The Force Wills - Chapter 175 (Patreon)

It was with great reluctance that I emerged from the depths of subconsciousness and the healing trance.

My eyes twitched, but I stubbornly kept them closed, the feeling of being submerged in viscous, bubbling bacta intruded on every part of me. The rhythmic din of circulation pumps intruded acutely into my montrals and I keenly felt the presence of the adult diaper, not to mention the other plumbing connections.

‘Ugh, for frak’s sake.’

I turned my attention to my right leg’s condition, going so far as to look down to the cellular level.

The white plasteel splint over my upper right thigh, hid the mess from general view. It was also occasionally injecting a local pain reliever, but just enough of an ache was getting through. Probably the medtech’s reasonable idea to constantly remind me to avoid any movement or muscle flexing in that thigh. They say doctors or healers make the worst patients, but fortunately I knew enough of what was happening through the Force, to make sure that I kept myself nice and still.

For a moment, I just relaxed, not bothering to look beyond the bacta tube, staving off the rest of the universe for that extra few seconds.

It was only when I could no longer justify it to myself and my mind utterly refused to be lulled back into a nice nap, that I allowed my senses to go beyond.

Yes, I was in the Gomar Chope hospital, inside one of the recovery suites for the very highest levels of elite, with its own dedicated bacta tank, bio bed and smart walls that was currently showing scenes that definitely came from Shili. Images that spoke the deepest part of me, my early childhood in this life and the many headaches I had given my poor parents.

For the briefest moment, I wondered if they actually knew what their daughter had accomplished in the last three years. The old home village of my youth wasn’t truly connected to the galaxy in a way that allowed for the smooth flow of news. We’d had datapads, portable library terminals, but nothing that would connect to the Holonet. If things continued as they had when I left, that wouldn’t have changed. Meaning that news would only flow into the village at the speed of domesticated kybuck during the biannual resupply run.

‘Yeah, it's safe to say that my parents know at least something by this point.’

What would the village’s reaction be? The Jedi Order was honored in general on Shili, especially among the traditionalists. My parents would definitely have gone up the totem pole of the village by a fair amount by originally giving me to the Order, but now…

I honestly couldn’t say, given how out of touch I was with traditional Shili affairs for more than 14 years at this point.

I shook off that line of tangent thought and spotted four 96th Legion ARC troopers and four fully armed Mando Blades standing on guard in the four corners. All the mandos were also of my own clan.

M8 was standing behind me in armed vigil, whilst Padme was asleep on the biobed.

Well, it was nice to know my security was kept up to high standards whilst I’d been stuck in the tube.

It was when I pushed beyond my room that I saw those standards had ventured into the realm of overkill ridiculousness. An entire ARC company, fortified Repeater positions, localized scanning strong enough to stop any changeling or holo-infiltration shenanigans. The hospital staff worked around the restrictions as best they could, but I could also sense that doctors and medtechs were halfway through the process of getting patients transferred to other floors where they wouldn’t be required to submit to security verification for just walking down a hall. Beyond the hospital there was even a combat air patrol of three gunships ready to intercept any localized aerial threat from attacking the hospital.

Well, Taria is not taking any chances it seems, which is actually a good thing now that I think about it.

Dooku’s death would be kept top secret locally, but the news would spread beyond, through Savage and Palpatine. Setting off the CIS succession procedures. That would in turn make its way back publicly to any CIS sympathisers and reps, some of whom would be muun.

Those clever bastards would put two and two together easily with enough time. It would just depend if they knew that Dooku had been aboard the enemy fleet - which was an easy enough assumption given that the Harbinger had been in orbit. Either way, I mentally amended my overkill assessment and made a note to add a jetpack squad and a half-squadron of ready Z-95s landed on the nearby buildings.

Aureus City was much calmer now.

The airspace was seemingly clear, except for the occasional LAAT gunship on patrol, though there was active fighting in half a dozen points scattered around the city’s outer districts. RP and BX droids had fortified themselves and dug in like ticks. Clones and Mandalorian Blades were working together to solve that problem.

Turning to Caimih station, I was gratified to see it retaken completely and a full regiment of mixed 96th and 501st troopers were holding the tunnel line there, though there was no fighting in it.

No, the main fighting on the planet was happening in Caimih City itself where the 501st and SVD were fighting in a nasty urban campaign.

Anakin was in the thick of that fighting, personally leading 501st recon companies, using blade and the Force to cut through the enemy. He was keeping the SVD in his rear elements to secure and hold flanks, which I was rather thankful for. Casualties were something that had to be kept to a minimum for them.

I scrutinized the 96th’s control room in Aureus to get a comprehensive idea of what the situation was in space.

42nd Fleet was up there, the Resolute and the Conqueror, including the debris and wreckage of a stupendous amount of droid fighters. The Venators of the squadron had visible damage from torpedo hit shield bleedthrough, but nothing serious.

‘Gratified to feel you’re awake, my student.’

Taria was also here and leaned over the holotank, coordinating the fighting. It was interesting to see the blue Senate commando armor, mixed with Jedi robes. It looked rather dashing on her.

