Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Seed or Star Wars. They belong to their respective copyright owners. This story is not created with commercial aim. I make no money from it.

Phase 25: Burning stars

=RK=

Part 5

=RK=

Observation Lounge

Kuati Star Dreadnought "Pride of the Core"

Namaryne System

Treason, it was such a queer thing, Obi-Wan decided. In a hindsight, he could see the path that led him here more or less clearly. There was no grand decision to betray his oaths as a General serving the Republic, or more importantly, as a Jedi. Instead, his slide into treachery came through a gentle, slippery slope, one small justified step at a time. He rubbed his face with a tired hand and looked far off into space through a large window made of transparent metal.

Attachments are forbidden for a reason…

He was the poster boy for this rule of the Jedi Order, a rule which had been in place for thousands of years now. Kenobi knew what he should have chosen as a good Jedi, back on Mandalore. He should have done his best to strike down Veil when the Sith revealed his true face. He should have come clean in front of the Jedi Order, supported his comrades in front of the Senate.

Instead, he chose Satine and now, their unborn daughter too.

"There's only us..." He muttered absentmindedly while hundreds tiny stars moved into formation beyond the window.

"It's such a quiet thing to fall..." Zash's words echoed in his mind and he was sure she was quoting someone or something. And she was right.

The approach of a familiar presence in the Force brought an end to Kenobi's brooding. He looked at the far end of the currently empty lounge and as expected, the doors of the turbo-lift opened, revealing Ahsoka. The young Togruta walked in, clad in form fitting green uniform that simply underlined how young and out of place she was in this war.

"Obi-Wan." Ahsoka smiled wanly as she joined him near the window. "It's funny, you know, how peaceful this feels."

"The calm before the storm?" Kenobi asked.

"Yep. This..." She shook her head and her smile vanished. "Two thousand warships, veteran crews, really the best we have gathered here after training intensively for months and millions of soldiers slated to liberate the Five Brothers..." Ahsoka paused and looked at her feet. "I can't help but wonder how many of them will still be alive in a few weeks."

Obi-Wan opened his mouth to say something reassuring, when Ahsoka continued to speak. "Especially among my people. Isn't it presumptuous to care about the few thousands who might die if I mess up more than the countless people who are fighting and dying all over the galaxy as we speak?"

It should be… if they were proper Jedi. "Not at all." Obi-Wan said instead. He had been struggling with this for what felt like eternity, even though in reality it was less than two full years – ever since Veil crashed in their lives and helped reshape the galaxy, not necessary for the better.

Ahsoka simply hummed in response and looked up, staring quietly through the large observation windows.

"I'm afraid, Obi-Wan. I'm terrified that I'm loosing my way, that I would get my soldiers killed because I'm not good enough, not experienced enough." Ahsoka admitted.

"You aren't the only one." Obi-Wan muttered quietly, even though his primary fear wasn't for all the people who would soon die under his command, it was what a failure, or worse, an outright disaster might mean for Satine and their child.

Kenobi could no longer lie to himself and pretend that he might find another path, one less steeped in blood. More importantly, Obi-Wan could no longer deceive himself about what he set in motion with his choices… and the only thing he really regretted was that he wasn't feeling any real regret that he didn't walk a different path. That was the hardest admission to face, because it meant he had utterly failed as a Jedi as he knew he did that day on Mandalore when he accepted to marry Satine and quietly supported Veil's bid to become Mandalore. It was then and there he had made his choice, and ever since, he had been struggling to acknowledge it, because it was a hard and painful truth… and everything that followed was as much monument of his sins as the decisions of everyone else that brought them all to this moment.

"Ahsoka," Obi-Wan spoke firmly, "You're one of the most talented and promising young women I've ever had the privilege to know. I'm know you'll do you best. When all is said and done, you're more experienced than most. Trust yourself, trust your training and instincts, and do your best, as I know you will. That's what anyone has any right to ask of you."

"Thank you." Ahsoka smiled softly, looking like the youngling she was, before straightening up and taking a deep breath. "Do think that Delkatar's plan will work?" She asked in a no nonsense tone, finding back her confidence.

"I certainly hope so, otherwise the price we'll have to pay is going to be astronomical." Obi-Wan admitted.

=RK=

in the vicinity of Sundari

Mandalore

While massive fleets clashed across the galaxy and others prepared for an immense conflagrations, Mandalore burned. If observed from orbit, the capital city of Sundari was an angry red eye surrounded by smoke and only at the rare times that there was enough wind above the desert to move the smoke clouds produced by the immense fires gutting the city. Most of the population was either evacuated, busy running while screened by the last defenders executing a fighting retreat, or stuck within the doomed city until the bitter end.

Thin mechanized columns did their best to keep a single evacuation route open and the only reasons they held for so long was the enemy's objectives and so far, the unwillingness to conduct unrestrained orbital bombardment, because with Veil still alive, who knew what he might wreak as retaliation.

