Chapter 68

The DarkCave

"Take this, if you please," Yoda said as he handed his lightsaber to Ahsoka. The small Jedi Master limped slowly towards a tree that looked to be darker and more imposing than the others in the swamp. A small walking stick flew across the swamp and into his hand before he disappeared into the cave entrance between two of the larger roots.

"I can't believe it," Ahsoka said to Master It'kla, as she walked back towards the downed freighter. "Master Yoda... after all this time."

"I suspected at least a few of the council members would have survived. Master Yoda was offworld when Order 66 was called, so I'm not entirely surprised." Ylenic kneeled down at the top of the ramp over the mud-covered body of the man who the Windu clone had knocked down with Force lightning.

"Is he...?" Ahsoka asked as she knelt down next to the man. He appeared to be human, although it was hard to be sure in the current circumstances.

"Barely alive." Master It'kla put a furry hand on the man's forehead, and Ahsoka could feel a calming sensation through the Force. "I am attempting to put him in a healing trance, but he breathed in air that was heated to near-plasma temperatures by the clone's Force lightning."

Ahsoka put her hand on the man's chest and tried to feel through the Force. "I can tell there's some damaged tissue... but it's hard to tell what's what. Master Skywalker never taught me much about healing, just how to do a healing trance of my own."

Master It'kla closed his eyes. "Very well. I will show you as best I can. This may jar him from his healing trance, I will need you to try to keep him in the trance while I calm the irritated tissue."

She put her hand on the Human's forehead did her best to reinforce and hold the healing trance that Master It'kla had put him into. She could feel the damaged tissue in his respiratory system feeding off of the Force that flowed from the Caamasi to the Human, each cell trying to heal itself properly without swelling up and blocking his oxygen flow.

Mace Winduu, the first and strongest of the Windu clones stalked through the dark, dank cave. The shadows seemed to swirl around him as he cut through the mist that permeated even down here below ground.

A voice echoed through the cave behind him. "You never really liked me, did you."

He knew that voice. It was his own voice, but the inflection wasn't quite the same.

"That's why you let them kill me. I was an inconvenience. Too impatient. I just wanted to get out of hiding and see the world, but that was a problem for you."

"That's not true!" the clone bellowed back. "I loved all of my brothers. We were born from the same cloning cylinder. The same DNA."

The third Windu clone stepped out of the shadows, his own purple lightsaber lit. "You let me die. You let those bounty hunters kill me. You never cared about me."

"Leave me alone!" the clone screamed, lashing out with the Force. Dirt and rocks flew, and even the fog was pushed back.

There was no one there. The Third was gone.

"He's r...r...right, you know. We never really l...liked him. B...b...b...but that's all r...right. I und...derstand."

Winduu lowered his head. That voice, the cracking stuttering voice of the last clone. Pulled out of his Spaarti cylinder too soon, he was physically underdeveloped, and some of his higher functions like speech hadn't been imprinted properly in his mind.

"You're not here. You can't be here. I saw you die. I..." the clone choked for a moment, then regained his composure. He opened his eyes to see the scrawny figure of the Fourth in front of him. "I saw you die. I... held you."

He looked down at his left hand, but he couldn't see the blood that had stained the hand when the Fourth had died in his arms. It was only a few hours before, but to the clone, it felt like a lifetime.

"It's f...funny. We didn't l...l...like each other. Us and th...the Third. But when I d...died, he got angry. He l...lost it. W...we didn't like each oth...other, but we l...loved each other. Like b...brothers."

The Third's voice echoed from behind Winduu, "He could have avenged us. He's powerful enough to wipe out the entire Bpfasshi military. But he ran to go pick a fight with Yoda. He blames Yoda, when he should be blaming himself."

"No!" Winduu yelled, "I made you! All three of you! I made you to complete our mission... our mission to..."

"Your mission," came another voice. The Second stood before Winduu, a saber slash burned across his chest. "You were so obsessed with finishing Windu's last mission that you let me stay behind and die, just so that you could get to the shuttle and leave the planet. You never stopped to think that maybe his mission was already done. After his last brain scan, but before you were ever cloned."

The Winduu clone fell to his knees. "You were my brothers..."

"No," the Second said. "You were Windu's clone. We were all your clone. We were your sons. And you let your obsession murder us, one by one. I was the First. The First of your sons, and the First to die."

The Second ignited his purple-bladed lightsaber. "We probably would have been created anyway... why else would the Emperor have left enough Hurrikaine crystals in the facility for us to all have our lightsaber?"

