Above the Jedi Temple, Airspeeder traffic pattern east-north/south-east of the Temple. (1 Hour, forty-five minutes later)
For all appearances, the whip-thin, cobalt-colored alien presently reclining in the back of the bubble-canopied aircar was the picture of bored indolence. It was only the ovoid red eyes, hidden by the broad brim of the downward angled hat that gave the lie to the picture. While the body of the Duros lounged with a boneless ease, those eyes ceaselessly devoured the images being fed to the pad in his lap by a number of spy-droids hovering surreptitiously about a particular structure in the world-city's under levels.
"Move into westbound traffic, then turn into the northbound pattern, and keep going for a few clicks before you swing back around, 3E. It looks like the Jedi were clever enough to call ahead and warn the security forces about Khorda's fanatics. I don't want to be picked up by some security cam's pattern recognition software while we wait for the fools to blast their way into the relay station" the bounty-hunter ordered in his gravelly drawl. A long thin blue finger reaching up to idly trace the outline of one of the black breathing tube mounts covering his cheeks.
"Pay a pretty Peggat, to know everything that one does" Cad Bane murmured so softly even his "sentry" droid driver's keen audioreceptors wouldn't catch what he'd said.
"I still don't see why we're relying on outside assistance. I told you, Bane, with the schematics and technical information I downloaded, I can find a weak spot in the security shield, then disrupt it long enough for us to pass through" Todo complained in his high synthesized voice.
"Shut up, Todo" Bane reflexively replied. Not taking his eyes from the ten screen-in-screen views of the goings on in the under-levels. "You deal with Jedi, it's best to collect every advantage. Never know when one of their tricks will spike a perfectly good plan." He wanted to curse when one ring of the assassin-droid's optical receptors rotated to study him, as the droid continued to drive. Knowing the artificial killer had detected the stress he'd thought to conceal beneath his coolly cynical tone. The bounty hunter had acquired his well-deserved reputation for planning and carrying off "impossible" jobs by knowing all the angles, so it bothered him more than he cared to admit. Dealing with an employer seemingly capable of lengthy, many-layered extrapolations of events to come. All far more "impossible" than even his most ambitious jobs.
The upper rightmost screen showed a great many droids the size of large melons entering the relay station through an environmental control duct the first in line had used a small onboard plasma cutter to cut through. One by one, the machines scuttled inside and out of his view, while the mixed team of guardian-droids and security personnel continued to exchange fire with the terrorists advancing in force on the structure. Start to finish, it had taken less than thirty seconds for more than two dozen of the automatons to effect their surreptitious entrance while security was otherwise occupied.
"Aren't you concerned we're going to get caught up in whatever's going on down there, sir?" The neurotic techno-service droid inquired plaintively. Watching over the bounty-hunter's shoulder as he did so.
Noting a pair of the guardian droids incapacitated by a well-aimed ion grenade thrown by one of the dozen heavily armed terrorists, Bane ignored the small droid in favor of ordering his driver "Get us to the drop-off position. Khorda's men will break through the defenders in another minute, and no one but the Jedi will get there in time to matter. Sabotaging all those lifts, without it showing up on anyone's security board? That was a nice piece of work, and the Annoo-dat are just stupid enough to believe today's simply their lucky day."
Left unsaid was his dissatisfaction at not being informed about the spider-droids, even to the point of knowing for certain who they served. Studying the closest, most detailed view he'd received of them as the aircar began it's circuitous return to their deployment site, his crimson eyes narrowed as he froze the uppermost middle image for a few moments.
"Todo, what do you make of this droid?" He questioned, pulling the remainder of his gear into place, and beginning a brief yet methodical examination of blasters and equipment while the droid studied the frozen image.
"Mmm, those exoskeletons are a composite of several valuable metals, there's advanced articulation throughout the leg mechanisms, and high quality rapid-release magnetic locking devices on the tip of each leg to allow them to climb like that. Either an expensive custom lot-order, or the product of a government's military industrial complex. I very much doubt a small band of political dissidents could afford such droids. Why do you ask, sir?" The small droid opined with evident curiosity.
