The Force Wills - Chapter 153

Having actual downtime was a rare event for Anakin.

Between the constant missions, briefings, Council summons, his GAR generalship, flimsiwork and training Ahsoka, it was a small miracle to even find any time to eat during a typical day.

Now with his padawan under the temporary guidance of Master Damsin, he found himself with some daily free time in his schedule.

He walked the expansive halls of the Temple, considering just what he could do.

His usual standby of going to the hangar bays to just spend hours tinkering with his own Delta 7 fighter was impossible, considering the main bay was still a crime scene and heavily damaged. He could have the fighter transferred to the smaller bays in the Temple complex but that was just too much organizing for his taste and by the time it was done, he’d have wasted his free time.

Lightsaber training? It had been awhile since he had gone to one of the upper-level training galleries reserved for knights and masters. There were a number of techniques in his Djem So that required a good few hours of refinement. Ahsoka had lately been pressing him hard in their sparring competitions, narrowing the point gaps further and further. Actually being defeated by her was not a moment he was relishing, even though he knew it was inevitable. He still remembered what it had been like to best Obi-Wan in sparring and now his own time was seemingly approaching.

Not if he could help it!

Course decided, he put a spring in his step and hurried towards the nearest turbolift with purpose.

The Jedi he passed on the way had a distinct wariness about them. Their presence in the Force was bloated, their senses peeked and Force probes flying outward. The tension of the bombing hung like a suffocating blanket over the entire Temple. The protestors outside didn’t help either, though the Jedi as a whole were also reeling over the shock that Master Yoda had actually gone outside to speak to the people directly.

Anakin almost couldn’t believe it and it had been noteworthy enough that nearly all major news services had run with that story.

None of the major news companies had been at the protest, but all of them were essentially stealing footage that had been taken by the protestors who had posted it onto CSO. It exploded from there and went on to set records for view tallies on a single video.

He had been there in the background and watched along with Master Drailig and half a dozen Temple Guardsmen as Yoda stepped towards the protestors.

Many of them had anti-war holo signs mounted on small poles or were even using their personal holocoms to wave the signs in the air. A clone trooper helmet with an angry bloody slash cut through it, slogans such as ‘No more blood for the Republic’ or ‘Jedi Warmongers’ were prominent.

The clone guards themselves manned the cordon at the bottom of the wide stairs, each with energy shield bracers on their arms and holstered blasters firmly set on stun. They also kept their distance, no one wanting to escalate the protests.

Yoda appeared very small against the backdrop of the vast ziggurat, leaning on his gimer stick.

Yet his presence quickly became known to the protestors and it silenced them with sheer astonishment that the grandmaster of the Jedi Order himself was there. The legendary being who had seen more than eight centuries of the Republic, who had helped to deliver and protect the very society and civilization they had been born into. He was essentially the employer of their deceased loved ones and now he had come out from the imposing Temple bastion, seemingly humbling himself.

Yoda’s speech, delivered with his customary syntax of Basic, would reverberate through everyone there and beyond.

“Grieving, you are. Angry, you are. Understandable. Rightly, it is.

“Senselessly, lives were taken. Workers who served faithfully. Clones who stood guard. Jedi who healed and taught. Gone, they are now. Pain of this, deep it is in me. Blame the Jedi, some of you do, for the war. For failing to protect those under our roof.”

His gimer stick tapped once hard on the steps beneath him. It reverberated like an ancient bell in the ears of everyone who was there.

“Truth, it is not. But feelings, truth they are not required to be. Sorrow speaks louder than facts, and listen to it, we must. War, this is. Cruel, it has always been. Innocent lives, always it claims. On battlefields distant, and now, here, in our home. The Jedi, makers of this war, we are not. Defenders, we chose to be - defenders of the Republic, of its people, of you. A choice heavy with cost, it has proven. Point you will, to Count Dooku, how he once called the halls behind me home. My student, he once was. Fallen he has. Left us, pursuing his own ambition, he did. 

“To the families of the fallen; your loved ones, honor them, we will. Support you in your loss, the Order shall, now, and in the years to come. Empty words, these may seem. But actions will follow. This, I promise.

“To those who cry for peace; hear you, I do. Yearn for it, I do as well. End this war tomorrow, I would, if I knew how. Yet surrender to those who enslave worlds, for greed, for ambition, for power, peace that is not. True peace, built on freedom and justice, it must be. Share we all do in this darkness. Together, bear it we must. Hate, let it not divide us further. For in division, only the true enemy wins.

“Go home tonight. Mourn. Remember. And know this: the Jedi Order grieves with you. Changed by this day, we are. Wiser, we must become. Stronger in compassion, not in arms alone. May the Force be with you… and with the ones we have lost.”

