Chapter 16

"If you want to know how someone stands on the Empire and the Rebellion, ask them about the Battle of the Jedi Temple. The answer will tell you what sort of sentient you are dealing with. It all depends if they call it the Pacification of Coruscant or the Great Jedi Exodus."

Senator Bail Organa of Alderaan, 15 AJE

By the time night fell, fighting still raged, but slowly the Clones were inching their way forward. Four hours after the beginning of the attack, they had twice almost managed to storm the Main entrance, and Obi Wan had been forced to blow the eastern entrance shortly before nightfall using missiles, detonators and demopacks taken from dead Clones as most of the knights assisting him there in the defence had been killed or wounded. The doors there were now blocked by both rubble from the building and the remnants of a gunship that Obi Wan had twisted and wedged in place using the Force.

As Anakin, using a momentary pause in the fighting to visit his wife, walked into the dressing station where she still was, and insisted on helping as well as she could, several more explosions rocked the building. He wasn't (more) worried, it merely meant that Windu and Obi Wan had done the same thing to the other entrances save the main one. Anakin was sad that the building that had been a home to him for years was damaged this way, but he also knew that the dwindling numbers of Jedi that could still fight would be overwhelmed in a very short time indeed if they didn't narrow the frontage they still held. As it was, Master Shaak Ti, together with the oldest younglings and youngest Padawans was constantly roaming through the temple's upper levels in case the Clones tried to enter through the windows. Those had been heavily reinforced since the sacking of Coruscant by the Sith, but would still not stand up to a determined attempt at a breach. So far the 501st had tried this twice, both times driven off by Ti's determined attacks.

One thing however bugged Anakin.

"Master Che, where is Master Yoda?"

The Twi'lek shook her head, head-tails flying. "Hmm."

She tilted her head. "Anakin, have you been upstairs since the Council meeting?"

"No, Master."

"Well, I was, and last I saw him he and the rest of the younglings were emptying the Holocron vault and the chamber in the spire."

So, Yoda had sensed that they were condemned to an ultimately futile defence. But what was he going to do with several hundred Holocrons? He saw Padmé applying an ointment to the blaster wound on a young Jedi, and he decided that he had more important things to do. Stepping up behind her, he layed his arms around her and kissed the top of her sweat-soaked hair.

"How are you, Angel?"

"Still fifty seconds apart. It seems they inherited your stubbornness as well."

She knew though that this was not what he was talking about.

"Worried, tired and..."

She finished what she was doing and sent the knight back to the defence before turning in his arms.

"Anie, what are we going to do?"

"I don't know. Master Yoda has a plan, but beats me what it is."

"Do your best, Anie."

"I will, Angel."

Quite a lot of things hadn't been said, but she knew that if the Clones reached her before he did, he would be dead, and he knew that if that happened, Palpatine would not get the satisfaction of her being killed by his Army. The sheer idea of this coming to pass terrified them both, so neither dared say it out loud, but it was there. He gave her a last, quick kiss of support before heading back to the entrance.

Near the hallways that led to the Library, he could see the youngest younglings carry the last of the Holocrons from the vault. Some of them had nothing to do and were only milling about. Anakin couldn't help but watch them in their innocence. He loved the younglings. They had been the only group in the Temple that had never nagged him for being a late joiner, for the way he had found him to the Jedi. They had simply adored him, a feeling that was entirely mutual. He would never give up his children to the order, but the younglings had the sort of companionship and education that he really wanted for the twins.

One of them, a blonde buy, human and no more than seven years old noticed him, and seconds later he found himself surrounded by them all, all of them talking at once.

Once they had settled down somewhat same boy came forward. "Master Skywalker, there are so many of them!"

He was scared, they all were, and Anakin understood them only too well. For all the things they'd heard about the war, this was the first time they had seen it up close, and all of a sudden the entire universe seemed to have turned against them and the only family most of them had ever known. For a second, Anakin felt a strange, special kind of connection with the blonde youngling before it disappeared again, but he spoke to all of them when he said:

"Don't worry, the Masters and the Knights will defend you. After all, hasn't Master Yoda said that a plan he has, hmm?"

They all laughed and giggled when he momentarily lapsed into the way the Grand Master talked.

"Now, trust in the Force and get back to work, will you?"

They went, and Anakin leaned against a pillar to watch them go. Whatever Yoda's plan was, it had better work, because those younglings deserved better to be outright slaughtered or taken away for Sith training. He didn't know which would be worse.

"Skywalker."

He turned and saw Master Windu running to meet him.

"Yes, Master?"

"How is your... wife?"

Under any other set of circumstances Anakin would have found the uncomfortable way Windu spoke beyond hilarious, but he had grown up a lot in the last week, so he merely allowed himself a smile. "Tired, worried, in pain, but still herself and trying to help those less fortunate. I don't deserve her."

