CoCo Town, Coruscant
After having parked their speeders one level below the street level, out of sight of passing probe droids, police vehicles, and Republic military craft, Anakin, Mace Windu, Volviff Monn, and the Senators Polo Se'lab, Bail Organa, and of course, Anakin's wife Padmé, made their way up the stairs to the sky level parking lot and towards Dex's Diner, Artoo climbing the stairs slowly behind them. Long a friend of the Jedi, the Besalisk owner of the restaurant, Dexter Jettster had no problem at all hosting an impromptu gathering of Senators opposing the fratricidal Chancellor.
They were not the only ones here. Stepping into the dark parking lot and pausing to let R2 catch up, Anakin shot Mace Windu an apprehensive look at how many conspicuous speeders were parked outside. While the closed sign was up, and all of the diner's windows were tinted to their maximum reflectiveness, having this many luxury speeders in one parking lot in a run-down neighborhood was bound to attract attention. Even in the dim nighttime light of a city under de-facto martial law, Jar Jar Binks's Sorosuub RGC-16 airspeeder, with the vibrant colors of a Gungan flag painted across its flat pill-shaped frame, was practically blinding.
"I recommend we change venues as soon as possible," Volviff Monn growled quietly from the back of the group as they passed a sleek chromed Corellian airspeeder.
"I agree. This is too exposed," Windu stated bluntly. "When Palpatine finds out, he will move to label the Senators here as traitors and eliminate them."
"At least there aren't dozens of bodyguards surrounding the building," Anakin muttered. With R2 at his side, he slowly approached the oval front door, which slid open and briefly bathed them in light. For a second, loud chatter from within the diner spilled out through the open door, until everyone noticed the new arrivals.
The gaze of thirty or forty senators crammed inside the small building fell on Mace Windu, who lowered his hood as he stepped through the door. Anakin did the same.
"Oh good, yousa here Ani!" Jar Jar practically screamed. "Weesa gettin' berry worried."
"It is good to see you, Master Anakin! And you as well, Artoo!" exclaimed C-3PO, stepping in front of Jar Jar.
The astromech tweetled at his counterpart as he followed Anakin inside.
A cheery smile crossed Anakin's face, and he scanned the crowd of Senators trying to take in any familiar faces.
"I hope the Jedi have some explanation for this!" barked a human in green and silver robes with black hair and a mustache of the same color. Anakin did not recognize him, but Padmé seemed to.
"Senator Iblis, we all would like to know what is going on. The Supreme Chancellor's sudden power grab is shocking, and I would go as far as to label it a coup."
"No, not that!" Iblis sputtered, pointing dramatically in the other direction. "THAT."
Anakin turned to look towards what the Senator was pointing at and his eyes widened in shock.
On a large vidscreen at the far end of the cantina, the dark dome of the Republic Executive Building was centered in the cityscape. Smoke and flame billowed from the top, the red glow casting a baleful haze across the entire senate district. Gunships and extinguisher airspeeders circled the immense structure, fighting the inferno while entire squadrons of V-Wings and Z-95s patrolled overhead.
"What happened?" Anakin asked. Maybe someone had finally done the unthinkable and bombed the Chancellor. The smile that had formed across his face vanished as his brow furrowed. The relief he felt surprised him. Just three days ago Anakin had viewed the man as an ersatz father—now, so many Jedi had died, and his own Padawan was still missing.
But that was only part of Anakin's feelings. He could only imagine the fallout from Palpatine being captured alive. The Chancellor was one of the two people in the Galaxy who knew about what happened on Tatooine right before the Battle of Geonosis. Anakin had told him everything. Everything that happened with his mother and the Sandpeople. At the time, Palpatine's reassurances had lifted a guilty weight off his shoulders. Now though, in the context of him being the Sith Lord the Jedi had been seeking all along…
Windu sighed, much more despondent than Anakin. "Well, this complicates things."
"Is that Plo-Koon's ship?!" Anakin asked excitedly, as the view on the vidscreen shifted, zooming in on a Delta-7 with unmistakable jagged triangular blue shapes painted on an otherwise white hull.
"So you admit it!" Senator Iblis shouted, jabbing a finger into an incredulous Anakin's chest. "You tried to assassinate the Chancellor! THIS ONLY LEGITIMIZES HIS INSANITY!"
"Assassination is not the Jedi way, Senator Bel Iblis," Windu said, remaining calm even as the other man's voice rose to a shout. "We received intelligence that the order to kill the Jedi originated from the Chancellor's Office in the Executive Building. All HoloNet signals from that structure are routed…" He paused, gesturing to the vidscreen, playing back the footage again, a pair of torpedoes zipped out from beneath Plo-Koon's fighter, impacting the dish on top of the structure rather than one of the offices. "Whoever launched that attack was aiming for the building itself."