Anakin shook off the memory as the turbolift carried him to the higher floors of the temple and could only shake his head with a wry smile.

The entire thing felt like Ahsoka.

The fact that Yoda had gone out there to speak was all her idea. He wouldn’t even put it past her to tweak the programming of CSO to push the videos of Yoda’s speech to as many linked datapads throughout the Core Worlds and beyond as possible.

The question of why she had done it was something that was still tumbling around in his mind unanswered.

He walked down the hall and checked the first training room - occupied, with the flashing and humming of a lightsaber faintly emerging from the door.

The next one he tried was empty.

He secured the door with a twist of the Force on its locking mechanisms and took off his outer robes and tunic, placing it on the bench just outside the refresher station.

With lightsaber in hand he stepped into the adjoining training room and considered where to begin.

For a quick warmup he had the room begin a high level remote deflection program, meant for Masters. 

A dozen remotes emerged from a small shaft door in the ceiling and the armed spheres surrounded him from on high.

He triggered his lightsaber and immediately had to deflect three shots directly at his face and dodge the rest in a blur of enhanced speed.

For nearly half an hour he persevered against the relentless onslaught, falling into a nice rhythm of the challenge. The computer made continual adjustments, attempting to get under his guard, but Anakin always saw it coming as he pushed his sight further into the future.

He had a good exertion going at this point, his face and upper body coated in a sheen of perspiration.

He deflected one bolt straight back at the last remote that was still ‘alive’ and it fell to the padded floor.

“Computer, up the difficulty by-”

‘Master!’

Ahsoka’s call through the Bond slammed into his mind and he sensed her deep urgency.

‘Snips?’

‘Skyguy, catch!’

He felt the memory pushed through with rapid speed and he was for the moment, reliving her last few minutes.

Meeting the one who had planted the bomb.

Sensing the attack through the Force, having anticipated its coming.

Defending the seductress from the true mastermind - who first tried to kill the rather attractive pleasure girl and then Ahsoka fending off another attack on her own throat.

The face of the attacker, a woman… a Jedi stricken with grief, mourning for something…

Anakin recognized the look well, having worn it for a long time after his mother had died.

‘Find her, Skyguy. She’s in the Temple, temporary quarters wing! I don’t know if she realized I caught a glimpse of her face. If she knows I know, she’ll try to escape and do a lot of damage on her way out. Master Damsin and I are being held up by the Temple Guard for wrecking their dungeon! Go!’

He didn’t need to be convinced further and blurred towards the training room exit, not even bothering to grab his tunic and robes. His instincts and the Force screaming that he couldn’t even afford the seconds that would take.

In the hallway, he strained his foresight as much as it would go, immediately ignoring the closest turbolift and bolting in the other direction. Trying to take that one would cost him at least 40 seconds of waiting.

Instead, in just four seconds of sprinting he was slapping the controls of a turbolift down the hall and immediately squeezed into the lift car.

He gestured with his artificial right hand towards the keypad, wincing inwardly at how it was so painfully obvious now to anyone looking.

The lift plunged downward on its repulsors and barely nine seconds later reached the lower reaches of the Temple, before going sideways through an adjoining shaft towards the guest wing in the eastern side.

“Coming through!” he shouted with a warning as the doors opened.

He barreled through two Jedi waiting for the turbolift and almost sent them sprawling backwards.

“Hey!”

“What the-”

Anakin was already down the hall, reaching out with the Force and pushed off the wall with his foot, redirecting his momentum smoothly left at the intersection.

This was the first floor of the temporary quarters wing, in a single glance he could see twenty apartment doors, lit with natural light coming from tall angled windows on the right. The level of occupancy was quite high and he could immediately spy nine Jedi just going about their day; some chatting quietly to each other, others alone just staring out the windows in contemplation of the past day’s events.

He took a deep breath to calm down, clipped his saber to his belt and pushed his senses outward, searching for the face that Ahsoka had shown him, trying to find that specific mountain of grief she had sensed.

In moments, he felt it as well.

It was slippery and very well hidden but he could pierce the veil the Jedi was hiding herself with. If he hadn’t known what it was to truly feel such sorrow for the death of a loved one, he would be just as blind as the rest of the Jedi in this hall. The bomber was using it to empower her veil directly, drawing on the emotion to fuel the technique.

He didn’t sense her moving at all, so he began calmly striding forward with purpose.

Why the urgency from the Force then? Something he still felt down to the core of his being.

He clamped down on his own signature in the Force, but if this Jedi was powerful enough for remote Force attacks then there was no question that she knew he was there and hunting her.

When he stopped in front of a closed apartment door down the hall with still no movement from her, it was very clear - she was actually waiting for him.