Windu nodded. "Skywalker, I.. I did you a disservice when you first joined us. I believed you could not be trusted."

Anakin couldn't believe that Windu was doing this at that very moment, but he also knew that it was a once in a lifetime opportunity.

"Master, I won't say that this hasn't angered me, but if the last week has taught me anything, it's that you do what you think is best for the order. I would have acted the same in your place, and frankly, there were times when I didn't deserve your trust."

For a second he thought back to his last pre-war visit to Tatooine.

"But, what's done is done, and discussing it right now is pointless, is it not?"

Windu agreed, Anakin could see that.

At that point they had reached the the hall of coloumns just behind the entrance.

"Master, if you want to apologize to someone, do it to her."

Windu looked at where Anakin was pointing at, and there stood his old Padawan, trying to keep to the sides and acutely uncomfortable at being back here where she had left under such a bad cloud. When she saw that Windu was looking at her she turned away and was about to go back to the defence line when Anakin stepped away and the two of them were left relatively alone.

"Padawan Tano."

"Not any more."

She turned and left, and Windu pondered the short exchange. She had been just as dismissive of him as the Council had been of her.

In the last two days he had found out that he was wrong about so many things, dismissing what had happened to her as merely one of the trials might as well be one of them. As he watched her go, he couldn't help but think that what had happened to her was what had helped fuel Skywalker's dislike of the Council. Yet another thing on the very long list of things that bore thinking on.

"Master Windu? There is a group of Clones approaching under a flag of truce."

"I will be there."

When he reached the line, he saw Ahsoka standing beside her old Master and he made a promise to himself to repair that as the first of many amends he had to make.

Six clone troopers made their way past the wreckage of war on the steps and stopped about half-way up. In their middle they carried a white flag, the universal sign of truce since long before the Republic had been founded.

"Skywalker, Tano, with me." Windu said and started to walk down the steps without looking if they followed him. He sensed that through the Force that they did, and that Ahsoka was both surprised and confused at his show of trust.

The three Jedi met the Clones near what had once been an AT-RT walker, with the charred remnants of it's pilot still perched in the seat.

"Commander Appo, what do you want?"

"Master Windu, I have been ordered by Chancellor Palpatine to demand your unconditional surrender. If you do so, those of you who are still alive will be spared."

Windu reached out into the Force, sensed no duplicity on Appo's part, but that didn't preclude Palpatine from going back on this, in fact for all the honesty the clone seemed to have, Hoth would melt before the Chancellor.

Still, Yoda had said he needed time, so time was what Windu would gain.

"We will be allowed free passage off Coruscant?"

"No, you will be taken into custody."

"Well there is no point in continuing this then." Windu said and turned on his heels without saying anything. He wasn't really surprised when the next thing he heard was the activation of two light-sabres and those then cutting through bodies.

Windu started ignited his own and started running back towards the temple, the others right behind.

"He was going to shoot you, Master." Ahsoka yelled to be heard over the din of the resuming blaster fire.

"I sensed it as well, Mistress Tano."

"Good, so I wasn't imagining things then."

She wasn't only referring to what had happened just now, and he knew it.

He really hoped that Yoda knew what he was doing.

To say that Sidious was furious at the delay would be like saying that the sacking of Coruscant had been a minor playground scuffle between children.

The last day had seen key elements of his plan for Galactic domination fall apart completely, and though he knew that the rise of his Empire was only a short time away, he now lacked two key components for his consolidation of power, the contents of the Jedi Temple and an apprentice that could do his bidding out in the field. Skywalker... He would have been perfect, and yet he had chosen the path of weakness. So be it.

He now realized the wisdom of the behind the scenes planning the late Count Dooku had started six years ago, not knowing that it had been indended to keep him busy and not realizing that he was to be killed by Sidious' next apprentice. Now it was a handy Plan B, one that he now needed and had already kicked into high gear.

But for that he needed the Temple, not so much the building as more what was inside it, but the stubborn resistance the Jedi were putting up with the help of Skywalker, and the unlucky incident that had made most of the Jedi in the nearer core congregate on Coruscant.

He had to give it to the Order, they had acted very fast and wise. It would not help them. Even if the 501st was finished as a fighting unit afterwards, eventually they would take the Temple.

Something else he had done wrong was to give into his impulse to order Senator Amidala and her spawn killed out of hand. Had be taken her alive, then he would have not only had two additional apprentices very strong in the Force but the only bargaining chip in the universe that could get Skywalker to abandon the order after all. And not even having her killed had worked out, thanks to Skywalkers annoying former Padawan. It was as if somewhere within the Force there was someone or something that wanted him to fail in his plans and look like fool.

