Harry's dreams were troubled and he ended up snapping out of his sleep a few hours in. There was sweat on his brow which he wiped away. It wasn't a nightmare, but it was an ill omen of things to come.
Looking over his shoulder, he saw that the Jedi was sitting in a meditative pose, gathering her strength and building her resolve. It had been sloppy of him to fall asleep in the pilot's chair with an unknown on the ship, but he didn't think anything bad would happen. She was a Jedi, and there was a code they lived by. Usually.
Harry tapped a few buttons on the console in front of him and scrolled through the passive scanner readings. There was nothing out of the order to report, no anomalies, and the only real thing of note seemed to be the higher-than-average amount of traffic, as well as a significant amount of chatter going on the holonet. Something was going on, but no one really knew what it was. Whatever it was, it wasn't good.
They were nearly to Coruscant. The Perlemian Trade Route was a very efficient hyperlane, and with it they had travelled nearly a third of the charted galaxy in a single digit amount of hours. His long range scanner was detecting a massive amount of traffic near Coruscant itself, even more than normal. It was the capital of the galaxy, and there were a dozen or more major hyperlanes that all lead there. He would have to take some care in piloting the Revenge to the planet. It wasn't the hyperspace travel itself he was worried about since it was nearly statistically impossible to collide with another ship during it, but rather, it was coming out of hyperspace and into local orbit.
"It won't be more than thirty minutes," Harry called out to the Jedi. There was no response. Again, Harry looked at her. She was meditating, though as he watched for a moment, Harry realized that she was asleep. Harry hadn't been the only one that had been tired.
A small smile crossed his face. He couldn't begrudge her having fallen asleep during her meditation, but it was funny. She had gone through the ringer, both physically and mentally, so it wasn't that much of a surprise. Harry's day had been long, but he wasn't the one that he been betrayed by his own soldiers and shot in the back.
Harry poked her and she woke up immediately. Her eyes blinked a few times as she reached for her lightsabers, temporarily confused by the strange environment.
"Easy there, General," Harry said, holding his hands up once more. "We're almost to Coruscant."
""I'm not a General," she said.
"What?"
"I have no troops to be a General of," she clarified. "What with them trying to kill me."
"My apologies," Harry said. "I'm unused to dealing with Jedi and I often forget how to address one."
"A non-Jedi can either use Master as a sign of respect regardless of the Jedi's held rank or simply Jedi if you're unsure," she said. "Right now, until the status of the chain of command is ascertained, you can just call me Jedi Secura."
"Got it," Harry said. "Anyways, We've got thirty minutes at most until we're in orbit. Do you have a plan?"
"One must assume that the Temple is being watched," the Jedi Master said. "By whom, I cannot be sure. If that broadcast is being used to lure in unsuspecting Jedi into an ambush, then we must prepare for the worst."
"The worst being if the Sith themselves happen to be there waiting."
"If that is the case, we run," she said. "Run and persevere. We'll try and find other Jedi and plan a new attack, one that doesn't involve us walking into an ambush."
"Right. And if there's no Sith, and just clone troopers?"
"Then we defend ourselves as we complete our mission."
"In that case, I should go prepare my gear," Harry said. "Usually I'm one for stealth, but if we're to face down a battalion on the ground and inside a fortified building, I'm going to need the big guns. Specifically, The Big Gun."
The armory was well-stocked, but it wasn't overflowing. He didn't have enough weapons to arm a barracks or anything like that. But, what he lacked in quantity, he more than made up for in quality. He had different weapons for the different expectations he had for potential bounties, as well as backups and spare parts.
Truthfully, using weapons wasn't something he had ever had to do until he made it out into the galaxy. Using a wand was effective, and could even do quite a lot of damage, but experience has shown him that the proper use of a well-made blaster could be just as effective. There was no risk of him getting tired from using it, and no chance of accidentally burning down a house or shorting out the life support systems in a spaceship.
Harry would never eschew his wand, it was just his backup, and he had a backup for that as well, in case things went pear-shaped. Using a wand to kill a hundreds soldiers with Fiendfyre would bring undue attention to him, and he did not want that. The wand was much better for subterfuge. Plus, killing with magic just felt… wrong. He avoided that whenever possible.
The far wall, not that the room was very big, held three lockers with thick glass windows built in. Each one contained a suit of armor for use in various situations. Many bounty hunters had their signature armor, and Harry was no different. It just wasn't this one though.