It was tempting to just burst inside with a lit lightsaber, but Obi-Wan’s constant refrain of ‘patience’ rang through his mind.

He placed a hand on the door panel, hearing the entry chime resound inside.

The Force flexed from inside, he caught the slightest resonance of the dark side from it as the door slid open.

He stepped inside and immediately locked his eyes onto the female figure seated on the meditation cushion in the middle of the small apartment’s living area.

The place was minimalism defined, with no decorations, bare walls and just enough furnishings to get by with. Not surprising for temporary quarters. The only improvement the occupant had made was a single green exotic plant seated on a low table.

“Caught you at a bad time, Skywalker?” said the human woman with a pleasant tone of voice. She was still wearing her Jedi robes with the hood up, her face drowned in the deep darkness it offered. Anakin didn’t need light to perceive it anyway, not this close. Long brown hair, partially tied into a bun behind her head, brown eyes set in a pale face, delicate jawline, a thin pointed nose, her lips twisted into a mild sneer.

“So it seems, knight…?”

“Mallie Marek,” she said, her emphasis on the last name was strange, tinged with grief and anger. Anakin wished he had the time to just stop by a datapad with archive access. “Not that you’d know me. I’m just another Jedi Knight among many in this accursed war. You and your padawan are far too busy getting one glorious military accolade after another to notice the rest of us.”

He stared at her, taking in every word and nuance before asking a single question, “Who did you lose?”

She smirked viciously, “Oh, it shouldn’t surprise me that you’d know this pain. Your history isn’t exactly classified and I did my research. You were late in coming to the Order… you retain memories of your parents and Tatooine isn’t exactly the safest place to live in the galaxy, especially not for slaves.”

Anakin could see her intent, trying to disturb his emotional equilibrium. If this had been before Mortis, it could’ve worked, but now…

“You haven’t answered the question, Marek.”

“Can you not guess? You’re sensing me so clearly. More than any of the blind fools in this Order can ever hope to.”

If she was a knight, she had been raised from a very young age here in the Temple. She had a master and if he or she had died in the war, any normal Jedi would mourn, let go and move on. They wouldn’t head into the Coruscant underworld, recruit a seductress to feed a temple maintenance worker nanodroids, they wouldn’t kill dozens including Jedi.

No, not her master. This was deeper, raw and the gaping wound in her spirit could only be one thing.

“Your lover.”

“My husband,” she corrected. “Killed in one of the endless skirmishes for Eriadu, before you and your padawan arrived on the scene.”

“You married in secret.”

“Naturally, Skywalker,” she drawled. “We were both assigned to Talus in the Corellia system, just a few months before the war broke out, we fell in love and married. We knew the Order would expel us for it, yet we couldn’t imagine a life outside our service. Then the war arrived and our consciences wouldn’t allow us to abandon the people of the Republic for our selfish desire. The Jedi indoctrination ran too deep you see.”

Anakin couldn’t help but feel that he was staring into a mirror of possibility.

He was also secretly married and what if Padme died somehow in this war? How would he react? Would he fall? Would he go on a rampage of destruction against the CIS or whoever was responsible?

He would like to imagine he would at least be more selective in targeting the guilty party than the woman before him. 

“You blame the Order for his death.”

“How many more of us should die for this corrupt Republic?” she snarled. “The Council sits in their tower, sending us out to die in a war that should’ve been prevented. If they had done their jobs as peacekeepers of the Republic, then we wouldn’t be out there dying for fat senators who haven’t even seen a blaster fired in anger their entire lives. Now look at us, locked in step with the Senate, commanders and generals of a war. Where is the Order’s independence now?”

“And your solution to this is to murder your fellow Jedi and the workers who support us?”

“At least when they die here, there is much more purpose in it. Where they can be my messengers of blood and grievance to the Council on behalf of the rest of us! The reminder of their failure and culpability.”

The Force screamed in his veins, but he asked one last question. “Will you come quietly, Marek?”

“No, it was a long shot trying to frame your padawan for that bottom dweller’s death, but perhaps with your death, the Council’s precious Chosen One, that will be just the ticket to get the message across-”

She surged towards him in a blurred explosion of movement, her red lightsaber igniting into a thrust straight for his heart, whilst simultaneously attacking with a Force Choke.

He smothered curiosity at her blade’s changed color and battered away the dark technique with barely a thought, his own blade coming to life just in time to catch hers and deflect the lunging blade.

She broke the brief blade lock he forced, and slashed for his legs.

He dodged back, lifting his left leg above the attack, before blurring forward for an overhead slash that Marek intercepted with a horizontal block that she smoothly riposted, trying to step into and under his guard.

They swirled around each other as Anakin whirled to avoid her getting a cheap shot into his back.

