Anakin made it onto the bridge as a small blockade runner dropped out of hyperspace nearby. Clearly marked as a Republic vessel.
"Admiral Kilian's second ship?" Anakin queried as he approached the command centre. "I thought he said it was another cruiser."
"He did," Yularen looked at the schematics his technical officer was bringing up on the small ship.
"Well that's not a cruiser," Anakin tilted his head thoughtfully. "Though I feel something..." his train of thought went quiet as the communications lieutenant popped up.
"Sir. We've got an incoming transmission."
"Let's hear it," the Captain waved him to broadcast it.
"Stealth have failed to execute order 66-S, but managed to preserve his Padawan Tano. Requesting status report."
"Ahsoka?" Anakin was aghast.
"Saviour andDefiance succeeded in executing Order 66-S," the Captain conveyed what seemed to be becoming a routine greeting. "Skywalker and Kenobi are aboard."
"Thank god for that," came the disembodied voice from the other end.
"They should be able to dock with us," Anakin instructed the Captain. "Get Ahsoka to the briefing room once she's aboard. We're going to need her help. Admiral," he gestured with his head. "We're ready for you. Captain, join us when you're free. Ask Captain Rex to join us as well."
"Sir," the Captain nodded and turned to issue orders to his men.
When Anakin returned to the briefing room he was surprised to see a clone Commander with a dirtied yellow shoulder band had joined them.
"Cody!" he was genuinely pleased. It only took him a fraction of a second to press some more pieces of the puzzle into place. "Leader of Order 66-K I assume."
"Yes General," Commander Cody nodded. Obi-Wan's Commander, leader of his battalion.
"Did you cook it up?"
"Sir?"
"The plan to rescue Obi-Wan," Anakin clarified. "Did you cook it up?"
Commander Cody gave a single sharp nod of affirmation.
"You've done a great service to the Republic. And to me," Anakin clapped him on the shoulder, true appreciation to a friend. "Thank you."
Captain Rex joined them shortly after, stopping, startled in the doorway when he set eyes on Cody. The two clones froze, remembering the last time they'd stood shoulder to shoulder. On Coruscant, the first to hear the Executive order issued directly from the Chancellor. Mere days ago they'd looked at each other, nodded in unison as if they were carrying out the ghastly order. They'd both assumed they would never be brothers again and parted, leaving in different directions. Only to both pursue a better path and end up together here once more.
Captain Rex nodded in understanding to his brother. "Commander," he greeted.
Commander Cody nodded back. "Captain," he replied.
They were the same. After all this, they were still the same. Those two words said everything, and they clasped forearms reinitiating their bond. Their mission to assist and protect the Jedi.
The moment passed and both took their seats at the briefing table. Commander Cody by Obi-Wan's left shoulder. Captain Rex at Anakin's.
Both Admirals, the Saviour's Captain and Ahsoka soon joined them as well.
It was Padmé who bridged the gap with the ex-Padawan when Anakin stood but clearly couldn't think of anything appropriate to say. Padmé moved forward and hugged the young woman tightly. "It's good to see you again Ahsoka."
"It's good to see you too Senator," came the genuine though hesitant response. Her glance down was not well concealed and she struggled for words for a moment. "I see my old Master's recklessness knows no boundaries."
Her guess about Padmé's baby was confirmed when a hearty protest of "Hey!" came from the other side of the table and Anakin's mouth. "She was just as involved as I was."
"She can have babies with whomever she wants."
Anakin stood, rounding the table with a smile on his face. "Well it turns out I can too."
He moved forward and hugged her. "How're you doin' Snips?"
"Fine until that platoon of yours jumped me on Ansion."
"What were you doing on Ansion?" Anakin asked suspiciously, immediately sounding like a chastising parent. "You're supposed to be keeping yourself safe!"
"Lux –"
"If she says the name Lux Bonteri –" he warned with a threatening growl to no one in particular. He didn't finish that thought, instead giving an exasperated repeat of the oft-taught lesson "Purpose before feelings."
The ripple of disbelieving amusement running through the Force came from multiple sources in the room. Ahsoka. Obi-Wan. Padmé. He lifted his arms and folded them across his broad chest, the body language silently chastising his old padawan.
"Oh so it's alright for you to –" she didn't actually voice the mixture of emotional bond and physical manifestation that was his obvious deep love for the outspoken Senator. Instead she simply gestured her fingers in Padmé's general direction. Her eyes never left her angry ex-Master's.
"Do that," were the words that accompanied it. "Why can't I?"
His features turned horrified as he quickly glared her down with a determined "you had better not be doing that."
She crossed her arms in unmoving challenge, not backing down from the fight. "I am free, Master. You are not."