This one was all black and made up of scales. Not real scales, but metal ones. There were thousands of small metal plates all weaved together to give a very fearsome image. They plates were quite strong, indeed, the use of magic made them quite durable, and the usage of scales increased the surface area of the armor a thousand-fold, as to be better at dispersing energy.
It was a full suit of armor, with a helmet. Wearing the armor was the exact opposite of subtlety. It was bulky, and heavy, but the protection it offered was unparalleled for the amount of space it took up. Sure, magic could make it slightly lighter, and he could dissillusion himself when wearing it and mask some of the the sound it made, but that just wasn't necessary.
Putting the armor only took a few minutes, afterwhich Harry began to inspect The Big Gun, his prized weapon. It looked like it wouldn't have been out of place on the outside of a gunship and used to destroy starfighters or ground emplacements with ease. It was a heavily modified Z-6 rotary cannon, and would do very well if they had to assault their way into the Jedi Temple.
Harry made his way back to the cockpit and saw Coruscant approaching in the viewport. It was a very interesting planet, though Harry wouldn't use the word beautiful to describe it. It was the heart of the galactic community, and the entire planet was made up of one city. A trillion people called the place home, though Harry wasn't one of them. He had been to the planet countless times, as being a hub of the galaxy meant that anything and everything could be found there, including criminals. But, he really didn't like the place.
There planet was awfully busy, even by its normal standards. The traffic was out of control, and every dock and spaceport was at full capacity. There were far more warships in orbit than was typical. Something was definitely going on.
The Jedi turned to him as Harry vented the ship's heat sink and activated the stealth module. "An emergency session of the Senate has been called," she said. "Every senator in the system is going to be here."
"When?" Harry asked.
"Approximately one hour," she replied.
"That gives us just enough time to get over to the temple without being seen," Harry said. "And hopefully the meeting will serve well enough as a distraction."
"It's as good of an opportunity as we're going to get," she agreed.
The Jedi Master began to explain the layout of the Jedi Temple as Harry carefully piloted the ship towards the city center. The Rowena's Revenge may have stealth technology, but it still obeyed the laws of physics. There was only so much magic could do in that regards. He could bolster the heat control well enough with the proper precautions, and the ship could become perfectly invisible. Those were things that could be done without magic, though magic certainly made it easier. Either way, what wasn't possible was to stop the ship from taking up physical space. Bumping into other ships was a very real possibility, and the skies of Coruscant were quite crowded. It was one thing to be able to fly down a hyperlane at faster-than-light speeds and not having to worry about hitting another ship because space was just so damn vast, but on Coruscant with a trillion people, it was a very real possibility.
Harry had to be very careful, and as such, the trip to the Jedi Temple took most of the hour. It would have been faster to go there without stealth, but the risk was too great. Ships of his size were not permissible in local airspace without special clearance, and as he got closer to the planet's administrative center, that was doubly true. So, instead of being denied permission to fly in the Federal District, he just didn't ask for it.
The Jedi Temple was a massive building, thousands of years old. Of course, it had been rebuilt and renovated a few times in all those years, but it still sat upon its original location just down the road from the Galactic Senate chambers. Shaped like a ziggurat, it was hard to miss.
Near the Temple itself, and all of the surrounding area near to the Senate building, the entire airspace was heavily restricted. As such, Harry was able to relax slightly without the fear of another ship crashing into him. Though, it would be awkward if there were other stealth ships in the area.
"Well, we're here," Harry said. "And… so are they."
Outside of the temple were hundreds of clone troopers and a few pieces of mechanized weaponry, along with parked gunships. They weren't outwardly hostile, but their presence at the Temple was definitely circumspect.
"I suggest the side entrance," Harry said dryly. "Or, I can blast them with the ship… but I doubt that will turn out well for us, seeing as how we're in the middle of the Capital."
"Agreed," the Jedi Master replied. "We can go in through the side entrance. It's a more discreet entrance for those wishing to enter without scrutiny, but there's still a security checkpoint."
"But at least we won't be out in the open," Harry said. "Those will better our odds. How much longer until the session starts?"
The Jedi Master toggled the display until it was showing a feed from inside the Galactic Senate. Vice-chairman Mas Amedda was standing regally in the center, ceremonial staff held firmly. The raised dais to his right was empty, though the Chancellor was waiting off to the side, hooded. In the background, hundreds of delegation pods were docked into the wall. Each one housed the delegation for a single world. Many of them were empty, due to the suddenness of the emergency meeting, but just as many were full.