Before she could even settle back into an opposing stance, he blasted her with a point blank Force Push straight out of his back.

It managed to catch her, sending her flying back to crash straight through the front door of her quarters. The door screamed of twisted metal as he sensed her Force Control surge around her.

She stopped herself in mid air and sped down the corridor, clearly seeking more room to maneuver.

Anakin blurred with Force Speed, pushing off the walls in pursuit.

He caught up with her in the main corridor, the early afternoon sun streaming into their faces.

He jumped high, flowing into a Falling Avalanche straight to her back.

She barely managed to dodge out of the way, already slashing at his descending blade to knock it out of the way for a riposte.

He stepped back controlling the distance and brought his blade out of the way of her attack, and slashed straight for her neck.

She dodged again, twirling abruptly in reverse for a Force assisted jump straight out of Ataru, landing on a buttress next to the giant window.

Without pause he pushed in on her, attacking her legs and lower abdomen, despite the higher elevation.

She deflected and blocked.

He jumped into a Force assisted forward lunge straight for her heart.

A slashing deflect pushed his blade out of the way, even as she jumped into a somersault, landing on another buttress on the other side of the corridor as he landed in her wake.

Her Force Push, empowered considerably by the dark side, battered at his own Control.

Just enough to rob him of the momentum he had built up to charge at her.

Marek took the opening, launching herself into her own Falling Avalanche straight for his head.

He could kill her in one of a dozen ways now, but that was not his goal, so he pulled a counter technique Ahsoka had once done on him.

He surged into the air to meet her halfway in the apex of her leap, his blade in his left hand smashing Marek’s aside.

His artificial right hand came round for a kidney punch that thundered into the woman.

He landed on the opposite side of the corridor, whilst she crumbled onto her knees the instant her feet touched ground.

The dark side surged in her, pulling on the pain and despair.

She rallied with her blade still up as a barrier, carefully getting back to her feet and chucking away her outer robes with a negligent gesture through the Force.

Her brown eyes glimmered with hate.

The blazing rapid ignition of saber staffs from either side of the corridor reached them.

Four Temple Guardsmen stood there, their lit yellow weapons held forward threateningly.

“Jedi, cease hostilities!” shouted the leader.

Anakin was perfectly fine with letting the Guard take over at this point, but firmly kept his blade up in defense.

Marek glared at guardsmen briefly, before smirking at Anakin.

She blurred into Force Speed, but not aiming at him.

Her lightsaber slashed through the window to his left, the immediate follow up Push shattered the transparisteel before she jumped out.

“Marek! Don’t!”

He ran in pursuit, jumping out as well.

They fell among shattered glimmering shards, for nearly fifteen meters before they landed on the sloping roof of this part of the temple ziggurat.

He had barely recovered, bleeding off the momentum into the Force, when Marek used the opportunity to slash at his chest and neck.

He blocked in the inner ring, low and high and they began trading rapid slashes.

They contested each other’s guard with every angle imaginable in seconds, their blades blurring into a blue plasmatic haze around their bodies.

She was the first one to retreat a step, his strength and speed rattling her arms with every impact.

He was also acutely aware that their fight had pushed them to another edge of the ziggurat’s roof. Ten meters below was an outdoor classroom area that he could sense was filled with nearly twenty young padawans with lightsabers being carefully guided through drills by an older master.

She took an abrupt step back, opening the distance between them and used a sweeping leg kick to release a Force Push.

Empowered by the dark side, he could sense the sheer impetus behind it and his foresight revealed that to contest it directly would result in considerable damage to the roof they were standing on.

Shattering it to such a degree that debris fragments would shower the padawans below at slugthrower ballistic velocities, injuring and even killing some of them immediately.

He threw just enough strength into his counter to bleed off the worst of it and let the rest take him.

The world blurred around him and tumbled as he was accelerated abruptly to the right, despite his internal Control, the shock was enough to rattle his lungs and nearly rob him of breath.

He shifted in mid-air in his fall, switching off his lightsaber with a thought, bleeding the momentum into the Force and easily managed to turn the fatal fall into a mere thump as he tumbled once, taking the initial impact on his upper-back before rolling to distribute and get rid of the remaining kinetic energy.

Anakin came to a prone stop at the feet of none other than Master Tera Sinube, who was leading the lightsaber class for the masterless padawans. The old cosian’s lightsaber cane was already activated, his eyes asking a silent question.

Anakin shook his head in answer.

Sinube nodded, he would protect the students and he backed off, using the Force to nudge the class back.

Marek jumped from above at that moment, power gathered and unleashed.

Anakin blurred to his feet, blade raised horizontal and high in defense. He surged the Force in as precise a manner as he could straight into her.