He took a deep breath when Padmé's hand gently touched his back. An unspoken communication to calm down, that his words weren't helping. He paused, took in Ahsoka's defiant features, shook his head. Love and its complexities weren't something they had the luxury of time to debate right now. It wasn't a discussion he particularly wanted an audience for either. Padmé's thumb moved down his spine and pressed into his skin, he took her advice and changed tack.
"Their orders are to execute Jedi past, present and future," he calmed his tone and parroted what he'd heard more times than he'd like to count since this mess began. "If those troopers hadn't saved you, you'd have been killed by any other clone who recognised you."
Ahsoka took in his words but instead of accepting them looked to Padmé with a shrewd eye. "That's why you're here? Future Jedi?"
"Order 66-S2," Padmé volunteered.
Anakin hard stance finally softened and his folded arms dropped from across his chest, dark glove disappearing to slide around her waist in relief.
"Luckily Captain Rex is more astute than the entire Jedi order," he brushed his fingers along the side of Padmé's belly.
"I had other concerns," Obi-Wan defended with an exasperated huff from the other side of the table, taking his comment as a personal affront. "I can't concentrate on your personal life when the galaxy is falling apart Anakin."
"You're excused, you need to pay attention to your own first," Anakin shot back.
"I don't have a personal life," Obi-Wan stressed.
"That's the problem," the sparring continued, now with quite an audience.
"Gentleman," Padmé tried to bring the conversation to a diplomatic end but to no avail.
"Jedi are not meant to form relationships, let alone pair bonds," Obi-Wan just couldn't stop himself from chastising Anakin in the exact same way Anakin had just jumped on Ahsoka.
"Really? And how's that working out for Mandalore? Did you and Padmé decide how you're going to keep Satine and her people from being slaughtered?"
"Anakin," Obi-Wan growled warningly.
"Enough!" Padmé cut them both off. "Ahsoka, we're all glad you're alive. Please join us."
She turned in her husband's arm and pressed against his chest, speaking low under her breath in a very private tone. "We will sort Obi-Wan out. I promise, if we have to go to Mandalore and marry them ourselves then we will. Then you can go beat up Ahsoka's boyfriend all you like. But we need to deal with the more pressing issues of this growing fleet first. So please. Sit. Down."
Anakin smirked, kissed her cheek and murmured "as my wife commands," then let her go. And took his seat. He and Obi-Wan exchanged brief glares across the table until Padmé lowered herself into the chair at the head.
"The most pressing issue is re-supply," Padmé began the meeting. "By my estimates, when Admiral Kilian's second ship arrives, we will have fifteen thousand men."
"Make that twenty-five," Admiral Yularen updated her with his latest figures. "Two more of my fleet have contacted us covertly. They were prepared to execute Order 66-S but weren't with General Skywalker at the time the order was given. Rather than participate they evacuated their battle fronts and are proceeding to rendezvous to assist the Jedi. We expect them to arrive within twelve hours."
He touched a button on the desk and a holoprojection appeared before them. Thousands upon thousands of tiny men sprang up, lined up in formation, then disappearing into the ships they were currently assigned to that levitated just above. A representation of the army's complete ranks as they currently stood.
"The entirety of those currently assigned to the 501st will join us by this time tomorrow."
"My battalion," Anakin said in disbelieving wonder, watching a small part of the projection turn red to indicate the percentage that had turned away from the Empire. His loyal troopers.
Padmé updated the numbers on her own console and nodded, removing one data chip and inserting another. "We need credit, and supporters. We'll need somewhere close that we can re-stock without attracting Imperial attention."
"We're already in Hutt-controlled territory," Obi-Wan calmly pointed out.
"But the first ship that leaves Mos Eisely and heads into the Core or even the Mid-Rim will take with them word of a fleet massing near Tatooine. And the Imperial forces will come to investigate." He turned a sombre face on Obi-Wan. "We would."
There were nods of agreement around the table.
Padmé touched a button and Admiral Yularen's projection of troopers and ships shrunk to half its size, moving to one end of the table. She brought up her own projection, of the stars in their galaxy. It filled the room, dwarfing the troop movements.
"These are all the planets in the Republic. Empire," she corrected herself with a grimace, then touched a button. Many of the planets turned blue.
"These are the Separatist systems," she touched another button and a scattered handful of planets turned yellow.
"There are senators on both sides, people who argued for the war to end, who fostered peace talks, who tried to negotiate." She paused and looked away angrily. "We've all now been marked as traitors, no doubt they're being rounded up and executed as the Jedi are," she was clearly angry but gathered herself.
At the jab of her finger, a small number of individual systems began blinking red. "These are the signatories to the petition of 2,000. The planets brave enough to openly oppose Palpatine."
Standing, she began naming them, pointing her finger at the disparate pinpricks of light. "Chandrila. Alderaan. Naboo. Pantera."
"The numbers are small," Obi-Wan pointed out the obvious weakness.