"Even if Palpatine wasn't the target, it probably took him out too," Anakin said with a manic smile that caused Padmé to frown. "He was likely nearby, since his office is right there. We need to ask the Temple, maybe—"
"The HoloNet is down, as are civilian hypercomm relays," mumbled the Aqualish Senator, Gratin Vagger, in a deep voice. Rather conspicuously, the feed from the HoloNet projector on the table beneath the vidscreen was nothing but static. With the events unfolding on the vidscreen distracting him, Anakin hadn't noticed until it was mentioned. "We can't contact anyone."
"How is the news broadcasting this then?" Padmé asked.
"It must be subspace radio," Anakin blurted out quickly. "Does anyone have a receiver?! We need one to contact the Temple!"
"I've been working on it for five minutes," grunted a gruff voice from the kitchen.
Anakin had been wondering what Dex was up to. The six-limbed Besalisk was in the kitchen, standing behind an assortment of electronic parts sprawled on the counter from a partially disassembled subspace radio.
"Skywalker," Windu said sternly, nodding in the direction of the kitchen, then quickly stood straighter and switched to a more diplomatic tone. "Uh, Master Skywalker," he corrected himself for the second time today, "could you lend him a hand?"
"Sure, come on Artoo," Anakin said, rushing to the kitchen with his trusted astromech companion not far behind, practically bursting with impatience and worry. Under normal circumstances, Anakin found repairing technology fun, rather than an unpleasant chore. Today, suddenly cut off from the ability to communicate with Obi-Wan and the Jedi Temple, he couldn't repair the radio fast enough. In seconds, he was right next to Dex, grabbing a loose transistor in one hand and a hydrospanner in the other.
"Hold on, I haven't wiped it off yet," Dex protested, grabbing Anakin's arm firmly with one arm and holding up a rag with the other. "Plugging it in without rubbing the dust off could cause—"
Rolling his eyes, Anakin yanked the rag out of Dex's hand and began wiping the tiny disc-shaped metalloid.
The voices outside, in the diner, were now calmer and Anakin could sense that even the angriest Senators had been placated by Mace Windu's explanation. A Jedi attack to kill the Chancellor was far less palatable than an attack to stop the Chancellor from sending treacherous orders to the outside world. Responding to an attack and burning through the perpetrator as collateral damage was different than directly targeting the perpetrator in a targeted killing. At least, for most Jedi, most Senators, and probably even most Republic citizens. After everything he had gone through, Anakin no longer really subscribed to that conventional morality.
"We need to focus less on who bombed the Executive Building and why," said Padmé in the background, "And more on our next moves."
Anakin tried to tune out Senator Iblis's argument which came next. "No, we need to know exactly what happened so we can make our contingencies. The Chancellor's next move will be against the Jedi, then us."
"The more pressing concern is how Palpatine can be removed from office," Organa said evenly, his voice carrying into the kitchen. "Assuming, of course, that he survived."
What if Ahsoka is being held in the Executive Building? What if Ahsoka died in that attack? The radio's remote, which Anakin had intended to fit with a new power pack, suddenly shattered in his hand, cutting his palm. R2 let out a squeal as the remote's fragments clattered to the ground.
"Hey, kid! What do you think you are doing?!" Dex demanded, once again taking Anakin's wrist in his vice-like grip. "Are you trying to break it?"
It took Anakin a few seconds to realize he was responsible for breaking the remote. He had been so filled with tension thinking about Palpatine's treachery that he crushed the remote like sand.
"Skywalker," Windu said sternly, standing in front of the serving hatch to the kitchen. "Perhaps there are too many cooks in the kitchen."
"Anakin!" Padmé gasped, standing at Windu's side. "You're hurt."
"Okay," Anakin said, dropping the shards of plastoid and jerking his arm out of Dex's grip. "I'll… I'll wait out there." He turned to Padmé, smirking slyly, "It's nothing m'lady."
"It's not nothing!" Dex snarled. "Some of the features we'll only be able to—"
"Artoo can handle it! Can't you buddy?" Anakin interrupted, smiling at the astromech, who tweeted and chirped proudly.
"Turn the volume on! Turn the volume on!" barked a voice in the background from the dining area.
Frantically, Anakin rushed to the serving window, trying to get a good view of the vidscreen. Craning his head, he couldn't see it with Mace Windu and Padmé, now having turned around themselves, standing in front and blocking the view out of the kitchen.
Fear and shock permeated the air, alarming Anakin so much that he sprinted out of the kitchen as fast as he could, accidentally knocking a pot off the counter as he moved. Before he even made it into the crowded dining area where most of the Senators and their aides were, he could hear Palpatine's voice.
"...An attempt on my life, which will no doubt leave me scarred and disfigured."
Standing behind the cashier's counter, Anakin skidded to a stop and looked to the left. Contrasted against a grey wall behind him, Palpatine's face was on the vidscreen—or at least a face that had the basic shape of Palaptine's face, but it looked like he had aged thirty years.
"No way," Voolvif Monn snarled, shaking his snout in sheer incredulity. "There is no way being in the vicinity of a proton torpedo explosion would age a human like—"
"SHHH!" hissed a dozen Senators.
"The cowardly Jedi attack on our Galactic HoloNet infrastructure was, no doubt, to keep the truth from getting out there, and the truth is…" Palpatine paused for dramatic effect, lowering his voice to a near whisper. It was as if he were sharing a deep dark secret with the whole of Coruscant. "The Jedi are taking over."