Their competing lightsabers screamed in protest as contact was made and her Push, that would’ve pulverized anyone unprepared and release a displacement shockwave, was reduced to a mere shifting breeze of air.

With her feet on the ground, she managed to force a blade lock.

She snarled with a viscous grin of triumph for some reason as they met each other's gaze across their locked blades.

Her strength was impressive, Anakin had to admit, as ill-gained as it was in the dark side.

It was also a mistake.

In a moment, he opened himself to the river of the Force, and pushed back with strength that Ahsoka usually called ‘frakking nerfshit’ whenever she tried to compete with it.

Marek’s expression shifted rapidly as their combined blades pushed back onto her.

She broke the lock first, doing two rapid backflips.

He charged in pursuit and slashed for her arms.

Marek deflected as she retreated, enough to buy time and space to properly turn around.

She slashed for his neck.

He leaned back just enough for it to miss and batted at the trailing edge of her blade, combining it with a Push, seeking to disarm her and open up a gap in her defense.

She countered the Push, managing to bring her blade back, preventing another punch from his dangerous right hand.

Anakin felt the rhythm now, he had her measure and began laying in slash after slash, right in the angles she was most uncomfortable with.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the masked visages of Temple Guardsmen entering the outdoor class area, cutting off all escape, their saber staffs already lit.

Marek didn’t seem to care, her lips curling into a smirk as she blocked and counter-attacked. Her eyes flicked towards all the padawans.

That worried Anakin.

I have to end this quickly.

His inner duelist really disliked doing this, but ego had no place here and the Force’s urgent warning was still building to a higher crescendo.

He pushed his next two attacks high and low rapidly towards her hips and face, as if he was going to simply try another Djem So combination, one that she expected of him by now.

The Force built into an abrupt wave of power and he shoved his left hand towards her.

Her defenses and Control shattered.

She screamed in surprise and defiance as she flew back and impacted hard on a wall of the classroom.

She grit her teeth in defiance, trying to fight back against his telekinetic grip.

He raised his open hand and began closing it.

Marek screamed, not just in her mundane voice, but within the Force as well.

Having none of that, he thought with annoyance. Anakin recognized the attack for what it was and smothered it before it could go anywhere.

Finally, he broke through and wrenched her lightsaber away from her, dominating the weapon and switching it off, letting it fall to the ground at his feet.

‘Hold her right there, Master!’

Ahsoka’s voice barely got through to him, such was his singular focus.

His padawan burst in from the main door leading into the temple, her body a blur of speed as she jumped and somersaulted right over the guardsmen and padawans in her way.

Another few sprinting steps and her hands grabbed Marek by the face.

Anakin felt resistance from the fallen knight crumble as Ahsoka fought through the woman’s mental defenses and she fell to the Force Sleep.

He hurriedly pulled his strength away, and for next few seconds was busy managing the massive energies he had summoned, returning to equilibrium both internally and externally.

The Force simmered from Ahsoka as she closed her eyes and he realized she was healing Marek?

No, it was something else.

The Guardsmen stepped closer until they were a wall of active saber staffs that surrounded the insensate Marek and Ahsoka. He dearly wanted to ask and find out what she was doing through the Bond, but didn’t dare disrupt her focus. He felt the danger still, hanging over everyone in the outdoor class like a thick smog.

“Knight Skywalker,” Master Sinube hobbled closer, his lightsaber back into his cane. “Care to bring the light of understanding to an old master worried for his students? I could sense that knight had fallen to the dark side but…”

Their attention was drawn back to Ahsoka as the Force settled down to a low simmer. The danger wasn’t gone, but it was no longer imminent. Yet despite that, she kept her hands on Marek, laying her down onto her back underneath the nearby uneti tree.

“She was ultimately responsible for the hangar bombing,” Anakin said softly, just enough so that only Sinube would hear.

The old master’s shoulders seemed to sag even more as he comprehended the words. “Another of us falls; her sorrow and deep grief was clear to me, even through her anger. This war cannot end soon enough.”

Ahsoka finally stood and addressed the lead guardsman, “The danger is passed for now, but she needs to be admitted to the Halls of Healing immediately. Healer Nummo is waiting for her, deliver her to no one else, stop anyone who interferes otherwise.”

He nodded, bowing shallowly in thanks. Without audible order or pause, four of them stood beside Marek and each took a small portion of the burden to levitate her.

“Ahsoka, your timing was impeccable, as usual,” he grinned as she approached. Her attention was mildly distracted as she waved in response to some of the class of padawans calling to her.

“As was yours, Master. If you had delayed in subduing her by another thirty odd seconds, then we would’ve had another tragedy on our hands. You see, she had not only infected Maintenance Tech Rhorn with nanodroids, but also herself.”