Moments later, the Chancellor stood up and ascended the dias. "My dear senators," he began. "A great treason was committed today. The Jedi have shown their true colors. Recently, they've poisoned the waters on Felucia, blockaded the skies of Christophsis, and just today, tried to assassinate me. They sent four of their Order, including the leader of the Order, Mace Windu, after me. I would have been dead were it not for Anakin Skywalker, whom saw the council for what they really were." The Chancellor paused to collect himself as a dark look crossed his already shrouded face. "I hereby declare the Jedi Order enemies of the state, and I hereby put forth a motion to consolidate power, to declare a movement to end the war, and to nominate myself to the position of Emperor in the new Galactic Empire. All those who support -"
"That… can't be good," Harry said. "What the hell is going on?"
"I think we're about to find out," she replied solemnly.
"I guess that's our signal to go down then," Harry said. The Jedi mutely nodded, the words of the Chancellor having shook her to her core.
Harry opened the back ramp and jumped down, using his magic to keep him for splatting. Aayla Secura performed a similar maneuver with the Force. Truthfully, they were one and the same, but their disciplines were as different as fire and ice. On Earth, there were wizards, but so too were there shamans, witchdoctors, haruspices, druids and other practitioners. And in the greater galaxy, Jedi.
The fall only lasted for a moment before Harry quickly touched down and popped inside the entrance alcove of the building, with the Twi'lek Jedi right on his heels. He glanced up to verify that the ship was still invisible before heading inside the building itself.
The immediate entrance foyer was quite empty of any furnishings, though the foyer itself was quite well crafted. It was against the Jedi code to display any sort of opulence or idolatry, and few of the Jedi had anything in the way of personal belongings outside of their lightsabers and the clothes on their back.
The side entrance hall was long and at the end was the small security checkpoint, lightly guarded, and it did contain some furnishings in the form of tapestries and statues. They all depicted important events of the Jedi Order, so as they would never be forgotten and so that a lesson could be learned. However, some of the walls were empty from where there had once been art, and they didn't get ten feet before one of the clone troopers identified Master Secura.
"Jedi!" the clone shouted. "Neutralize her!"
"So much for making a quiet entrance," Harry said with a sigh. Not a second later, an alarm went off. It was moments like this that he wish he had a second stealth suit to loan out. Magic just wouldn't have cut it in a place drenched with it. But, the stealth wouldn't have been worth much as soon as they had to open a closed door with a bunch clone troopers watching.
"If we make it out of this alive, I will make sure you get every credit owed to you," Jedi Secura said.
"Hey, I'm in this for survival just as much as you are," Harry replied. "No amount of credits is worth this, but my life certainly is."
There were only ten clone troopers at that particular barricade, but each one of them carried a lethal weapon. They opened fire without hesitation, spraying blaster bolts at them.
Harry took cover, steeled himself and turned to Jedi Secura. "Are we really doing this?" he asked. "There's no turning back after this."
Aayla Secura had a single blue lightsaber drawn and deflected the first few blaster bolts away and spared a glance at Harry. She took a deep breath as she declared, "We must."
Her posture shifted slightly and she started deflecting the blaster bolts straight back at the clone troopers. Several of them fell from the immediate rebounds, while other bolts splashed off into the walls, scorching some of the paintings, and in particular, a painting of a Jedi posing using the second lightsaber form.
Secura was so quick that she was inside the cluster of clones and dispatching them with her lightsaber before Harry could even line up a shot with his heavy blaster cannon. The intense heat from the blade was enough to cauterize most wounds it caused nearly instantly, but the floor was still a slick bloody mess.
"How do we disable the alarm?" Harry asked as he caught up to the Jedi. The sound of heavy footfalls in the distance meant reinforcements would be there soon.
"Central command," she replied, wiping some of the blood off her face. "That's where the broadcast came from as well. We're going to have to fight our way in."
"Well, that's why I'm here," Harry replied, hefting The Big Gun. It wasn't too heavy, not with the magic it was enchanted with, but it was still bulky and long, and not at all accurate. But, with a spool of six barrels rotating around to disperse the heat and energy, accuracy did not matter when it spewed death at 1200 shots a minute.