"But your obsession made us all come out wrong. Grown too quickly," the Third added, igniting his own blade.

Mace Winduu closed his eyes. "Do it," he said. "End it. This is my fault. I made you. And I failed you. We... I caused so much death. So much hurt. I'm... sorry."

He realized that there were only two lightsabers pointed at him. The Second and Third had lightsabers, but the Fourth didn't. When the Fourth had died, Winduu had taken the lightsaber and used it to fight off the Bpfasshi military. It was still on his belt. He hadn't even thought to draw it when he was fighting against Yoda and the two other Jedi. He'd forgotten that it was even there.

Whatever was wrong with his mind, he knew that he was too broken to function in this universe. He fumbled for the lightsaber at his belt, but accidentally knocked it off his belt. It fell onto the damp ground in front of him.

The hum of the two lightsabers rose to a high pitch, then the sound was gone. He opened his eyes and looked up. The other three clones were gone. There was only the lightsaber on the ground, and the small green figure of Master Yoda in front of him.

"They weren't really here, were they?" he asked.

"Powerful this cave is," Yoda replied. "Shows you your own fears. Forces you to confront them. Shows you what was, what will be, what could have been, and what could be. But twisted to the dark side, the visions are."

"I'm... broken. Aren't I?"

Master Yoda's shoulders slumped, and his face scrunched up. "Hmmm. True, this is. A shattered echo of a lost friend, you are."

"When the real Windu died... something broke in me. I was still being grown. But an echo in the Force from his death did something that broke my mind. I can never really become him, can I?"

"Afraid not, I am. Moments you may have like this. But lucidity will not last. Sorry I am that this has been done to you."

"I cannot sense shatterpoints the way he could. The real Windu. But I know what I am. I can cause great harm. I've killed so many. I'm too powerful, and too unstable."

The diminutive Jedi Master paused. "True, this is. Wish for this ending, I do not."

"But it is the only way," the clone said. "Mace Windu would have sacrificed his life for the innocent."

"Yes," Yoda replied. "A good man was he."

The clone reached out and used the Force to call the lightsaber back into his hand. "This is the first moment of clarity I've had in months. This is the one time when I should do no less than he would."

"Act, a Jedi must, when he is calm. At peace," Yoda said.

"The ones who made me wanted to use me. As a tool. As a weapon. Something in my mind is telling me that you are my enemy." Winduu stood up. "It won't rest until you and the rest of the Jedi are dead. But I... don't want to kill you. I don't want to hurt anyone else."

He held the lightsaber out in front of him. Yoda stood there, within easy striking range. The clone's yellow and brown eyes met Yoda's.

"Time it is, to be true to yourself. Discover, you must, whether you are of your own mind, of their programming, or of the shattered clone mind."

"If I am any, or all of them," the clone asked, "then do I really have a choice?"

As he closed his eyes, he could feel his three clone brothers, or rather, his three cloned sons waiting for him. His finger rested on the lightsaber's activation button.

The saber flashed into existence into the clone's chest. The clone fell back down to his knees, and the saber deactivated. The hilt fell into the mud.

"Luminous beings we are," Yoda said, as the body of the clone crumpled to the ground, and then faded from existence. "Be free of your broken mind."

Author's note: And that was officially the longest story arc so far, since I took a semester-long break from writing in the middle of it. So it ran from December of 2013 until September of 2014. It's also the longest in terms of number of 4-chapter episodes, since the next longest was the Darth Nadir arc, at 4 episodes, and this one took 6 episodes. I had actually thought I could fit it into five when I first did the outline, but some parts took more space than I had expected.

I'm glad that so many of you stuck with the story during that break. While I'd like to think that I'm not writing this for the attention (and since I only started this fic as a writing exercise to see if I could get back into writing after a long hiatus!), it's still nice to know that people are enjoying it.

I also just realized that I started writing this fic in September of 2013. This fic is a year old, and over 100,000 words long. I'm trying to plot out as much as I can to keep it going over the next couple of months while I gear up for NaNoWriMo again. I wrote 7/8ths of a pirate novel last year. I'm going to be trying to finish up the last two chapters of that before November starts so that this year I can write the sequel.

I'm also trying to start an online publishing company that focuses on serial fiction, so I may end up releasing the pirate novels as either serial fiction, or if I can find the right voice actors, a serial audio podcast. :) Time will tell. Unfortunately, since I don't own the copyrights to Star Wars, I don't think I'll ever be able to produce an audio version of this fic. Unless somebody at Disney decides they really like my work and wanna license it, which is pretty karking unlikely...