Anakin blinked in astonishment, “She was committing suicide? Using herself as another bomb? I knew her despair was deep but not to that extent.”

“You only scratched the surface of it,” she said, with a haunted look in her eyes. “I managed to dissociate the worst of the explosives the nanodroids had assembled in her, preventing them from reaching a critical mass that would’ve killed everyone in the area. It's now up to the healers to disarm and filter the nanodroids safely from her body.”

He could immediately tell that something else was bothering his padawan, but this wasn’t the time or place to discuss it.

Master Sinube bowed to them both, “My thanks for your intervention, Knight Skywalker, Padawan Tano. I can protect my students from many things, but an explosion of that magnitude…and a fallen Jedi at the same time…” He began hobbling away. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have many young minds set to ease.”

8888888888888888888888888888888888

I stood in the center of the High Council chamber, Taria and Anakin at my side.

The delivery of our final investigative report had gone without any major issues or questions to answer. It was clear, however, that the collective Council wanted nothing more than to put this combined tragedy behind them and move on, with the notable exception of Obi-Wan and Yoda. Both had a distinct aura about them that they would like nothing more than to slap some sense into the others.

The news that Mallie Sievil (her maiden name) Marek, had secretly married Kento Marek had lit a fire under the usual suspects. They decried that this was another example of attachment gone wrong. The traditionalists pointed their fingers at what the progressives and Depa Billaba’s ‘New Code’ had caused.

It was all I could do not to join in on the figurative mud slinging, disguised as ever so polite discourse that was the Council’s usual style.

Yoda tapped his gimer stick in that understated yet commanding manner and drew everyone's attention and demanded immediate silence.

“Time for these debates, this is not. Still in mourning and contemplation, we remain. Many funerals to arrange, we have.”

“Grandmaster, regarding the funerals, are you sure this is the best course of action?” Master Eeth Koth asked delicately. The iridonian zabrak was one of the most level-headed and gracious members of the Council and he straddled the fence on many issues, acting as a bridge and voice of moderation between the divided membership.

“Working for the Order, they were, when alongside the Jedi, they died. Therefore, buried with them, they shall be.” Yoda declared firmly.

The gesture from Yoda was poignant and practically unheard of, something that only he could possibly have done in the long history of the Jedi Order. No other grandmaster has sat for so long or had rebuilt so much in the wake of the Battle of Ruusan and the last great war against the Sith Brotherhood. He had taken my suggestion and was fighting back at last in the war for hearts and minds that Sidious had been waging.

His speech before the protestors was still trending and when CSO broadcasted the funeral, as somber and heart wrenching it would be, it would reach far and wide.

“Padawan Tano, something more to report to this Council, do you?”

I really didn’t want to bring it up here, but I could see how futile the attempt would be to keep it secret, given Palpatine’s spies in the Temple. It was already a known fact to the healers directly working with Mallie Marek. So it was just a matter of changing the speed with which this was known to the enemy.

“Yes, it relates to the health of Knight Mallie Marek, she is pregnant.”

I could feel Anakin’s shock and he glanced at me out of the corner of his eye. Many of the Council accepted the news without reaction, though I could sense puzzlement from a few as they wondered about the timing. Kento Marek had died many months ago and yet Mallie wasn’t ‘visibly’ pregnant.

“She is roughly about one month along and most likely had her husband’s seed in stasis storage.”

My own mind was still trying to work out just why she would first go through the trouble to impregnate herself via IVF, a procedure any med droid could do with minimal fuss, then dose herself with nanodroids to become a suicide bomber. Taking her newly conceived child into death. On the surface it was absolutely monstrous.

“Has the child suffered any complications from the nanodroids or injury from the fight?” Master Windu asked, his face visibly showing how disturbed and concerned he was.

“None, as far as I could see, the healers will have a more complete report.”

“Most troubling,” said Master Billaba, leaning back in her seat. It was rare to see the nominal leader of the reform faction actually showing up in person to a Council meeting or even attending one. As she preferred these days to spend most of her time training her newest padawan. “Perhaps she became pregnant intending to carry something of her late husband into life, but then her fall to the dark side resulted in her taking such a mercurial contradictory action.”

“Hmm, possible, it is,” Yoda confirmed. “Concerned I am, about the dark side’s exposure to the child growing within Knight Marek. Lost to us, most documentation of such effects is… dating from the days of the Old Republic, they do. Research, I shall conduct, with the Council of First Knowledge. Thank you for bringing this to our attention, Padawan Tano. Knight Skywalker, Master Damsin. Dismissed you are.”

We bowed and left with unhurried strides.