Uproar around the room drowned out the Chancellor's next words. Anakin found himself yelling the word "LIAR!" at the top of his lungs, while others commented on the general impossibility of Palpatine's accusations. How could the Jedi possibly take over with the Temple surrounded and their members across the Galaxy under attack?
Mace Windu's force-amplified voice boomed over the chatter. "SILENCE!" As the comments and side discussion became quieter and less outraged, Sidious's voice was once again audible.
"—left me no choice," Palpatine continued. "The Temple shall be seized and any disloyal Jedi will be hunted down and annihilated. Any loyal Jedi are encouraged to turn against their treasonous compatriots and help our valiant military forces save the Order's initiates and younglings from the lies and plots of their elders."
The air, already tingling with uncertainty and danger, began feeling more electric. Closing his eyes, Anakin steeled himself away from the distracting flatscreen of his Chancellor and former friend. He reached out and felt a dozen or so familiar but grim presences, a few hundred meters above.
"I sense it too," Windu said, exchanging a look with Anakin before spinning in a circle and addressing the Senators. "Who has eyes on what's going on outside?" When no one seemed to pay him any attention, he raised his voice to draw their attention from the vidscreen. "Who has the feed from the security cameras?"
"We do!" yelled a blue-skinned female dressed in red and white who Anakin recognized as the Pantoran Senator, Ryo Chuchi. Her aide, dressed in a simpler black garment, raised a datapad over the crowd.
The three Jedi moved through the crowd, using the Force to gently scoot bystanders aside til they reached the Pantorans.
"Let me see that," Voolvif growled brusquely, practically yanking the datapad out of the much smaller being's hands.
Standing only a bit above shoulder height to the Shistavanen, Anakin and Windu leaned forward, scrutinizing the security footage. There was no one in the empty parking lot, and everything appeared to be fine.
Anakin turned to the kitchen. "Hey Dex, can your cameras look up?"
"Uh yeah, just press the up arrow on the interface. Useful feature 'cause burglars have been attempting roof entries. I explained everything to the young Senator."
Before Dex's explanation had finished, Anakin was already pressing the up arrow.
"There!" Windu exclaimed unnecessarily, pointing to a dark-colored metallic shape. Unlike the other passing air traffic, this vehicle was hovering completely still. At this distance it was hard to make anything out, but Anakin was nearly certain it was an LAAT.
Other presences suddenly emerging in Anakin's Force awareness—dozens closing in from two directions. A few seemed to swirl with uncertainty, but most had a grim deadly determination about them. Though varied, every one of them had the familiar silhouette in Anakin's mind of a Jango Fett Clone.
"Everyone, get down," Mace Windu ordered. "Things are about to get ugly."
Shuffling noises erupted from all around the eatery as Senators and their aides crouched under tables. Amidst the cacophony, C-3PO let off a very loud "Oh dear!" before squatting behind the serving counter.
"We could just evacuate through the basement," said a gruff voice from the kitchen.
"Why didn't you say so earlier?" Mace Windu asked, wheeling on the Besalisk. More than a little impatience was beginning to creep into his voice.
Without answering, Dex stepped out of the kitchen. He quickly pushed one of the dining room tables out of the way and pulled a small black hook from his keychain. A moment later, with the hook sunk into a small notch on the floor, Dex tugged with one of his lower arms, pulling a hatch open.
The Jedi stepped around the hatch, while Dex shined a glowrod into it. The stairwell looked barely wide enough to fit more than one being at a time, and hiding in the basement was only a small improvement over hiding under tables. On the other hand…
"You said evacuate through the basement?" Anakin asked, putting emphasis on the preposition. "Where does it lead to?"
"This wasn't on the building's floorplan," Windu said, sounding even more cross than before.
"When did you find the time to look at the fl—" Anakin started to ask, but was cut off immediately by Dex's retort.
"The passage from the cellar to the undercity also ain't on any charts. An information broker always needs an emergency exit. Besides which, why do you care, Master Jedi? Are you really going to report me to the tax office?"
Vein visible on his forehead, Windu opened his mouth, but was interrupted.
"I feel like we're losing the plot," Padmé said, stepping out from under her table.
Windu shook his head, then began shouting orders. "Everyone, get up. Evacuate down the stairwell, single-file. We'll regroup—what is it, Skywalker?"
Anakin was vigorously tapping Mace Windu's shoulder, practically thrusting the datapad which had a visual of the exterior under the Master of the Order's nose. "You need to look at this!" he grunted with frustration.
Outside the diner, what seemed like a couple hundred Clones had stopped dead in their tracks before stepping foot on the speeder lot, LAATs droning into the sky in the distance. They now stood in the empty street at the edge of the property. Behind them stood a quartet of bipedal cavalry walkers with transparisteel canopies and an array of blaster cannons, grenade launchers, and mortar tubes jutting from hardpoints on their chins and the sides of their 'heads', the towering machines themselves flanked by a few of the smaller and more familiar AT-RTs. Mixed into this force were squads of grey-colored Clone K9 troopers holding back their snapping Anooba, Massif, and Nek dogs, while in front of the assembly stood ranks of riot-control Clones with their distinctive bulwark assault shields, shock batons, and up-armored helmets that reminded Anakin of Commander Cody's.