"Yes," Padmé agreed. "And likely to dwindle as the brave Senators are picked off. If I know Palpatine he'll start replacing them with Imperials of his own choosing. Which is why it's vital that if we're going to strike, we do so quickly, before those voices of dissent are silenced forever."
"We need to re-supply first though, milady," Admiral Kilian reminded.
"Our democratic friends are also our supply bases," she said explicitly what the Generals were not understanding.
Anakin reached out and forced the projection to zoom in on one sector. Getting to his feet he strode around the room. "We're here," he pointed to the glowing light. "Masked behind Tatooine's binary suns. Which means we have," he started counting them off "six" was the total "friendly systems nearby."
"A woefully small number," Ahsoka commented.
"One is enough," Padmé countered. "But it can't be Naboo, so five."
"Why not Naboo?" Commander Cody piped up with the question no one else was brave enough to voice, afraid to insult the Senator.
"Because they'll already be there looking for me. And," she flicked their projection over to the news from two hours ago, "Palpatine just announced that his homeworld will be the lucky recipients of the first Imperial garrison."
"Ahhh," Obi-Wan leant back. "Lets avoid any Imperial entanglement."
"And what do we do then?" Admiral Yularen pressed. "Even if we do manage to find the millions of credits it would cost to resupply six Republic cruisers and a blockade runner, what then? Where do we go?"
"We take Coruscant," Anakin pointed out like it was obvious.
"Lady Skywalker has already ruled that out," Yularen countered. "It would be a military coup. It goes against the Republic we're fighting to restore."
Anakin looked to Padmé in surprise.
"No, I didn't say we couldn't take Coruscant. I said we couldn't take Coruscant with force."
She now smiled. "I've been brushing up on the constitution of the Republic. Palpatine may have declared himself Emperor and outlawed the Jedi, but they're only announcements. The role of the Jedi is written into the constitution, their powers cannot be stripped by vote."
"I don't understand," Ahsoka sat forward. "Even if the Jedi were not outlawed, clone troopers would still shoot us on sight, so the end result is the same. No Jedi."
"For a constitutional breach there are two bodies that have the power to strip a position. The Senate – who are complicit in this entire disaster and will not make a move – and the Jedi."
She looked from Anakin to Obi-Wan and back again. "You have the power to arrest the Chancellor for what he has done. It's one of the basic principles in the founding constitution of the Republic. Palpatine's Empire is too new to have any such laws established, so for now he is proceeding as it was before. No changes except himself as an autocratic head."
Here her eyes met Anakin's with dangerous understanding, something neither of them could admit to have discussed outside their marriage.
"A head that can be severed."
Anakin nodded slowly, beginning to understand where she was going with this. "It's what Mace Windu and Master Fisto had gone to do when Boyle's team extracted me. Arrest the Chancellor. The one thing they could do without his authority."
"Clearly they failed," Obi-Wan's fingers went contemplatively to his beard.
"We won't."
"So we storm the capital to create a diversion while you two slip in to take on the Chancellor?" Ahsoka offered up her plan.
"No," Captain Rex immediately countered. "Brothers don't kill brothers. I won't lead my men to kill troopers who are only following orders."
"Agreed," Anakin immediately backed him up. "This is a stealth operation. Besides, the number of troops on and around Coruscant grows by the day, they already vastly outnumber our small group of loyalists."
Padmé took up the reins of the conversation again. "Once you have taken out the Chancellor the Clone troops should no longer look to him as Supreme Commander and this ghastly Order 66 can be rescinded."
"Who is the next in line to head the army then?" Yularen was the one to ask.
"Captain, you'd better get up here," a worried voice sounded over the com.
Every one in that briefing room had led troops into battle. They all immediately go to their feet and evacuated to the bridge – Jedi, officers, Senator and free-lance trouble maker.
Padmé's eyes were disbelieving as she watched Republic ship after Republic ship drop out of hyperspace around them, filling the viewport. The com had been left open and a stream of announcements flooded in.
"This is the Raptor executing Order 66-U. Confirmed, we have Master Unduli."
"This is the Protector executing Order 66-W. Confirmed, we have Master Windu."
"This is the medical frigate Safe Harbour executing Order 66-S. We do not have Skywalker but can render assistance."
"This is the Nighthawk executing Order 66-P. Confirmed, we have Master Plo."
"This is the resupply ship Endeavour executing Order 66-S. We do not have Skywalker but are fully stocked and can render assistance.
"Mistress Padmé, Mistress Padmé!" Threepio appeared from nowhere with an urgent shuffle to his footsteps. "Senator Bail Organa of Alderaan and Senator Riyo Chuchi of Pantera have both contacted you seeking an urgent audience. They want to aid your Rebellion."
"Maybe we're not outnumbered after all," Anakin broke the disbelieving silence as a major battle group and political allies began amassing around them.