“There is an offworld assignment that I’m going on soon,” Taria said serenely as we walked to the turbolift. “As your training is far from over, I thought we might as well make use of it as another opportunity for many, many tests. I will be in touch, Ahsoka.”

She hurried into the lift first and tapped a destination.

The doors closed, leaving Anakin and myself waiting for the next lift car to arrive. 

I got a look at his face and he wasn’t doing a good job of his outer emotional masks, ‘Skyguy, stop brooding.’

He gave me an annoyed glare. ‘You saw what happened in there. Their attitude.’

‘Not exactly encouraging is it,’ I agreed with an internal sigh. ‘In your case, you have a few advantages though. You haven’t fallen to the dark side, you are the Chosen One, which I know we can’t always fall back on, but it’s a distinct point that can’t be ignored. They know that expelling you will just mean that the GAR will just commission you directly, which Palpatine will make happen.’  

He nodded as the turbolift chimed and the doors opened again.

When we were inside and descending into the main ziggurat, he looked at me directly.

‘What do you foresee for any children Padme and I have?’

Oh, how I had dreaded this question. In that single moment, I felt the full weight of probability shifting and settling on my shoulders. A fulcrum, indeed.

‘That is an extremely broad question, Anakin,’ I thought seriously, buying myself time. ‘With many possible answers. The subject of children and the future is extremely sensitive to fluctuation, especially if I speak to the parents of said hypothetical future children. Do you really want me to spoil the surprise, mystery and future joy you will have?’

I winced even as I said it, confirming for him that I was predicting that there will be children and that it would be a joyful occasion at least. That by itself had the probability lines shifting like giant metaphysical gears the size of stars.

‘Not really, but with this war and everything the Council said…’

‘Ignore them, ignore this war, Anakin. All that should matter is your happiness and Padme’s. Fear for your children’s lives because of our enemies, will just as surely destroy and corrupt as any other fear does.’

He nodded in understanding, but a mild smile curled on his lips, ‘Children, plural?’

I folded my arms and gave him a glare, ‘Yes, now stop asking if you don’t want to spoil the surprise!’

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The funeral was held three days later in the ceremonial hall.

It was a necessity because of the number of fallen, each body placed on a separate dais, shrouded with richly embroidered cloth bearing the symbol of the Jedi Order for a Jedi or someone who was serving the Order and the GAR emblem for a clone. That the dead clones were being eulogized at all alongside the others was another huge symbol. Yoda had simply told the kaminoan reclamation corps, who had wanted to collect the bodies, to take a hike back to their water world in his typical style.

Just imagining the diminutive grandmaster being towered over by the insanely tall kaminoans and sending them packing with their nonexistent behinds on fire, still threatened to give me a case of the giggles.

The hall was packed with every senator, dignitary or high ranking GAR officer that could be squeezed in, along with a careful selection of Jedi from every strata of the Order; youngling, adept, padawan, knight and master. There were a number of reporters as well, each wearing small camera headsets. In addition, a number of spy cams that l had helped Hermione emplace around the hall, who was among the attendees. Now the event was streaming directly to CSO on a minor delay.

My own seat was among the Jedi ranks in the front row, next to Anakin. I was also acutely aware that Palpatine was seated far to our right on the same side of the hall and minorly thankful that he wasn’t directly opposite us on the other side. 

Yoda stood from his low seat and began a steady walk, around the arranged daises, his gimer stick’s tapping echoed throughout the hall with each step.

The low murmur of whispering from the less disciplined ranks of VIP guests immediately ceased.

“One with the Force, they are. And our job it is, to remember that we will, in time, also pass on. Luminous beings are we, mere temporary vessels, our bodies are. And we shall all find ourselves here in time. A moment of silence, I ask. To remember and move on.”

The weight of the moment sat heavy on nearly everyone.

For me, no matter what my prescience glimpsed or how far forward in time it was, the true question remained. Would I be reborn somewhere else again? Or would my passing into the Force here be my destination, so to speak?

“Live for the living, we must. Live through us, forever they will.”

Yoda thumped his gimer stick against the floor.

Each dais came alive, unfolding mechanically from below before enclosing themselves on each body, becoming a dull brown metallic casket, each with their own hover repulsor.

As they sealed, a bright shaft of coherent light emitted from each casket, shining upward brilliantly, representing the path of their spirits returning to the Force and also imitating the activation of a lightsaber.

The Temple Guard began a slow, solemn procession into the hall, until a guard was standing at the head and foot of each casket, which rose up into the air to waist height. With equal, perfect coordination, the caskets were slowly escorted out, beginning their final journey to undergo an energy based cremation.

The ashes of the civilians would be returned to their families, the clones’ would be interred into a planned memorial for them on the roof gardens, whilst the Jedi’s ashes were simply sprinkled into earth of the Room of a Thousand Fountains.