"Nothing you need to worry about. Just be ready to follow me, and keep that field-disruptor handy" Bane growled. The tiniest hint of irritation breaking through his famously cool demeanor. On the screens, the last two members of the security force were being driven back into the confines of the relay station's machinery-filled interior. Where they were presumably backed onto the narrow service walkway he knew was suspended over a huge drop leading to the station's foundation a few hundred meters below. At almost the same moment, three Jedi appeared in his lowest rightmost screen. He watched the trio begin advancing in an inverted triangle formation. Their purple, blue, and green blades held up defensively before them. Seeing the Imbecile-in-Chief, Ashaar Khorda, snarl in silent fury as he glanced over his shoulder to spot the trio of Jedi quickly advancing on him and his men. Clutching some kind of statue or religious icon to his chest, the Duros observed the terrorist leader gesture for two of his men to accompany him inside, then ordered the other ten men to stand off the encroaching Jedi.
Tapping his wrist-comm, Bane's voice once more contained the perfect evenness of a consummate professional, as he questioned "Are you in position yet, Parasitti?" He was only listening with half his attention to the affirmative reply in a deeply resonant masculine voice, because at that moment, the last of Khorda's men were sent sprawling. All but one of the men were still alive, but it had only taken the Jedi seconds to neutralize the well-armed fanatics. Now, he could see a tall, slender, silver-haired human woman with a purple lightsaber, and an even taller, long-necked, white-skinned Quermian with a blue blade gain the relay-station's doorway. Their burning blades leading as they glided forward, the pair took one step, then another, before disappearing from his view as they passed into the structure's interior. The third Jedi, a broad-shouldered human male with long curly black hair and a green blade stopped well short of the entryway. He seemed to be speaking to someone on a comm unit, but if the bounty hunter's suspicions were correct, nothing the man might say was going to matter.
The minimal audio pickup's signal to his datapad was just sensitive enough to convey the staccato sound of several explosions. In rapid succession, each of his video feeds flashed white, then dropped into blackness, as a "Signal Lost" message flickered in each box where a picture had been.
He frowned at the final images transmitted to the datapad. Bane's red eyes narrowing speculatively, as the signal from his employer's spy-droids cut out. Immediately after the shimmering, inexplicable appearance of the two Jedi he'd just seen enter the relay-station, now over twenty meters from the portal. The bounty hunter saw a plume of orange flame erupt from the station's open doorway, then the multi-story station began to list to one side, as a whirlwind of smoke and debris engulfed the area occupied by Jedi and downed terrorists alike. The shockwave of the explosion funneled through the door to overtake them. Sending bodies flying like ragdolls, as Khorda's statue was torn from the stick-thin arms of the Quermian. The blackness of his screen, and it's final blinking white "Signal Lost" message making their ultimate fate a mystery.
"Jedi and their tricks" Bane echoed in an unsurprised tone. He gave a slight shrug of his narrow shoulders, then dismissed the disposition of the three do-gooders as inconsequential. Triggering the worm already installed on the now useless datapad, he carefully wiped it clean, then passed it forward to HELIOS-3E.
"Make yourself useful, and crush that into splinters no bigger than one of your chips" he ordered the droid. Once the bubble canopy began to retract, he turned to the small droid beside him. "No mistakes today, Todo, or it's the scrap-market for you."
Launching himself over the still racing aircar's left side, he felt the thrust of his jet-boots kick in before he'd dropped three meters. Ignoring the droid's whining complaints, he surged forward with all the acceleration the jets could provide. Already, he could see huge commercial and government vid screens going dead in the distance, while more important machinery merely went dark for a few moments, then came back on as auxiliary power feeds became active. Explosions continued to echo distantly, and not so distantly as he neared the portion of the Temple's upper level eave the schematics indicated was in a blind spot. Telling the experienced operator that more than one plan was in motion this afternoon.
"Hurry up and get us inside, Todo" he snapped from his crouched position. Keeping one eye on the droid as it worked, and the other on the beginning of the CSF response to the blasts, Bane was nervous. He'd die before admitting as much, but the thought this operation might be merely another distraction with which to divert the attention of the Jedi had recurred often enough to make him uneasy.
"I've got it, sir" Todo piped up. A shimmering ovoid gap appearing in the greenish security field. The bounty hunter kept his movements fluid and sure as he darted through the temporary aperture, but there was no time wasted as he moved.
"I'm in, Cato. Send me the nav-info for the ducts I need." His tone was cool and self-assured as he acknowledged receipt of the ensuing transmission a moment later, then plunged into the Temple's innards.
The Holocron wasn't going to steal itself, after all.