A patrol of clone troops poured out into the hallway, already blasting before they were even all the way in, but a Jedi's senses were lightning fast, even when they weren't using the Force. Shooting an unsuspecting Jedi in that back was one thing, but when they were fully prepared for a fight, it was very difficult to get a shot through, and Jedi Master Secura was a master of her art. The small patrol didn't stand a chance.
"Let's get going," Master Secura said, stepping over a disemboweled body and pointing towards the door to the right of where the patrol had just come from. "It's towards the center of the Temple, and it will be heavily guarded judging by all the soldiers outside."
"Central command is at the center?" Harry remarked lightly. "That's a first."
Master Secura didn't respond as she rushed forward. She was a lot faster than Harry was, even if he hadn't been burdened down by his assault gear, but she didn't rush too far ahead. The only odd part was how there wasn't a constant influx of troops, which meant they were waiting for them.
The side passage opened up into a large room with high vaulted ceilings. There were a dozen or so passages leading off from it, all with closed doors so Harry could not see where they lead. There were stone reliefs all around the room depicting former Jedi Masters of note. At the far end was a receptionists console, though no one was there. There were, however, about a hundred clone troopers in the room, all facing the door Harry and Aayla Secura had burst out from.
Fast on their triggers and well aware of the enemy presence, the clones began unloading into their position. Harry, for his part, was just as quick in deploying the bipod on his gun, as well as the transparisteel shield build into it, giving him a small amount of protection from potential face shots.
Master Secura was quickly on the back foot with a single lightsaber, but soon evened the field as she pulled out her second lightsaber, which was green, and turned herself into a whirling dervish of death. Harry hesitated only a moment before holding the trigger on The Big Gun. He was a bounty hunter, but he purposefully never took missions that involved assassination, and he always chose the "alive" option in "dead or alive'. It didn't sit well with him, but neither did betrayal. This is not what he had planned on doing when he had landed on Felucia the previous day.
The barrels on Harry's Big Gun spooled up for a second before splitting plasma right back at the clones, and they started to die off in large numbers. The clones returned fire, but to little effect. Harry's armor could easily take light shots, and most of them were aiming at the Jedi to begin with.
The issue with a hundred clones in one room was one of sight lines. They were stacked several lines deep, so although there were a hundred of them or more, they could not fire at the same time, not without hitting the person in front of them. Really, the only way they'd get to fire was when the clone in front of them died, and died they did.
The entire battle didn't take more than fifteen or so seconds, but before Harry could even let his gun cool down, several of the side doors opened, and more clone troopers poured out. Harry aimed his gun down one of them and poured fire down the death trap, but it took precious seconds to clear one hallway out while the others went unimpeded.
Aayla Secura was not without tricks. She was perhaps the foremost expert on the dual-wielding style of Jar'Kai, and very little would be able to stop her while she was in the heat of the moment. She was equally proficient in wielding her two lightsabers seemingly independently of each other, and she used one to deflect blaster bolts down one hallway while simultaneously hurling her other lightsaber down another, the soaring blade slicing through every clone trooper in her path before returning to her outstretched hand a moment later. She did the same thing down another hallway just as Harry pivoted his gun to the next one as well.
Within minutes, each one of them had a body count best measured by the dozen. It was getting bad enough that the clone troopers were having a hard time even getting through the hallways as they had to step over their fallen comrades as well as not slip in the blood. No doubt that was bad for morale.
Eventually, it became so one-sided that several of the hallways filled up as high as Harry's head, thanks to a little help from the Jedi Master using her force skills to pull in bodies from the main reception area to further clog several of the hallways. They'd have to pull their fallen comrades out of the doorways just to get into the room.
At some point, a lull in the battle occurred. It was unlikely they were out of clone troopers, as a single Venator-class ship could hold thousands of them, and they hadn't killed even a fraction of that many. Likely, they were planning a new strategy, one that probably didn't involve a frontal assault. Maybe they were getting out the heavy guns, or perhaps they were going to firebomb them, or try and gas them out. Either way, they had to get moving.
Harry tried to keep the emotion off his face, but it was hard. He wasn't a soldier, never pretended to be. Each death weighed heavily on him. Clone or not, these were people, humans, just like him. They weren't slavers or raiders, they were soldiers. Soldiers who were just following orders. Soldiers whose cause Harry had supported a day earlier. Harry'd killed before, more times than he'd care to admit, but never in such a wholesale fashion. He purposefully avoided the direct conflicts in the war. The killing didn't sit well with him, but he had made his choice when he pulled Aayla Secura off Felucia. This was about as far away from the simple low-key life he had been trying to live.