In addition to all this, the timing of Order 66 had been wrong for the speech to the Senate he intended to make. Initially he had planned to have eradication of the Jedi all but completed, giving the Senate established facts and overawe them into supporting the New Order. Now the Senators, especially the dissidents among them, had the time to make up their own mind on what was going on at the Temple. Oh, he had long since started giving out official newscasts that branded the Jedi as traitors, but it wasn't what he had planned on doing when the time for Order 66 came.

Plans aside, this needed to end, now, he decided. The Jedi had managed to hold the temple for almost eleven hours now, and they had to have taken heavy losses.

At least off Coruscant things were going more or less as planned, the Jedi in other places were already dead or being hunted down, and the two Legions he had dispatched to Mustafar instead of just sending a turned Skywalker as he had planned were about to make planet-fall. It would be messy, and he would have to invent a story to explain how he had come to know where the CIS leaders had hidden, but that was something he would do when the time came. Coruscant demanded all his attentions at this time.

He had many things to do, and less time to do it in.

They had beaten off two more attacks since the 'negotiations', and Anakin was feeling the strain. Even with Force-enhanced endurance, he could not keep this up forever, and he could see that even Windu's movements became slightly less fluid and he took just that much of an instant longer to react.

A third of the Jedi who had been here when all this started were dead, and almost all the other Jedi and older Padawan were wounded, Anakin included. They needed an alternative.

Windu had gone to confer with Yoda, so Obi Wan and Anakin were effectively in command at the entrance.

"We won't be able to hold this for much longer, Anakin."

"I know."

He had gotten a pair of Electrobinoculars from storage and was using it to survey the clone's position. They had withdrawn to the edge of the Temple district for the moment, and were doing... something there.

"This is too quiet."

"I agree, Master." Anakin said. He put the binocs down and turned to lean against the blaster-scarred pillar he stood next to. "We should probably withdraw into the hall and fight them there. They won't be able to stand off as much and will have to get close to engage us. And that's where we have the advantage."

"Agreed, but that gives them a foothold inside the Temple."

"You have a better idea, Obi Wan? Look at them."

He motioned to the group of tired, bleeding and battered Jedi that were huddled behind the barricade they'd constructed. "They'll be lucky if they can hold of a squad or a company, never mind the entirety of the 501st. And I can't help but worry that Palpatine.. or whatever he calls himself will be at an end with what little patience he has with us. Sooner or later he will just decide to blow us all away."

Again, Obi Wan couldn't help but agree. Even though he was willing to die for his fellow Jedi, he had a strong desire to live.

Anakin meanwhile had things to live for too. Padmé's contractions were a little less than twenty seconds apart now, and it could happen at any moment, giving the twin's father a strong desire to end this in a way that didn't get them, their mother, everyone in the Temple and himself killed.

"How is she?"

"Last time I checked, she started yelling at everyone around her, and blamed me for putting her up to this." Anakin said with a painful smile that told just how much he wanted to be by his wife's side.

"And your former Padawan?"

He sighed. "There's something I don't understand. Last time I saw her, she was helping Yoda direct the Younglings."

"You want to fix... this thing for her?"

Anakin shook his head. "No, she won't let me. Ahsoka is someone who wants to fight her own battles. When she left the Order I offered, but she refused it. I think what hurt her the most was that they were so dismissive of her, that the Council refused to acknowledge that they'd done anything wrong. I sometimes think that if they'd just apologized for what had happened and admitted that this whole damned affair was at least in part their own fault.."

"You think she doesn't want to..."

"Rejoin the Order?" Anakin shook his head again. "No, not at the moment. She's still hurt. Until and unless the Council makes some sort of first gesture, one that she believes, that won't change. Even then it's a toss-up what she'll do, even if I know she'll come with us. She has nothing here on Coruscant. Not any more than any Jedi."

It was then that the first cannon opened fire. The same guns Obi Wan had commanded on Cristophsis were no trying their level best to kill him. Luckily who ever gave the orders now had aimed low and instead managed to hit the base of the platform the temple had been constructed on.

"WITHDRAW!"

They led the others inside, where they were met by Windu, every Jedi who could still fight.

"Master Yoda, I hope that your plan is ready to go, because we just ran out of time."

"Ready, we almost are. Hold them back we must for a little longer."

Another shot rocked the Temple, and this one had been aimed perfectly.

It blew away most of the makeshift defences the Jedi had constructed, and the Clones began to flood across the expanse in front of the Temple, up the stairs and into the Main Hall. That hall was darkened. Either the internal power supply had failed or the lights had simply been shut off. At any rate, the Clones slowly advanced into the darkness and activated their helmets' built in night vision systems. Them, suddenly, one after another every lightsabre in the room was activated.

tbc

About here you should start playing "Duel of the Fates" when reading this.

I know what I said, but AJE = After Jedi Exodus. 15 AJE = 4 BBY.

A PSA: I noticed that I mis-typed the Clones with a lower-case C for a while... has been corrected in this and won't happen again in the future.