said 'bosses' plural? Do the syndicates have some sort of co-op board now?"

"Like I said, I don't really know," said Tad. "But, like, not as a rule. Only, things have really escalated in the last twenty-four hours. The Jedi have been squeezing the planet. That kind of pressure makes for strange allies. Oh, I mean no offense!" He suddenly looked alarmed, as if some hint of anger had flashed across Mara's face. "If you ask me, it's the marauder who's really responsible for all this chaos. He messed with your business first. Our chiefs wouldn't have done any different in your shoes, that's for certain."

The Masters would definitely not have taken it as a compliment to be compared equivalently to crime bosses. Mara would have dearly loved to relate the analogy to them, but she had made Tad a promise and considered her vow of secrecy to apply to all but the most strictly relevant details.

"I can see how this retaliation came about," she remarked. "Was it even your slicers who cut the power to the district then?"

Tad shrugged. "Not sure. I doubt it though. I mean, those systems have got to be pretty secure, right? If street slicers can fritz them this hard, well, I don't love that."

"I see what you mean," said Mara, "but, then, it was fortuitous for you, wasn't it. How could your people have organized the assault so quickly after comms went down."

"Opportunity is not a lengthy visitor," said Tad, clearly quoting a phrase someone else had given him, very possibly just earlier that night. "That means, you gotta be ready for action. I didn't hear nothing about this plan 'til after the lights went out, I can swear to that much. I just jump when the man says go."

"Thank you for the lesson. And, you know, I like what you said about this all being the marauder's fault. If he were caught, all that pressure from the travel restrictions and the Jedi search teams, why, that would go away wouldn't it. Your bosses would like that, right?"

"I mean, they'd have to, yeah. Makes sense."

"Then we have a common cause, you and I." Mara gained and held his gaze, appearing to make Tad a little unsettled though he did not break her stare.

"Uh, sure."

"Excellent. I promised to let you go, Tadeuz, and I still intend to honor that. But now I want you to buy it with a promise of your own. Would you do that?"

"I, uh, guess it depends." Tad shifted. "What kind of promise?"

"I want you to deliver a message for me."

By the time the district power grid came back on, it was early sunrise. Mara almost didn't even notice it, but there was a distinct powerful hum of electric currents that seemed to fill the air again as all systems returned to full strength. The last of the interlopers had fled or been captured by those less charitably minded search parties and Master Drallig had sounded the all-clear. Most of the Jedi had not even elected to crash and rest after the night's events and Mara could not blame them. She was herself still dizzy and vibrating with chemical energy. If she had tried to sleep now, she would likely have only had the weirdest, least coherent dreams of her life, which was saying something considering the visions that had visited her latest hours appointments with the pillow.

The younglings and smaller Padawans, released from their confinement, had all come flooding out and were currently breaking bread with the clone brothers in the refectory. The night's heroes had been invited to stay a while, and so young Jedi and old troopers sat mixed together at the long tables, with the former group mostly interrogating the latter on their "best" war stories. Mara scanned the hall but did not find the face she was looking for. She left them all there and went to sit on the stairs at the Temple entrance. Rex, ever dutiful, accompanied her.

"I see you got some 212ths with you," she commented to him, "and a few 327ths too."

"We put out the call as wide as we could," said Rex.

"I don't see Bly," said Mara.

"It's not really his scene. The Marshal is still real military. He can't get caught up in a dirty fight like this."

So, Rex still did not know about Bly's demise. That secret was still alive, though Mara could not say for certain if the same was true of the man's doppelganger. "Rex, I'd like to talk to Thrace sometime soon. Can you arrange that for me?"

Rex considered her. "This something about Master Vos's investigation?"

"Yes."

"And is that your office now?"

"Not even remotely. Do it for me anyway."

"'Course I will. You're my Commander." He was not joking or condescending. He really just saw it that way, that simply. Because she was Anakin's apprentice, his General, that made her a part of his unit too. Not all of the clones were like that. Whether it had come out in conditioning or was just one of those random accidents of personality, Rex would always put his loyalty to his team first, even before the military or the Republic.

And if the Chancellor had ordered it, he would have fought tooth and nail to see his General dead. She was not afraid of Rex but she wanted to explain this to him. It felt like the loyal thing to do, but how even to begin? It was like trying to tell someone that they had a bomb in their brain. It felt cruel to say it, putting aside even that talking about the bomb could be the very thing to set it off.

"Would now be too soon?" Rex asked her.

"Now is just a little too soon," Mara told him. "I've got one other thing need to check on first."

She got to her feet. Master Obi-Wan Kenobi was jogging up the stairs toward them, looking harried, followed by a small coterie of knights.

"Master," Mara greeted him with a small bow.

"Mara." Obi-Wan sounded winded. "And—Rex? What's been going on here? I received Drallig's runner but wasn't able to extricate myself from the Senate until just now. What's happened?"

Breezing past these questions, Mara said, "Master, I would like to request to be allowed to leave the Temple, please."

Obi-Wan sighed and had to hide his face in his palm for a moment. When he recovered, he said, "I'll just take it as a miracle that you're even bothering to ask. What is it this time?"

"I have to go see Anakin."

Obi-Wan frowned and stepped closer to her that they might talk more quietly of his old apprentice. "He's not here? With you?"

"Something happened last night," Mara confided, "with the twins, after everything went dark. We both sensed it. Anakin went alone to see about it. I could feel him fighting someone."

Obi-Wan nodded his understanding. "Then I will go myself. Have patience, Padawan. I'm sure that he's—"

"Master," Mara cut across his assuagement, "I've asked for your permission." Obi-Wan could see the rest of her meaning in her eyes. But that doesn't mean that I'll wait for it.

"Alright," he agreed. "We'll go together."