Not a moment after, the sound of more fighting reached their ears. It wasn't far away, but it was distinctly not where they were, and the telltale sound of a lightsaber could be heard. A few moments later, two more Jedi strode into the room.
The first one was male and human, roughly the same age as Harry. He had a full beard and wore the typical brown Jedi robes of the Order. He looked like a respectable sort, and he was, as Harry recognized him immediately as General Kenobi. Harry was glad to see someone such as him survive what had happened, as he was perhaps the third or fourth more well-known Jedi in the entire Galaxy.
To his right was one of the Jedi who was even more well-known than Kenobi. He was short, perhaps a third of Harry's height, and looked like a cross between a frog and a house elf. No one actually knew what species he was, despite having been in the Jedi Order for hundreds of years. He was arguably the most powerful Jedi in the Galaxy, and one of the wisest. He was Master Yoda.
"Master Yoda, Master Kenobi," Aayla Secura said. "I am sure glad to see you both alive and well."
"Mine, the pleasure is," Yoda said. "Survive, we must. Help you, we will."
"We have to shut down the broadcast luring in the Jedi here," Kenobi said seriously. He took one look at the scores of dead bodies before turning his attention to the various doors around the room.
"That's why we're here," Secura said. "This is Harry Potter. He rescued me off Felucia right as my troops betrayed me. What exactly happened?"
"Blind, we were," Yoda said. "The Sith Lord revealed himself, finally he has. Tried to bring Skywalker to the Darkside, he did. Report him to us immediately, Skywalker did."
"Who is it?" Secura asked.
"Chancellor Palpatine," Yoda replied. "Now, Emperor."
The implication of the statement was heavy, more than Harry could process. Secura was speechless for a few seconds. Chancellor Palpatine was the traitor? Harry didn't know what that meant, other than that they had all be played for fools, the entire galaxy. What did that mean for the war?
"Masters Windu, Fisto, Tiin, and Kolar tried to apprehend him," Kenobi said, "But he slew them all, and is now using that as evidence that the Jedi tried to assassinate him. Not long after, he ordered the execution of all Jedi. I only just managed to escape, and Master Yoda had some help from the Wookiees on Kashyyyk. We met up and heard the broadcast, calling for all Jedi to return here, and realized we had to stop that before even more of our Order gets killed."
"What are we waiting for then?" Harry asked. "Let's get to it before they decide to bring in the heavy artillery."
Kenobi sent him a questioning look, as he didn't even know who Harry was, but he trusted in the Force. With a nod, Kenobi set off for one of the hallways where no clone soldiers had come through, with the others falling in step behind him.
The security center was much deeper into the facility, but with three Jedi and a heavily armed bounty hunter, the trail of bodies kept mounting higher and higher. They even came across a patrol of heavies with guns not so dissimilar from Harry's, but they were still no match for the Jedi Masters. Harry couldn't help but wonder how long their luck would last. Perhaps for as long as the emergency senate meeting took, and not a minute longer.
Their destination was deep into the complex, and when they finally reached it, there was a veritable army waiting for them. They were in some sort of large training area, and there were a multitude of bodies already around them, except none of them were clones. They were Jedi, and their padawans. There must have been a hundred of them, all dead,
"Even the younglings…" Kenobi said with sadness. "These are not blaster wounds. These are from a lightsaber. Be wary."
All three Jedi tensed and not a moment too soon as the ranks upon ranks of clone troopers opened fire on their position. Harry activated the shield charm built into his armor, causing a blue glow to encase his body as the blaster bolts impacted harmlessly against it. It wouldn't last forever, it wouldn't even last minutes under the assault, but it didn't have to. It just had to see him through the fight.
The three Jedi were a whirl of supernatural speed and agility. Even Master Yoda, who was the oldest being Harry had ever met, and looked every year of it, moved with nearly as much grace as Aayla Secura, who was in her prime. Their lightsabers blurred as they reflected back countless blaster bolts, doing more damage to their ranks than they would have if they had taken the offensive themselves.
Once the tide of battle shifted with numerous dead, the three Jedi unleashed themselves into the clone troopers. Harry did his part, cutting down reinforcements before they could enter through the side passages, and it only took a single patrol to fall under The Big Gun to clog up the doors. The hallways themselves were dozens of feet tall, but the doors were not.