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Jedi Temple Hangar (Same Time)
While I ran through pre-flight checks that Seraph's primarily organic nature made little more than a formality, I was still thinking about my conversation with Plo Koon. Initially, I'd been more than a little surprised to discover he was completely supportive of my decision to take Ahsoka as my Padawan, but as the conversation wore on, I began to have the distinct feeling there was more to the Jedi Master's unqualified acceptance in this matter than any judgment on his part as to my worthiness as a prospective mentor and teacher.
It smelled of a "quiet word" from our illustrious Grandmaster, and I didn't know how I felt about that. On the one hand, it wasn't like Yoda hadn't steered Ahsoka into my tragic alternate's life as well, and it was nice surprise to discover I hadn't antagonized the Jedi Master by taking on his protege. On the other hand, I was beginning to feel like Yoda always had one eye on me. Always. Intellectually, I knew that Yoda kept an eye on every Jedi who might do something to upend the proverbial apple-cart at some point, but in my case, I was beginning to wonder just how much of what he learned from the Crystal pertained to me. I could have chased that line of thinking around and around until my head spun, but fortunately, I had other people present to keep my attention grounded in the present.
"You have the look of a man trying to feel his way through a maze" Padme observed from the co-pilot's seat to my right. Ahsoka was seated almost directly behind me in one of the two seats at the rear of the compartment, but I didn't need to see her to sense the sharpening of her interest as she heard the Senator's remark. Conscious that I was in the presence of two women known for their perceptiveness, I chose my words with care, but replied honestly nevertheless.
"Dark Woman sensed something dangerous approaching before we made our escape from Cato Neimoidia. I think that Master Koth and Master Poof, maybe the entire High Council, sensed it as well, because it's extremely unusual for multiple Councilors to take on field assignments simultaneously. The Yinchorri Uprising that began in 2:3 was the last time it happened, if that gives you an idea of what I mean." My answer covered the essential facts, but Padme's response made it clear she already had a much clearer picture of me than I would have expected at this point.
"You aren't accustomed to your Master facing danger without your being there with her, in the thick of things. Intellectually, you know she was off saving the galaxy decades before you were even born, so you know she's quite capable of facing down mortal peril without you, but it doesn't feel that way, does it, Anakin?" Her almost painfully accurate assessment, plus the resulting question held an initially dreamy quality, but the final two words and my name were said with the sort of stark sharpness of someone suddenly awakened from a deep sleep unexpectedly. The shift in tone caused me to look sharply to my right, as I felt the rise of a diffuse sort of uneasiness in the Togruta listening quietly to our exchange. My new apprentice had been quite subdued since seeing IG-1 prowl aboard in near silence with a predatory grace and economy of motion the people of this era simply weren't accustomed to seeing in droids of his size, but she'd detected the eerie note in Padme's voice as easily as I had. Lacking the appropriate priors, there was no way for her to guess the source of the beautiful politician's insight, but she trusted her intuition enough to know that something distinctly odd had just occurred.
Knowing I could likely spoof said teen's intuition with distractingly interesting information, I replied "You're right, of course, Padme, but Dark Woman left me a message concerning this turn of events. The delivery of which she explicitly delayed, and in said message, she ordered me not to follow her. My Master told me I should continue protecting you, and to get us all off-world as soon as possible. She even predicted Ahsoka agreeing to become my Padawan learner, despite my never having mentioned Ahsoka to her, as well as my last-minute decision to bring her along on this trip. I'm just trying to determine whether there's more to the situation than even my Master knows. I've had a bad feeling ever since my debriefing by the Council, and there have been entirely too many Shatterpoints in evidence the last twenty-four hours. Events of significance are in motion, with the outcomes very much in doubt."
That got the attention of both women, but I fell silent as I received clearance to depart from the hangar master and powered up the thrusters in preparation for our departure from it's confines. Seraph's forward motion was smooth as glass, but we hadn't moved halfway across the hangar when a number of security warnings flashed across the simple holo-comm unit inset to the right of the piloting controls. None of them were addressed to us specifically, but they included a CSF request for assistance from the Temple, as well as a system security alert on the Jedi starfighter corps channel. Bringing that one up with a finger-tap, I scrolled to discover an outlying squadron of Judicial Forces picket-vessels was ordering a pair of refurbished Thranta-class Corvettes to heave to after both ships had ignored several challenges. JF vessels too numerous to mention were converging to corral the pair of ships that exactly matched the profile and methodology of the R.A.F, but no one seemed in a hurry to open fire on the suspected terrorists.