But it was the image of one figure wearing an outfit Anakin had never seen before that Anakin was rubbing his finger over. The stranger's attire was red to the point of being overwhelmingly red. His sleeves and shoulder pads were made of some sort of red-colored synth material, draped over a red tunic which blended in with a skirt of the same color. The only non-red part of the outfit were white elastic bands spanning the lower portion of a helmet, which was dominated by a transparent faceplate.
"In the name of the Force!" Voolvif Monn hissed in a low whisper, looking down while standing over Anakin's shoulder. "What is that?!"
"It looks like a vac-suit!" Anakin said, speaking with such surprise that his voice sounded like a yell against the shocked silence.
"Whatever it is, we can handle it," Mace Windu said confidently.
"A vac-suit?" Padmé whispered worriedly at Anakin's side.
"What if they launch a chemical attack?" gasped a female Rodian, approaching the Jedi from the right.
"They may have already gassed us or infected us with some microbe or nanodroid," Polo Se'lab growled from two tables away. "These attackers may really just be the cleaning crew. They will simply wait for us to expire and then examine our bodies."
"Enough of that!" Mace Windu snapped.
"A weapon of mass destruction on Coruscant?" Voolvif scoffed. "It'd kill so many people the entire Galaxy would—"
"MASTER SKYWALKER! MASTER WINDU!" boomed a familiar voice, amplified so loudly that it shook the windows. "I know you are in there! Your delusional Senator friends may have you fooled into thinking they are the Government, but they are insignificant. All of them. I could crush them all like insects and the Galaxy would not bat an eye. The only reason I haven't yet, is that I have a particular interest in the survival of Padmé Amidala. Anakin, I still consider you a friend, and I do not want any further harm to befall you, and Master Windu, you are one of the few beings in the Galaxy who can stop this madness! We have much to discuss and little time."
"Jedi Monn," Windu said quickly to the Shistavanen, "You go down first. Make sure the Senators are safe."
"What will you be doing?" Voolvif asked.
"Skywalker and I will parlay with the Chancellor. Give you all a chance to escape."
"No!" Padmé hissed. "Have you lost your minds? He just wants you to step out there so he can kill you."
"I don't think so," Anakin muttered quietly, trying to keep this conversation private. "The more I think about it, the more I realize the Chancellor is trying to get at me, personally. He wants me for something. First Ahsoka… Now he mentions you. Padmé, I've told him things… So many things…" He turned away from Padmé, gripping his own hair in frustration.
Padmé gently tugged Anakin's arm by the elbow, turning him around to face her.
"Skywalker, we can deal with this another time," Windu urged. "The Sith Lord has exposed himself, foolishly. This is our chance. This is your chance to end this. To bring balance to the Force."
Anakin took a sharp inhalation of breath. Windu knew about Padmé with certainty, he could sense that. What the Jedi Order thought of Anakin mattered very little though in comparison with all of the bloodshed. With Palpatine and Dooku setting the Galaxy on fire. With all of the bloodshed presently unfolding on Coruscant—with all the deaths that had yet to occur.
How important was keeping his own secret in light of the prospect of ending the Sith once and for all?
Mace Windu stepped toward the front door, lightsaber ignited in his bandaged hand. Anakin took a step forward to follow—
"Wait!" Padmé gasped, confusion, terror, and sheer frustration expressed in her furrowed brow, worried eyes, and scornful frown. She clearly did not have their confidence in the plan.
"We really should discuss this further," Bail Organa said, stepping to Padmé's side. "You hardly had any time to—"
The doors hissed closed behind Anakin. He stood there, his blue lightsaber ignited, not sure what would happen next. Yet, something made him feel certain that he would walk away from this confrontation. It felt like he had somehow done this before already.
The vac-suit wearer stepped forward, out from under the streetlamp. In the darkness, the glowrods built into his helmet shone brightly, revealing the face of none other than Sheev Palpatine.
How could Palpatine have gotten here so quickly? Anakin wondered. The only explanation he could think of was that Palpatine had made the recording where he accused the Jedi of attacking him previously and only released it now.
"I knew you would come. Please now," the Chancellor said, holding up his hands in mock surrender, "We have no need for violence. Your lightsabers are making these troopers nervous."
"These troopers are making me nervous," Anakin snorted, then cursed himself internally. The retort had been half-done at best, and only betrayed his own anxiety about the situation.
A wry smirk crossed the corner of Sidious's mouth. His face seemed at least twice as wrinkly as the last time Anakin laid eyes on him. "When consorting with vipers, precautions are necessary."
"Leave the talking to me, Skywalker," Windu muttered through gritted teeth, then looked Palpatine straight in the eye. "This ends now, Your Excellency. Lift the siege of the Jedi Temple, undo whatever Sith sorcery you have done to the Clones—"
"I would be willing to meet some of those conditions," Palpatine interrupted, "But before you continue, I must explain what I can do for you."