“Death, part of life it is. Fear it, we must not. Ending, it is not. Merely a new beginning, it is. Thanks, I give you, for taking the time to come. May the Force be with you.”

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As much as many of the Jedi Order wanted to take some time for reflection, the war did not stand still.

The next day, I saw both Anakin and Obi-Wan off at the tertiary hangars, as they took a shuttle to board the Resolute, where the ship would rejoin the 42nd Fleet and begin a campaign to retake the system of Malor-77. It was in the southern galactic reaches and its single inhabited world, Lanteeb, had come under CIS occupation. That alone was bad news, because it meant that the Separatists had managed to flank the Eriadu defense line. The Republic Navy was scrambling to lock down the Nothoiin Corridor hyperlane and find where the enemy had bridged the gap between the southern Hydian Way, bypassing the Lipsec Run and invading the Bri’ahl Sector Cluster.

A cluster that contained 26 major worlds, rich in minerals and industry, that were screaming for help.

I idly waved as their shuttle disappeared into the distance, joining a high priority sky lane towards the Coruscant shipyards.  

“Ready, my student?”

I managed to keep myself from overtly reacting at Taria’s sudden appearance, stepping out of my natural blind spot and reappearing to my other senses. My heart did quicken by a few beats, however.

“I am, my teacher,” I said simply.

She frowned slightly, but decided to allow my new formality in addressing her, “Then come. Master Yoda is waiting.”

She escorted me to the higher levels of the Temple and a familiar path I had only once visited before - Yoda’s personal quarters.

“Enter, enter,” the grandmaster called impatiently.

The place was just as I remembered, a microcosm of the past few centuries, told in pictures, mementos, rugs, paintings and other objects. Anything functional was reduced in size and scope for Yoda to easily reach.

“Master Damsin, Padawan Tano, sit, sit. Be with you in a moment, I will,” he said, as he stirred and added ingredients to a broth over a small gas cooker in his tiny kitchen.

We both bowed automatically and walked past him to sit on the appropriately sized meditation cushions meant for guests.

For a few minutes we listened to the stirring of the pot, the simmer of thick liquid and the pleasant smell of an exotic meat that I couldn’t identify.

Yoda eventually entered the living room, carrying a mug of the broth with a spoon sticking out.

He sat down on his own cushion and began eating.

I couldn’t help but feel slightly paranoid that this was another cunningly designed Jedi Shadow test, so I kept my peace and waited patiently.

Yoda met my eyes in the next moment and chuckled knowingly in his inimitable way.

“Mmmhmmhmm, good instinct for a Shadow, padawan. In this case, however, truly hungry, I am. Need I have, to send you both to Corellia.” He reached out with the Force and lightly flung a data chit from a nearby small table to Taria, who caught it easily. “Specifics on the chit, you will find. Rescue you must, and into protective custody place, a human woman; Mata Fhernan she is called. Targeted for assassination, she has been. Open Jedi involvement, problematic it is. Disguises you will need.”

He savored more of his broth before nodding. “That is all. Tarry not, you must. Dismissed, you are.”

“Understood, Master,” Taria abruptly stood and began walking for the exit.

I stood merely moments later and followed in her wake, even as my mind was burning with questions and secretly feeling rather peeved.

“A note to remember, Ahsoka,” Taria gave me a wry grin. “Shadows must sometimes work from incomplete or entirely withheld information. Can you tell me why?”

“Compartmentalization or sometimes there just isn’t enough information for a full briefing.”

“Correct, it is up to us to find the gaps in the puzzle, complete the picture. Now, tell me, if you and I had to go undercover on Corellia, who could we become?”

“XO and Captain of a light freighter, seeking an upgrade for their ship in the Coronet shipyards.”

“What are our names?”

“Yours is Helera Geil, mine is Aven Leneeme.”

As we walked towards the quartermaster level, she relentlessly kept hitting me with questions, fleshing out our cover story. From the broad strokes to the most minute detail of each of our respective lives.

She paused as we stopped outside the quartermaster’s office, “A fair attempt, but it is just the beginning. As we journey to Corellia, I will show you how to truly become someone else and show you a few techniques in the Force that will help us pass muster to even the most diligent and stubborn scrutiny. When I am done with you, Ahsoka, you will be able to walk right past your master, and he will not know you are there.”

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A/N: Merry Christmas or as they say in the GFFA, Life Day! A festive time I wish for you all. A pity I couldn't work in a SW equivalent celebration into the story, but the arc's tone just wouldn't allow for it or the timeline. The next story chapter will release on Friday, 2nd Jan. Family commitments and stuff, but a few surprise art pieces should hit as well in between then.

Enjoy the holidays and as always, stay awesome!