I could appreciate restraint, but we were talking about suspected terrorists here. Many of the pre-Crisis JF cutters were equipped with ion cannons for precisely this kind of work, so why was no one up there reducing the intruders to shorted out hulks, and what in the name of the Ashla did they think the Order's Aces were going to do about it?
"Master, I think you should take a closer look at the CSF's request for assistance. It says here that there have been numerous explosions in or near important infrastructure, and reports indicating groups of guardian-droids with non-regulation weaponry are roaming about and entering restricted areas. The droids are refusing to respond to orders, and.." Ahsoka pointed out from her seat at the communications console. I heard the sharp intake of breath that brought her commentary to an end, and knew it for the bad sign it was.
"What are those droids doing now, Ahsoka?" I inquired in a calm and level tone meant to convey confidence, but privately, I recognized all these seemingly disparate troubles couldn't be happening simultaneously by mere happenstance.
It was all rather maddening, because under other circumstances, I would turn the ship I was even now piloting toward orbit around, and see what help I could provide down there. Dark Woman's words came back to me, and for the first time, I wondered if her insistence I take us all off-world was less about our avoiding danger, and more about being where we were really needed. My conclusion might have seemed a stretch to some, but those people didn't know my mentor. She'd never coddled me, or protected me from anything she felt I could cope with, and that had been when I was an apprentice. Why should she start now?
"Two groups of guardian-droids actually attacked CSF officers who tried to stop them. When an officer rolled a droid-popper in among them, instead of being forcibly deactivated, their outer shells exploded off of them. They aren't guardian-droids at all, apparently, but the police say they're as fast as they are deadly. A number of officers have been killed, and many more have been injured in a number of sectors planet-wide. JF troopers have been called out to assist in putting the droids down, but judging by the number of emergency incident reports, things are getting worse, not better. How did so many hostile combat-droids get smuggled onto Coruscant, Master?" The young Togruta's tone made it clear she was desperately hoping I had some answers.
"They're likely C.I.S Commando Droids, Ahsoka. If I had to guess, I'd say our ex-Chancellor arranged for units of them to be secreted in out of the way locations as part of one of his many, many contingency plans while he was still in power. Those guardian-droid carapaces would have to be heavily lined with Cortosis to shield the droids against ion discharges, and that's prohibitively expensive." I explained. Pausing, as a terrible suspicion occurred to me.
"What important infrastructure has been bombed, exactly, apprentice, and what restricted areas are the droids trying to gain access to by passing themselves off as police?" I wished I could be reading all of this for myself as it came in, but I was busy transmitting IFF transponder-codes to the orbital security platforms as we ascended. Not to mention keeping up with the situation in space. In response to the attempt to prevent their approaching the planet, it seemed the two unidentified Corvettes had suddenly redlined their engines and turned toward the largest concentration of approaching JF ships. Alarming readings coming from both ships, combined with this seemingly suicidal behavior had finally convinced the Judicial Forces it was time to light up the intruders, but that was a call made too late. Before more than a handful of turbolaser shots aimed at the engines of the R.A.F ships could by fired by pursuing vessels, two incandescent flashes lit up the blackness. Even millions of kilometers away, the furious flare-ups caused by two warships deliberately losing hypermatter containment in the most destructive manner possible were easily visible.
Next came the intense wash of garbage-emissions radiating outward for tens, if not hundreds of millions kilometers from what were now only two rapidly expanding clouds of ionized gases. Even at this distance, there were momentary hiccups in Seraph's communications array, and the incoming navigational data provided by her mainly organic sensor suite. I felt Seraph's discomfort, and did my best to project soothing thoughts of comfort and reassurance that her blindness would shortly pass. The interference wouldn't last long, but for the ships far closer to the corvettes when they'd lost containment, the effect would be much worse. Nothing that could actually harm a shielded vessel's systems, of course, but many of the vessels which had joined the attempted interdiction effort would be blinded and unable to raise anyone for maybe twenty or thirty seconds. I remembered, belatedly, that this was part of the reason that outsized hypermatter-reactors like the ones used in the ancient Thrantas were a heavily regulated field of modern starship design.
Before Ahsoka could answer my questions, or Padme make any of a half-dozen urgent inquiries, I felt a moment of awful pain, and knew like I knew my own name that something very bad had just happened to Dark Woman. Unused to such clear, totally cut-and-dried insights from the Force, I literally choked on the sensation. Fighting to draw a clear breath of air through a throat tight with shock, concern, and yes, fear.