"For me?" Windu asked in mock surprise.
"For the Jedi," Palpatine elaborated slowly.
"We've seen what you can do for us!" Anakin snarled, pointing his saber at Palpatine and causing the front row of troopers to raise their blasters. Amidst the loud barks of the Anooba, Massif, and Nek dogs, the Riot Clones moved to get between Sidious and Anakin, but the vac-suited figure held up a hand. "Murder, treachery, brainwashing, betrayal. What have you done with Ahsoka?!"
"All in good time, Anakin," Palpatine said with utmost calm, his voice oozing even as he used those same platitudes and words he always had in their private conversations. "I will be willing to answer most of your questions in due time."
Anakin could not sense anything from the man, which only made him feel angrier. He couldn't sense the oily taste of a lie, nor the electric spark of fear, nor even the sourness of mockery or disdain. The Sith Lord could hide himself so well, had hid himself for decades, that it was like they were talking with a droid. All of Palpatine's words came out without any accompanying reaction in the Force. Yet, during all his conversations with the man, Palpatine had never been this… Void. Even if he'd hidden his true emotions there had always been a reaction of some kind he could sense. Briefly, the thought crossed his mind, there's something wrong here.
Palpatine clasped his red gloved hands behind his back. "As for your question, Master Windu, I meant only that I have a proposal for the Jedi Order to put an end to this rather unfortunate misunderstanding. Hand over Dooku, and I will rescind Order 66. We can negotiate where things will go politically from there."
"Why are you so concerned about Dooku?" Anakin asked skeptically.
The Sith Lord paused for a moment. "Dooku knows too many things. He knows things no man should."
Anakin shook his head. Even hearing it from the man, it was difficult to believe. Not just the deviousness, but how brazen Palpatine was. "You admit you only want us to turn him over to you so you can kill a witness?!"
"Don't insult my intelligence, Skywalker," Palpatine hissed, an expression of anger forming on his face under the visor. "Tell me, is this fate any different from the one the Jedi Order or the Senate would impose upon him? Besides, I saw it just yesterday—you would have killed Dooku had—"
"YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT I WOULD HAVE DONE!" Anakin yelled. A sudden mixture of anger and fear nearly made him snap. Mace Windu was right here.
Momentarily, Windu's eyebrows raised as he examined Anakin, but then he turned back to face the vac-suit wearer. "Do you fear exposure that much?"
"Do not make assumptions," Palpatine snapped coldly. "I have already been exposed. No, it is what Dooku knows that is a threat to all of us, not any potential threat of exposure. Dooku is as much a threat to the Jedi Order as he is to me!" By the end of his exclamation, the Sith Lord's eyes were wide in genuine fear. Though, no jolt of fear emanating from him could be felt in the Force.
"I find that very difficult to believe," Windu said curtly.
"I beg of you! We must reconcile our differences quickly. The Republic is tearing itself apart. We face a disaster on all fronts with Separatist advances and the specter of civil war, even right here on Coruscant. I now realize that the Jedi are a necessary evil. Without them the Galaxy is impossible to manage."
Windu shook his head in disbelief. "An evil? You are personally responsible for billions of deaths. You have lied to the Order—no, lied to me for at least thirteen years. You are responsible for the deaths of countless Jedi—"
"You stand in judgment over me, Master Jedi?" Palpatine sneered. "So full of anger and hatred. How many lives have you taken? Mere hours ago, you turned on your own compatriots because they stopped you from killing Count Dooku in cold blood. You dare stand in judgment over me!"
"Not judgment," Windu said coldly. "And I don't recall telling you that. The issue is trust. We cannot trust you."
"Unsurprising," Palpatine sighed. "After all, you cannot even trust your own… Don't you agree, Anakin?"
Anakin shook his head. Oh not this again. "You're not going to turn us against each other," he said with finality.
Behind the brightly illuminated visor, Palpatine shook his head. "I wouldn't dream of it! I don't think you understand me. We are all on the same side here, Anakin. After all the Jedi and Sith are brothers in the Force—"
"ENOUGH!" Windu balked in disgust, now too pointing his lightsaber threateningly in the Sith Lord's direction. "Tell us what you came here to say!"
Anakin shook off his own anger and lowered his lightsaber. "Master Windu," he muttered quietly through the side of his mouth, "We are supposed to be buying time."
Exhaling, Windu reluctantly lowered his, though he left it powered on.
"While the Jedi sleep with one eye open and the other eye closed to the Force, the Sith see all," Palpatine croaked ominously. "I have reached out through time, and I know with utmost certainty that if we cannot come to an agreement, the Galaxy will burn. I have seen billions choking to death for want of air. Trillions starving. I have seen our worlds, Tatooine and Naboo, utterly obliterated, with no survivors. I saw Coruscant, the seat of Galactic governance, rendered utterly inhospitable. I have seen the absolute end of Galactic civilization—"
"Now, wait a second," Anakin interrupted with a scoff. He rubbed his free hand through his hair, then shook his head in exasperation. "You, the dark lord of the Sith, Chancellor of the Galactic Republic, landed in CoCo Town with an army of Clones, in the middle of your failed coup, to…" His voice trailed off as he felt an alarming change come over Mace Windu. "Mace? Mace Windu?!"