The lines of civilians fleeing for their lives on foot or crammed into any vehicle they could get their hands on neither knew of that, nor cared, truth to be told. All they knew was that war had come to Mandalore again and this time, their defenders were losing.

Among those fleeing Sundari was a young girl who had it worse than many. Her name was Sabine Wren and she wondered why she bothered trudging through the scorching sand anymore. She could barely remember the good times now. Sabine had been so proud of her dad and mum, yet now, when she needed them most, they were both gone. First, her father went away along with the ship he served on when the droids attacked the first time. The her mother had been so terrified and confused… Sabine could remember both her parents telling her stories about the Death Watch, about how they would one day bring back honour to Mandalore, show their people the true way… yet they didn't. Sabine recalled what happened after dad went away, how everyone blamed Death Watch for all the fighting… the same Death Watch her mum was part of.

Then, one day the droids fighting resumed, her mother bid her goodbye after telling her to be a good girl and stay at home, left and never came back… What followed, Sabine was glad she could barely recall it clearly, what she remembered was more than enough to give her nightmares every time she closed her eyes, much less tried to sleep. She simply trudged forward, stumbling through the sand surrounding by adults and children alike doing the same.

"Droids!" Someone screamed and everyone scattered, trying to run away.

Satine didn't bother. She was too tired, and no longer saw the point. She looked around with large, empty eyes and saw a row of strange machines come over the crest of a nearby dune. They were short – not much higher than her and quite odd. Almost half their body was made of a large sphere, which they used instead of legs to carry them over the sand, the rest was sloped rectangle with a stubby arm on each side… arms ending up in weapons. They wasted no time opening fire and raining streams of crimson blaster bolts that scythed through the running people, tearing them apart. At that moment, Sabine dearly wished that this had been the worst she had ever seen but unfortunately, it was far from it. She just stared at the machines, which ignored her for the moment, concentrating on anyone fleeing and the various vehicles around.

Here and there, warriors forced their way through the fleeing crowd and opened fire on the droids only for their blaster bolts to splash harmlessly over blue-tinted shields. The machines wasted no time re-targeting and tearing apart anyone daring to interrupt them. A large man screamed incoherently at the droids pumping shot after shot their way, only for concentrated fire to evaporate his torso so his legs could fall down surrounded by reddish mist. Another one fell screaming, clutching his front and then, finally, one of the killer-droids noticed Sabine and sent a stream of crimson death her way. She was almost relieved, really. It would be all over now…

Before the droid could hit her, something large picked her up and the world went even crazier as large, hard arms engulfed her and everything rolled among explosions, heat and streams of burning sand.

A sharp, piercing scream deafened her the moment the world ceased rolling and everything shook. Sabine felt everything vibrating – the air around her, her body, even the air in her lungs and it was the worst thing she had ever experienced. Then she heard a deafening explosion a moment before something slammed into her and the world went black.

=RK=

Sabine was probably the one most surprised when she awoke. She really didn't expect to. She knew she was about to die and really, she was all right with it after everything. Instead, she came to the half-forgotten sensation of swinging motion of being carried, which was the first thing that registered. Next came the dull pain raking her whole body and the realization that her cheek was pressed against something hard and uncomfortable. Sabine dared crack an eye open and saw dull gray metal. She stirred and the giant carrying her twitched and turned his helmet down to look at her. All she could see through her bleary eyes was a partially melted, cracked mess of metal and single glowing eye.

"Good to see you back in the world of the living, little one." An unfamiliar voice rumbled before Sabine drifted out.

=RK=

Part 6

=RK=

Chancellor's Office

Senate Building

Coruscant

The time Satine had spent as Mandalorian Ambassador to the Republic, and lately, as it's Chancellor, had been educational to say the least. This wasn't the first time she found herself reminiscenting about the stark difference between what she, as the Duchess of Mandalore believed the Republic to be, what most of the galaxy saw it as, and the reality of what it was. The Republic had existed in one form or another for over twenty five thousand years. It was the shining beacon of civilization that lit up the galaxy, and many believed that it embodied the ideals of freedom and democracy.

Like the best of lies, this one held more than a grain of truth at its core. Technically the Republic was everything trillions all across the galaxy believed it to be. In practice however? The Galactic Republic Satine had to deal with as an Ambassador was a case study on all the ways democracy could be subverted, perverted and watered down until it was one in name only, and that was back in the days when Chancellor Palpatine was still alive and could make the whole rotten structure actually work. The revelations that surfaced after his assassination combined with the Senate being locked down for over a month while war raged all over the galaxy, those were bitter pills to swallow.

