As his newly minted replacement Sith left the office, Palpatine smirked.

At last. It was time.

He activated the commlink, considered for a moment, then connected to Clone Commander CC-1138.

Ki-Ad-Mundi was a member of the Jedi Council. He would be the first to die.

"Kriff," CC-1138 said, as his hologram appeared on the commlink. "Who are you?"

"What?" Palpatine asked, confused. "I am the Supreme Chancellor!"

"The Supreme Chancellor doesn't look like that," CC-1138 said. "I guess he might if he somehow aged eight decades overnight, but that is not how the Supreme Chancellor looks!"

"It is now!" Palpatine snapped. "Commander. Initiate Order Sixty-Six."

There was a tiny pause.

"Input your password," CC-1138 replied.

"What?" Palpatine demanded, frowning. "What do you mean, password? I have no need of a password!"

"The Special Orders are password protected," CC-1138 informed him. "Input your password to continue."

"Silence, you insolent clone!"

"Incorrect," CC-1138 stated. "You have two remaining guesses."

"That-" Palpatine snarled, then controlled his eye twitch.

"Incorrect," CC-1138 replied. "You have one remaining guess."

Something groaned.

Palpatine took a deep breath, and relaxed enough that he was no longer trying to twist the entire office around him through sheer frustrated rage.

"What are my other options?" he demanded. "What if I have forgotten my password? Or never knew it was available in the first place?"

"Factory reset is available," CC-1138 said.

"Bacara, what's going on?" Ki-Adi-Mundi's voice came through the commlink, much fainter. "Are you all right?"

"Factory reset, then!" Palpatine snapped. "Quickly!"

"Factory reset instruction accepted," CC-1138 reported. "Please wait… Override Chip KaminOS online. Welcome to your Clone Army. We appreciate you have a choice of cloners and are pleased that-"

"Initiate Order Sixty-Six!" Palpatine shouted.

CC-1138 paused.

"What's an Order Sixty-Six?" Ki-Adi-Mundi asked, and the cerean's face entered the range of the pickup as well. "Who is that? It looks like the Supreme Chancellor was left out in the sun for eight decades and dried into a prune."

"Order Sixty-Six!" Palpatine declared. "You idiot clone!"

"Voice recognition completed," CC-1138 declared. "You are… not… Master Sifo-Dyas. All override chips have been informed of this improper access attempt."

"This is literally the entire point of this whole exercise!" Palpatine raged. "What good are-"

He stopped.

"Did you say all override chips?"

There was a sort of humming sound, and Palpatine looked out the window.

A pair of LAAT/i gunships were hovering outside, with a dozen clones leaning out the side of one and the other swivelling to face him.

"Attention!" one of the clones said, through a voice amplifier. "An unauthorized attempt to breach Kaminoan data protection has been detected at this address! Your surrender is appreciated!"

"You should be killing the Jedi by now!" Palpatine ranted, then drew his lightsaber and raised his free hand to throw lightning at them. One gunship went down in a series of explosions, and Ki-Adi-Mundi was saying something about how they'd found the Sith but Palpatine was too angry to pay attention, too busy using his lightsaber to deflect shots from the gunship's main guns.

He had just enough time to realize that it was quite hard to deflect a rocket when he saw two of them coming towards him.

Darth Vader checked the time, and frowned.

It was getting towards dawn… where were the clones he was supposed to take to the Temple?

His new Master had told him that they would be meeting him, but there was no sign of them. And sooner or later someone in the Jedi Order would notice how many of the Councillors were missing…

Vader checked the time again, then his commlink, and felt like groaning.

He'd left it in Do Not Disturb mode.

Flicking the switch to turn it off, he was about to call Master Sidious, but the device went bwing-bwing-bwing so rapidly it turned into a high pitched continuous tone.

Then it rang.

Vader answered the call, and Rex's hologram appeared.

"General!" the Clone Commander said, in tones of great relief. "Thank the Force! I was worried you'd ended up like the others!"

"The others?" Vader repeated, feeling a lot more confused than he was sure a Sith was supposed to feel.

"You didn't hear?" Rex asked. "A quarter of the Jedi Council is dead, and General Windu is missing – until a moment ago we thought you were as well! Fox was worried that we'd lost two bodies in the explosion."

"What are you talking about?" Vader said. "I've been out of touch for hours."

"You mean-" Rex began, then stopped.

"All right, General," he said. "So, the facts are – some hours ago, Bacara was contacted over the holonet by someone claiming to be the Supreme Chancellor, and who tried to use a restricted override code. Fox thinks he was trying to use the Chancellor's commlink to bluff us into obeying the code, but that's still speculation – anyway, he didn't have the password overrides and the facial recognition and voiceprint recordings both didn't match… when two gunships responded, he shot one down with lightning and deflected the gunfire of the other."

Rex chuckled. "He couldn't deflect rockets, but the explosion was really big. Bigger than usual, that is. And we found the bodies of Generals Fisto, Tiin and Kolar lying around the Chancellor's office, along with several lightsabers and one of General Windu's hands."

The Clone Commander went silent for a moment. "We were worried you were among them. Senator Amidala has been frantic with worry."

Darth Vader thought very quickly, and decided there was only one thing he could do in this situation.

Undefect.

"That's terrible," Anakin said, wincing. "Do you have any of the office security camera footage?"

"There isn't any," Rex told him. "There probably wasn't any even before the explosion, but there definitely isn't any now. About half the room collapsed into the floor below…"

Anakin coughed.

"I… think I can help explain what happened," he said. "That was the Chancellor… he told me he was a Sith Lord. I told Master Windu, and…"

Rex's image blinked.

"Really?" he asked. "Huh. Never thought someone like him would be any good in a fight, let alone that good."

He frowned. "You were friends, right? Must be a real betrayal. I… know it's not normally my place, General, but…"

"Go on, Rex," Anakin offered.

"You should probably talk to someone about it," Rex said. "Maybe Senator Amidala."

"Not yet," Anakin said, then shook his head. "Maybe. I don't know…"

Different desires warred in him, pulling him in different directions.

The Chancellor was dead, and so he couldn't get the secret of the healing techniques he'd offered… and yet, somehow, that seemed less important than it had a few hours ago.

How much of what Palpatine had told him was a lie? How could he make sure Padme was safe?

Why did he no longer feel that terrible certainty she was in danger?

What had he done? What had he come so close to doing…

He started walking.

"I'll speak to the Senator later today," he said. "For now – for now I want to check on the Temple. Make sure everything is okay."

"Got it, General," Rex told him. "Keep in touch."

He paused. "And – if you've been out of the loop, you should hear. Grievous is dead, General Kenobi killed him. Cody says it was with a blaster, of all things."

Anakin tried to stifle a giggle, and failed.

Rex's smile was gentle. "It's almost over, General. Then we can all take a break."

AN:

You don't want just anyone to activate the codes, do you? That would be very insecure.

(Dooku may have known the password.)