Windu seemed to snap out of some sort of trance. He took a deep, calming breath, but still poured worry into the Force.
"Alas, Anakin," Palpatine shrugged, "I want to rule over the Galaxy. I do not want to rule over a Galaxy of the dead. Master Windu, have you seen glimpses of what I am speaking of?"
"That's…" Windu paused, then took a deep breath. "That's irrelevant. I cannot trust you. No deal short of one where you relinquish power can be acceptable, even to save the Galaxy."
Sidious gestured to a trooper within the crowd of Clones. Presently, the trooper handed the Sith Lord a lightweight and nearly transparent vidscreen, which the Sith Lord held high above his head with two hands.
"Master Windu, I am already withdrawing all Forces from the Jedi Temple. I will lift the communications jam so you can verify this for yourselves. Comm Master Kenobi for me, will you? I would hate to find out that any harm befell him during this misunderstanding.
Anakin and Mace Windu exchanged looks, both with raised eyebrows. For the Chancellor to hold a vidscreen this high above his own head seemed beyond strange. Not only was it out of character, but his pose almost seemed too flexible and youthful. Before either of them could get a good look, however, a blaster bolt came from behind the formation of troopers, punching through the vidscreen before dissipating into the permacrete before Anakin's feet.
Jolted in alarm and confusion, the two Jedi jumped into action, sabers raised defensively.
"GENERAL SKYWALKER! GENERAL WINDU!" a voice screamed from somewhere behind the Clones. "DON'T LISTEN TO HIM! IT'S A TRAP."
Another blaster shot nearly killed the Chancellor, barely missing his head.
"WHERE'S THAT COMING FROM?!" screamed a trooper at the front of the crowd.
"PROTECT THE CHANCELLOR!" yelled another shouted.
"SHOTS FIRED! SHOTS FIRED!"
"OPEN FIRE?!" a voice to the far left of the crowd asked in a shout.
"OPEN FIRE!" screamed a fourth voice, which numerous others began parroting. "OPEN FIRE! OPEN FIRE!"
"Well, this is a bit ridiculous," Anakin sighed, raising his lightsaber in front of his face.
"More than a little ridiculous!" Mace Windu said with more edge in his voice, deflecting a blaster shot that would have hit him in the neck had it not been deflected.
"Take his 'excellency' out?" Anakin asked, deflecting two more. In front of him, as many Clones were now shooting in the opposite direction of the Jedi as towards them.
"With prejudice," Windu snarled.
Briefly, Sidious's red gloved hands disappeared behind his back, then returned to view. Each hand now held a lightsaber glowing even more brightly than his vac-suit.
o.o.o.o.o
CC-4678 "Nites"
Hectic yells and contradictory orders barked over the platoon comm. More than anything, Nites wished Sidious had taken his advice and allowed him and a team of snipers to position themselves on a balcony overlooking the diner. Even more, Nites wished that Sidious had embedded more True Believers within the platoon guarding him, instead of Clones who were only loyal to him due to an activated inhibitor chip.
But Nites had not survived this long questioning the orders of the Dark Lord of the Sith.
Standing at the head of a formation of Clone Commandos and Covert Ops Troopers, he slid an anti-security blade into the card reader on the door console. One second, two seconds, and before a third second had passed the magnetically-sealed door frame clicked. Gingerly, he pushed the door open, and stepped aside, allowing four Commandos to rush in ahead of him.
"GET DOWN! GET DOWN!"
"HANDS WHERE I CAN SEE THEM!"
"Kitchen secure, sir!"
At that, Nites stepped inside, blasters still holstered, holding up a datapad with the brightness set to maximum. On screen was a certain Senator Amidala's face. "Padmé Amidala? Is there a Senator Amidala here?"
"BLASTER!" screamed Cluck, the CC standing at the front of the kitchen, aiming his DC-17m out into the dining area.
"Hold your fire!" Nites ordered. "We're all friends here," he added with false cheer. The plan was simple. If the Jedi engaged Sidious, Nites and his men would enter through the rear and take Padmé Amidala into custody. Best case scenario, even if Anakin, Mace Windu, and Voolvif survived the onslaught, Sidious would now have Anakin's wife hostage. It was also highly likely that Anakin would break off from his engagement with Sidious to rescue Padmé, abandoning Mace Windu and Voolvif Monn to their fates.
Nites very much hoped that the latter scenario would not unfold, though he knew it to be a distinct possibility. Facing off against Anakin Skywalker was not something he was confident he could survive.
"STAY BACK!" yelled a gruff voice to obviously not be human.
"Sir," Cluck said, aiming his rifle out of sight through the serving window. "I'd stay back if I were you. He's got—"
Ignoring Cluck's warning, Nites leaned forward, holding the datapad high. He started the first syllable of Padmé's name before he got a good look of the danger Cluck was warning him about.