The intellectual and emotional understanding that what Satine and her allies experienced then wasn't the Republic collapsing under its weight, that it wasn't merely a failed stress tests the likes of which it's current incarnation hadn't faced before but instead the system working as advertised, it changed her. It was still changing and impacting the Chancellor in ways she couldn't have imagined back on Mandalore. At the same time, Satine couldn't help but marvel at the illusion that the Republic's public relation's machine could sell to the galaxy as a whole. It was even more stunning that many of it's institutions continued to work as advertised on sheer bureaucratic inertia if nothing else through the recent upheavals.

Naturally, it was a given that some of those ministries were more important than others, especially when the war effort was concerned. That in turn made it even more amazing that one of them continued to work, and work well at that, even without anyone in charge even since the previous minister vanished the moment Palatine's dead man's switch went into effect and began leaking the crimes of all kinds of Senators for the galaxy to see.

It was the Ministry of Economic Development, which for all intents and purposes was the financial department of the Republic as a whole, overseeing taxation, economic development, obviously, and most important as far as certain parties were concerned, economic regulations, which many of the people who supported Satine in becoming Chancellor, wanted loosened and altered in their favor. Dismantling some of the best checks and balances, no matter how imperfect, the Republic had against corruption and the power of corporations and the most powerful of its members was just another bitter pill she had to swallow. Doing so went against everything she stood for, she knew some of the consequences, could imagine many more and feared them all. Yet, there was precious little choice if she wanted this war won so she could ensure the safety of her people.

Betraying her principles, the oath she took when she became Chancellor, the Republic as a whole, that wasn't enough. Satine had to keep doing it, again and again, so her world and people would have a chance. As if that wasn't enough, Satine now had a first row seat of the ugly side of Core politics. She saw how easily, how eagerly, the most powerful governments threw their lot behind destroying the Republic and replacing it with an Empire where they will call the shots with much less restrain than they had to endure over the past thousand years. It wasn't the Confederacy or even the Sith, neither the Mandalorians, who finally brought the Republic to it's knees. It was the Republic's members themselves, their greed, avarice and lust for power that did what countless adversaries in the past could only dream of.

There were days when the cutting, bitter irony of the situation was one of the few things that kept Satine going. Sith and Old School Mandalorians doing their best to save the Republic from itself, it was unbelievable really. And when that failed, when the Republic showed it's true face for the galaxy to see in all its hollowed out and rotten glory? When an alliance of the most powerful entities within the core cut deals to replace it with an Empire and began laying down the groundwork? Those people gleefully required that Satine and everyone who fought the longest and hardest to preserve a Republic that wasn't necessary theirs, become mere pawns and be grateful for the privilege

In the end, was it so surprising that Satine choose not to be a mere pawn? That, when the Sith of all people offered her to turn the tables, to earn the power she would need to safeguard Mandalore in the long run, she agreed? Or perhaps it was all a pleasant lie Satine kept telling herself every single day to soothe her conscience. Perhaps, the Jedi were right in the end, as she sometimes feared late at night, while laying unable to fall asleep in her lonely bed. Perhaps, the Sith had corrupted her, right along her Obi-Wan…

Yet, even if Veil did offer her a Devil's bargain… was that any different than what the powers of the Core demanded for a chance to win the war?

"When did we became the bad guys?" Satine murmured quietly.

Everything the Separatists ever accused the Republic of… the Republic had either already done at the time or was busy doing nowadays. The only thing they got wrong was the source of the ills corrupting the Republic, for this time around it wasn't the Sith, it was the Republic's own member states that did it themselves. Perhaps they had been doing it ever since the Republic took the first steps leading to it's current state a thousand years ago. The Sith and the Mandalorians, the boogy men of the galaxy? They simply refused to be pawns or to conveniently die. Instead, they had to play this game of thrones and win or lose everything.

Times like these made Satine feel like going out and cursing aloud the Senate as a whole, the great majority of Senators, the people and governments they represented, Palpatine for dying and the Jedi for murdering him, thus placing their vendetta as more important than the Republic… Then she remembered the kind of Republic she was a Chancellor of, the snakes who currently pulled her strings and couldn't help it but wonder if the Jedis' were right in the sense that the Republic they had to deal with couldn't be salvaged and the best they could hope for was to remove the greatest threats to the galaxy and themselves they could see… Or perhaps they saw the truth of it, the Republic was dead and if was to be reborn ever again, the Sith had to go.

It was too bad, really. Under different circumstances, Satine might have agreed with such an ideal. However, she simply no longer believed that left to it's own devices the Republic, no matter in what form it might be reborn, would consider the well being of the Mandalorian people as one of it's priorities. A New Order with her and Obi-Wan in charge however? That was something worth fighting for.

It had to be. Otherwise, everything Satine had done, everything she sacrificed and the way she betrayed her ideals, it would be all for nothing and that was a thought she simply couldn't bear.