It was a massacre. Master Secura could slice through a dozen troopers at once with a single thrown blade, all while deflecting blaster bolts with her other. Master Yoda was such a small target that nothing even got close to hitting him as he ran between their legs, severing many at the kneecap before finish them off. He'd even jump up and do what Harry could only call a rotary attack, spinning vertically like a saw blade and cutting many down. Master Kenobi was no slouch either, using well-timed movements to move in and out of the troopers, effectively using their own soldiers as shields.
Harry could see why the Jedi were so renowned. The clone troopers knew how to fight Jedi, as they had fought beside them for years, yet there was very little the average soldier could do when a Jedi let loose. Harry had often heard that a Jedi Knight was worth a hundred troops, and a Jedi Master a thousand. With their group, it was evidenced that the clones would need a lot more firepower to even have a hope of cutting one of their number down.
With the battle over, at least for the moment, they dashed across the training area towards the other side, where the high tech security center lay. They had to go around dozens of bodies while trying to keep their feet steady on the blood-slicked floor. Harry did his best to not contemplate the body count, of either the clones or the Jedi. He could not let his emotions get the better of him in the middle of a mission.
The security center was arranged in the circle, with holo projectors all around the outside. Even in an era of faster-than-light space travel, the technology was more advanced than anything Harry had dealt with. Back on Earth, such a setup would have fried if Harry had so much as sneezed in the vicinity, but the Jedi Order had long ago adapted technology into their lifestyle, and they knew how to shield their technology from the Force. Their innovations had been adapted into many manufacturing processes across the galaxy. It why he didn't worry at all when piloting the Rowena's Revenge.
Harry setup The Big Gun in front of the console and kept line of site on the doors while the three Jedi went through the systems. The room itself was interesting, as it appeared to be some sort of training area. In the far back there was even some sort of strange white tree that a handful of children had been slaughtered under. Harry had to avert his eyes from that.
It only took a few moments for Kenobi to find the message that was broadcasting. He quickly deleted it and replaced it with a new one. "This is a warning to all surviving Jedi. Do not return to the Temple or Coruscant. You will only find death there. Palpatine has revealed himself as the Sith Lord. We must persevere, and believe in the Force. Hope is not yet lost, and we will overcome this."
"Security recording, I have found," Yoda said after Obi-wan finished. "Caution, we must take. Heavy, this knowledge is." The other Jedis turned to watch, and Harry couldn't help but glance over his shoulder at the holo-recording.
"Play it," Kenobi said. Yoda nodded sadly.
What played was one of the most brutal things Harry had ever seen. More brutal than the soldiers they had just killed. A single Jedi walked into the temple, and then started attacking all the other Jedi, easily dispatching them, and it was neither clean, nor quick. He did not spare the younglings either. He killed every man, woman, and child. The screams shook Harry down to his core. Then, at the end, his face was revealed.
"Anakin Skywalker," Kenobi said, disbelieving.
"Fallen to the Dark Side, he has," Yoda said. "Converted by Palpatine in the end, it appears."
"If I had not seen this recording with my own eyes, I would have never believed it possible," Kenobi said. He was struggling to hold his emotions in.
"Defeat the Sith, we must," Yoda said seriously. "Before it is too late."
"What is your plan?" Secura asked.
"Confront the chancellor, I will" Yoda said. "Obi-wan, go after Skywalker you must."
"Master Yoda, I must insist," Kenobi said. "Let me go after the Chancellor. I don't think I can confront Anakin. He's like a brother to me."
"You must," Yoda said. "the Anakin you once knew, he is not. How he fights, better than anyone, you know. Highest chance of success, you have."
Kenobi let go of the breath he was holding and calmed himself. "I understand, Master. I will do what must be done"
"What of me?" Secura asked.
"Collect our history in this Temple, you must," Yoda said. "Fall to the Sith, it cannot. A thousand years of data. Holocrons… data cores... Depend on this, the history of our Order does. Needed to rebuild the Order, it is."
"I will do it," she said. "Where should we reconvene when the mission is done?"
"Allies we still have," Yoda said. "Monitored we are, the name I cannot say. Contact you through the Force, I shall."
"I will see you then," she said. "May the Force be with you."
Kenobi followed Yoda out, while Harry followed Secura down deeper into the temple complex. With Yoda going off to fight the Chancellor, that would give them some more time to do what needed to be done.
There was little opposition in their way as they made it deeper. Past the central security checkpoint, there was only one way in, and they had just dismantled the entire battalion that had been guarding it. So, for the moment, they would have free reign of the place.