There stood a nearly two-meter tall Besalisk wearing a dirty work shirt and wielding not two, not three, but four double-barreled heavy blaster pistols at once.
"Relax," Nites said, holding up the datapad. "No one needs to get hurt. The Chancellor wants to speak with Senator Amidala."
"Then why didn't he call her outside?" Dex scoffed, aiming one of his blasters directly at him.
"No need for that," Nites said, fighting the urge to raise his voice. "We are all friends here." He cringed internally at the statement. It was absurd. Muffled blasterfire and the buzz of clashing lightsabers could be heard just outside the window.
"How about you go back the way you came, and no one dies?" Dex asked.
"Just listen—"
A slight shake of the building, accompanied by the deeply base hum of an LAAT's anti-personnel turret interrupted him. The sound had been so loud and nearby that dust rained down in the kitchen from the rafters. In the brief silence that followed, the clatter of footsteps could be heard from behind as more troopers moved up to the counter.
Nites held up a fist with a bent elbow signaling them to halt. "Everyone, hold position," he muttered quietly into his helmet comm. "Things are dicey enough without... Just hold position."
"I am giving you the count of three," Dex said menacingly. "One, two—"
Cluck screamed "KRIFF IT!" and squeezed the trigger of his blaster rifle. Glowing bright blue in the darkness, a single shot smoldered as it impacted Dex's chest.
But the Besalisk didn't go down. Exotic thwap sounds of highly-illegal incinerator rounds echoed overhead, as Dex squeezed off shot after shot.
Nites drew his DC-17 commando pistol just as the register on the counter took a hit and exploded. Credit chips rained down, jingling loudly as Nites returned fire. Two more troopers stepped in behind Nites, and, in a fraction of a second, the old Besalisk was scorched with over a dozen blaster wounds, collapsing to the diner floor.
"SHOTS FIRED!" Hok yelled, stepping in late to the fray.
"Target down! HOLD YOUR FIRE!" Nites screamed, quickly scanning the room for any dead or wounded Senators. "Is anyone hurt?! Padmé! Padmé Amidala!" He looked under the tables immediately behind Dex's smoldering corpse, then scanned all the tables along the front wall. There should have been dozens of Senators present, but he could only see nine, and none were Padmé.
As soon as he stepped out from behind the counter and onto the dining room floor, Cluck aimed his glowrod as the Besalisk's body and gasped. "Sir, you're going to need to see this. There's a—ugh!" The Clone grunted in pain, skewered by a lightsaber that seemed to rise from the ground, ascending impossibly from the floor.
When his eyes adjusted to the green light, Nites could see that it wasn't just a lightsaber, but a furry arm and hand gripping it. Cluck's body fell to the side and more and more of the lightsaber wielder seemed to rise from the floor, step by step, as if ascending from a hidden stairwell perfectly concealed by the Besalisk's hulking body.
Nites adjusted his channel to the platoon frequency, and was once again assailed by panicked status updates, and the yell of Lord Sidious's own voice as the Sith barked out his own commands. Somehow, the situation outside the diner seemed even worse than the situation inside, but seeming was not being.
The ridiculous intelligence failure that led to this botched op only made him realize that the fight with the Jedi was hopeless. Even if Sidious prevailed here and eliminated or captured both Skywalker and Windu, the Sith Lord clearly had no more ability to foresee the unexpected. Even worse, since Voolviff Monn was here it meant that he could not have been out there with Anakin and Mace Windu. That no one had warned Nites of the Shistavanen's absence when Skywalker and Windu stepped out meant a communications breakdown was underway.
"Nites here," he finally managed, voice coming out in a despondent croak. "Voolviff Monn is in the diner."
Voolvif Monn snorted with amusement. "Drop your weapons and stop that!" he snarled, pointing his lightsaber directly at Nites.
Blasterfire rang out as the Clones behind him opened fire on the Shistavanen.
Nites took a step back, then started running as hard as he could, ignoring the screams of his dying comrades. All he could do was stay alive and get as much information as he could to Sidious. "I say again! I have eyes on Voolviff Monn!" Hearing footsteps close behind him, he raised his voice to a panicked scream. "THERE IS A STAIRWELL UNDER THE DINER! PADMÉ AMIDALA IS IN THE—AHHHHH!"
Searing pain erupted in his chest and Nites looked down. The brightly-glowing tip of a lightsaber stuck from it.
o.o.o.o.o
ANAKIN SKYWALKER
90 seconds earlier…
Danger sense buzzed in Anakin's system like a soft warning. Against the staccato of rapidfire, he kept his cool as best he could, dodging and blocking shot after shot, alongside Mace Windu. A few Clones went down, hit by ricocheting shots.
At first, the fire seemed to be divided in two directions, with most of the Clones firing at a target out of sight, whoever had screamed a warning. Whoever was hiding somewhere behind the four platoons of Clones. As the second went on, however, more and more of the Clones shifted their fire forward.