"Will you never learn to remain grounded in the present moment?" The question was nothing but a memory of something my Master had chidingly asked me so often before, but it helped me wrench my thoughts back to the present situation, rather than remaining fixated on something I could at the moment do nothing about.
It did nothing to change my intense desire to whip Seraph around and plunge planetward, of course. I was certain that, if I so chose, I could follow the echo of that pain like a bloodhound on a scent right to my Master. At that moment, that was something I wanted to do more than I'd wanted almost anything since ending up in this mad universe. I owed everything about myself I took pride in to my Master. She might have been hard on me to the point of brutality, but I'd never doubted all of that had come from a place that was more than just her doing her duty by the apprentice she'd accepted. Dark Woman knew all too well the dangers of our vocation, so she'd shown me how much she cared by demonstrating how completely intolerant of failure and weakness the galaxy was for those who dared to presume they could dispense justice and protect the weak where those were the last things the powerful wanted to occur. It felt like a betrayal, not being there the one time she could use my help.
Help I could maybe, probably provide. I knew she'd be angry and disappointed I'd disobeyed her instructions, but that wasn't what kept me from turning the ship around.
Attachment. I didn't believe in the Order's dogma with regards to prohibiting the formation of personal attachments in a Jedi's life, but there was one thing the Order, history, and Dark Woman weren't wrong about. It was the very basis for the proscription I rejected. Jedi who allowed the emotions engendered by their attachments to rule their thinking invariably, inevitably ended up doing terrible things. That was why the Order considered it simpler and more efficient to simply ban the emotional connections that could tempt a Jedi to behave in such a way. The members of the High Council chose to believe that too many Jedi would lack the strength of character to do their duty, when doing it conflicted with the dictates of their hearts.
If I ignored the fact that my Master had foreseen a deadly peril I lacked the detailed information she possessed to measure for myself, and defied the instructions she'd given me predicated on that knowledge, I would be allowing my feelings to trample the reason that told me I had every solid, rational reason to trust those instructions. I'd be proving the Grandmaster and all those who thought as he did right.
In a tight, clipped voice, I pressed my apprentice "Ahsoka? Infrastructure and locations?" Putting the dull echo of continuing pain I was still keenly aware of aside, and doing what I'd been trained to do, rather than what I wanted.
"The explosions have all been in power relay stations, major conduit junctions, and secondary fusion or hypermatter reactor facilities planetwide, Master. Droid attacks are being reported by the JF trooper contingents stationed at primary power-generation facilities, but the troopers and ad hoc contingents of CSF reinforcements seem to be slowly gaining the upper hand at most of the facilities. There's, uhh, the Senate Guards stationed at 500 Republica have put out a general request for assistance, because the droids there have deployed some sort of chemical weapon. It's a greenish-white gas, believed to be Dioxis. The armor of most of the Guardsmen isn't sealed, so they've been forced back into the building, and now they're fighting in the halls. JF troopers in sealed armor are en route, but there are hundreds of Senators already on site because of the upcoming Session, and an unknown number of representatives, aids, liaisons etc. The Temple's responding as well, but civilians panicked by the spreading gas and all the shooting are complicating the situation." The young Togruta sounded queasy as she continued to provide updates, but her voice was admirably controlled as she rattled off information on the developing situation as it came in.
"Anakin, attacking the Republic's leadership and planetary power distribution. Those don't sound like ends in and of themselves, but a prelude to something...bigger" Padme finally spoke up. Her tone was serious, but she had that all-business demeanor that had always served her so well when blaster-bolts were whizzing by all around.
My terrible suspicion from the moments before I'd felt my Master's pain was back in force, as I grimly replied "It sounds like the prep-work for an attack, and I have a horrible feeling I know how that could be accomplished."
I opened my mouth to order my Padawan to patch me through to Admiral Dron aboard the Light of Coruscant, flagship of the JF's Sector Fleet, but clamped it shut as I saw several dozen blinking red dots appear on the nav-display. Each one representing a C.I.S warship, and at the center of the diamond-shaped formation was a ship whose vanguard was already peeling away smoothly in retiring wings to give what would quickly become an unimpeded field of fire.
The Malevolence had come calling, and it was leading an entire task-group.
A/N: Constructive criticism welcome, as always. Sorry about the length of time between chapters. Just got a new computer, had some kinks to work out.