Their only opposition came from an entrenched unit, deep into the facility and down a set of stairs. They hid behind a makeshift barricade, taking potshots at them as they approached. Jedi Secura reflected each one back as she made her way down the stairs, but the troopers managed to duck behind cover each time.
Aayla made it to the barrier, and simply plunged her lightsaber deep into it and swung it sideways. The sound of a piercing scream indicated that she had hit. A moment later, she hoped over the barrier and cleared the rest of the soldiers with ease. Harry followed, not doing much other than constantly checking to make sure they were not going to be ambushed from behind.
They entered into a large cold room that held many vertical stacks of illuminated databases. Each one was ten meters tall and contained an entire generation worth of data. There was information here that could be found nowhere else in the galaxy, as well as the critical information on the Jedi Order that could not be allowed to fall into the Sith's hands.
"I'll guard the door," Harry said. "You can go Secura the data."
The Jedi master rolled her eyes but never-the-less rushed over to the near-side wall where a large bank of sub-processors existed. She punched in a code on one of the consoles, which opened a mini-vault. Inside was a heavy-looking onyx-colored data-cube. She stored that in an insulated metal chest that she had procured from nearby and rushed over to the far wall and put another code into the security scanner. A short verification process initiated, as that hall was only accessible to Jedi Masters. It took about a minute, and as each second passed, Harry's anxiety increased. There was no way the Chancellor hadn't heard about the assault yet. They'd been in there for quite awhile by this point.
Every minute that passed while the Twi'lek Jedi was in the vault made Harry more and more nervous. Two minutes passed, and then five, and then ten. It was nearly fifteen minutes before she re-emerged, carrying a heavy metal container in her hands.
"You've Secura'd everything?" Harry asked.
"Yes, let's get out of here," she said.
"You don't need to tell me twice."
"And please, no more puns," she finished. "I appreciate the attempt at levity, but it really should wait until we're safe. Also, the emphasis goes on the first syllable, not the second."
She led Harry out of the Jedi Library and out of a different set of side passages, though it still eventually lead to the same bottleneck.. She knew the building better than most, and was able to get them through a path that didn't lead them over piles of dead bodies. Nor was there anyone waiting for them along the way. And, more to the point, Harry's ship was still waiting for them outside, invisible until Harry triggered a remote opener which revealed the inside.
As soon as they made it into the ship, Harry immediately launched them into orbit, not even waiting for the ramp to finish withdrawing. He had a bad feeling waiting around that district.
"So, you got everything?" Harry asked. Aayla sat down next to him with the entire collective history of the Jedi Order on her lap. "What was that black cube?"
"That is a datacore," she said, pulling out the cube. "A thousand years worth of Jedi History are stored on this. There would be more, but the archives have been purged several times over the millennia by the Sith…"
"It's lucky we managed to get there first, before they did it again," Harry replied.
"Indeed," she said. She put the cube away and suddenly stood up. "Do you have somewhere private where I can meditate? I need to await Master Yoda's signal, and I need to… ruminate on what I've done today. I need to clear my conscious. It might take awhile and I cannot be interrupted."
"Yeah sure," Harry said. "The closest cabin is mine, so you can use one of the others. Do what you need to do."
The Jedi nodded her head gravely. She took the datacore and the box holding the holocrons and located one of the crew cabins and locked herself in..
Sighing, Harry leaned back into his seat and pulled the console input closer to him. His hands shook as he went to type something in and he immediately knew it was a lost cause. It wasn't adrenaline, not entirely. It was the post-battle nerves as he was only just beginning to realize the enormity of his actions, actions which paled to what the Chancellor had somehow accomplished, but heavy actions nonetheless.
Harry had just killed dozens of people, and he did not relish it. The magnitude of it had yet to fully hit him, and likely wouldn't for hours. He wished he had the discipline that Aayla Secura had, to be able to meditate on it and accept it, but simply locking away his feelings with Occlumency was not the way. He wanted to feel human. He wanted to be reminded of his actions. He would not take the easy way out.
Grunting in annoyance at himself, he got out of the pilot's seat as soon as they were in deep orbit and took his gear back to the armory. Even in situations like this, he had to take care of his ship and himself. He was covered in gore, and so was his guns and armor. A deep clean would be the first step in reconciling what he did, psychically. Mentally, it would take longer, but he would cope.
He always did.