The buzz of his danger sense soon became an electric scream, and a nearly overwhelming torrent of blasterfire cut all around Anakin and Windu. Blaster bolts seared through the fringes of Anakin's robes as he twirled or leapt through the air, but none scored hits on his body. Mace Windu was in no better shape.
Palpatine had relocated to a position behind four rows of Clones, and was personally barking orders impossible for Anakin to hear clearly over the noise. The AT-RTs and larger scout walkers further increased the ambient din as they stomped about, trying to catch the Jedi in a crossfire.
"JUMP!" Windu screamed. With a forward flip, he soared through the air and landed in the middle of a platoon of Clones, two rows from Palpatine.
In a borderline-suicidal frenzy, Clones all around continued firing, mowing down their own comrades as they attempted in vain to kill the Master of the Order. Three deflected shots angled in the general direction of Palpatine, barely missing. An expression of rage crossed the Chancellor's face as he continued screaming muffled orders.
If the Chancellor's erratic behavior during the Separatist attack on Coruscant hadn't been enough to prove that he was more than willing to take extreme risks, this certainly left Anakin convinced. Yet, this time, the risk looked like it was not going to pay off. In less than ten seconds, at least a dozen Clones were down and Mace Windu was just meters from his target.
The danger sense's screams dulled slightly, but Anakin's adrenaline rush was still there. He deflected two shots, then jumped over the front two rows of Clones, landing on a pile of bodies near Mace Windu's position.
A riot trooper let off a startled cry and swung at the Jedi with his stun baton, but Anakin's lightsaber was already at his throat. Two more slashes felled two more troopers, and Anakin skewered a third with a pointed thrust straight through his shield.
Mace Windu achieved a similar feat with a twirling kick that sent one Clone sprawling backwards into another, before he rushed forward, purple blade extended. Both Clones screamed as the blade pushed through one of their chests into the other immediately behind him.
Next instant, the last row of Clones separating him from the Chancellor, six blue and white armored troopers from Anakin's own 501st, opened fire on him with rifles at point blank range. Anakin deflected their shots right in Palpatine's direction. A Clone to the left of the Chancellor took a shot to the head and collapsed soundlessly.
Now Anakin was close enough to hear Palpatine's shrieks over the blasterfire.
"STUN THEM! NO! NO! NOOOO!" Another deflected shot would have hit the Chancellor in the chest, but, with two crimson blades held in a defensive 'X' in front of his chest, the Sith Lord deflected the shot back at Anakin.
Reaching out with the Force, Anakin intended to pull the Chancellor into the fray where he and Windu would have the upper hand. He gasped in surprise and speechless shock.
The Sith Lord felt like he weighed as much as a small speeder. Now, Anakin could move a small speeder with the Force, but there was no Galaxy where Palpatine should weigh that much.
Could his vac-suit be adding to his weight? Anakin wondered to himself, staring at the Chancellor in open-mouthed astonishment. Is it some trick of the Force? A Force power to add to your own weight?
"Skywalker, what are you doing?!" Windu screamed over the screams of death and zaps of blasterfire.
"He's too heavy!" Anakin gasped, unable to find the words to explain it any other way.
As if to prove Anakin wrong, Sidious himself leapt into the air, springing at least five meters skyward, before landing two platoons of Clones over, putting more troopers between him and the Jedi danger. Though Anakin could swear he saw a plume of smoke emanating from beneath Sidious's boots, indicative of rockets.
"He doesn't look too heavy!" Windu snarled through gritted teeth, decapitating a Clone.
Before Anakin could retort, he felt a wave of fear emanate from Dex's Diner. Without second thought, he crouched, preparing for a leap.
"No Anakin, we—"
Anakin didn't hear what Mace Windu said next. He was already leaping through the air, leaving the battle between Windu and the Clones nothing but a faint blurr of flashing lights. After a second or so of soaring over the dark parking lot, he landed firmly on the permacrete, lightsaber ignited. Sprinting to the door as fast he could, there was nothing that would stop him from saving those he loved on the other side. Nothing but proton mortar from one of the walkers.
Grunting in shock, Anakin was flung backwards as the blazing fireball subsided. Behind him, the towering walker that fired the mortar swiveled its transparisteel canopied head slightly to the left, a double cylindered pod on the right side aiming directly at him.
With no time to think, Anakin rolled over, jumped to his feet, and found the wind knocked out of him by an extremely heavy net flying into his back. He sprawled on the ground and saw stars as his face bounced off the permacrete, nearly shattering his nose. The taste of blood filled his mouth as he gripped the fabric of the net in fury, reaching out with the Force, ready to hurl this obstacle away.
Instead, he screamed, electricity coursing through his body. Unable to make sense of the agony, he tried lifting his head to see whether this was a Force attack from Palpatine, or a technological attack from some sort of torture or stun device. But the net was too heavy. He screamed until he was out of breath, then gritted his teeth, groaning.
"No no, you fools! Set your blasters to stun! Quickly!" Sidious's voice barked from somewhere out of sight.
Before Anakin had time to react or think any further, he passed into unconsciousness.