‘Good morning, my teacher. I see things are well in hand.’

‘They are. The CIS droids have been ordered to make things very difficult. Securing this planet completely is going to be a protracted affair.’

‘It will. Dooku’s body?’

‘Secure, downstairs in an evacuated consumables storage. I’ve already gone through full forensic procedures and scans. Forwarded the life coding to Master Ha on an unmanned courier shuttle to Concordia. Further data has also been sent there. Everything’s been arranged.’

It would’ve been nice to just send it back to Coruscant and the Jedi Temple. Even though Dooku had fallen to the Dark Side, he would receive a traditional burning. A practice that persisted through thousands of years, since the old Sith had a nasty habit of using them in dark side rituals.

What would be going back to Coruscant would not be the true body though.

Sidious was already preparing his own little switcheroo. He had enough of Dooku’s genetic material to flash grow a Spaarti clone in the time it would take for the body to come back to Coruscant. He would arrange for another Venator to meet the 42nd and have the body transferred to it, where inquisitors were infiltrated and ready to perform their little sleight of hand.

Only, my own switcheroo would’ve already happened by then, with my own Spaarti clone cylinders, obtained clandestinely by HK-47. Both the assassin droid and Master Ha would work together to make my dead Dooku clone perfectly presentable.

In the end, both the Jedi Order and Banite Sith, would end up with spaarti clone fakes.

Oh, how I wish I could be there when ol’Palpy tries his first Sith ritual with it.

By that point, a true Jedi burning funeral would’ve already happened in secret on Concordia and there would be no Dark Side shenanigans with a resurrected Dooku zombie.

Sidious would get no first hand accounts of my fight with Dooku, nor the Count’s true secrets, which Savage would carefully curate.

I almost wish I was seated behind a desk, just so I could tent my fingers and chuckle with mock evil delight.

‘Careful Ahsoka. Yes, it does feel nice when a cunning plan comes together, especially against a foe like this. Don’t celebrate too soon.’

I sighed inwardly, ‘Yes, my teacher. I will endeavour to temper my gleeful satisfaction.’

‘Good. Oh, as an aside, a vote was held by the Jedi Council. They’ve awarded you a knighthood.’

Despite the probability lines leaning in that direction for the last few weeks, it still shook me when Taria’s thoughts reached me.

Me?! A Jedi Knight?

A huge part of me wanted to punch the inside of my bacta tank in vindicated satisfaction. A dream of more than a decade, realized. Of going further than the Ahsoka of another life, achieving more than just dropping my Padawan silka beads at the foot of the Jedi Temple into a devastated Anakin Skywalker’s hand, then sulking off into the Coruscant underworld. I could understand where those actions had come from - the deep seated feelings of betrayal from the Order and that Anakin, but it still boiled down to the simple fact that she had given up.

The more logical side of me, came down hard.

A knighthood for defeating Dooku, for passing the Trial of Flesh during my fight with him.

Dooku was not my true enemy. In the grand scheme of things, he was just another hurdle, one of the last before Palpatine himself.

The fight in the shadows was only now truly beginning, with my own pieces on the galactic board now directly in contact with him, and I was one of those pieces.

A knighthood would mean potential reassignment. I’d definitely have to transfer to Conqueror properly and there was no guarantee where that ship would be assigned. Especially if my promotion to Jedi General came soon after, which Palpatine would eagerly sign off on. Then I’d be sent into the fluid fighting in the north-east, conditions exactly where the Conqueror would thrive… away from Anakin.

Away from the lynchpin shatterpoint that he represented as the Chosen One.

It would isolate both of us, just as surely as what had happened in the original timeline.

He was 22 years old now. The war had given us both a ton more mileage, the frozen time in Mortis, the training with Bendu, my influence and the truth of Palpatine; it had all contributed to him becoming much more stable, finding a degree of balance. He had worked through a lot of psychological issues, including a more fulfilling relationship with his wife. I would give this version of Anakin Skywalker much higher odds of dealing with any bullshit that came from Palpatine. Yet I didn’t come this far, only to underestimate my enemy now as the critical time was approaching.

No one was without weaknesses, and Palpatine was more than clever enough to find the ones that still remained or even create new ones. It was right there in the Sith name he was given.

I noticed Taria had a small knowing smile on her face.

‘It’s certainly an honor, my teacher. Of course I’m grateful that the Council has done this, yet…’

‘Yet your instincts and perhaps even the Force itself is telling you it’s not the time.’

‘Yes.’

‘Our relationship hasn’t been that long, but I know you well enough by now that I guessed something like this would be your answer. You feel the defeat of Dooku was not the true trial and because of that you wouldn’t feel worthy accepting a knighthood.’

‘No I do not. If we went through the traditional ceremony, I wouldn’t even make it through the day of mediation in the Tranquility Spire. The whole thing would be a farce, because we both know who is my enemy and how his works have corrupted Coruscant and the galaxy as a whole.’

‘I understand, Ahsoka. The problem is that you will have to give some acceptable reason for rejecting the knighthood. One that is palatable for the Order in general and Palpatine.’

‘Yes, well, I could simply lean into an anti-Separatist stance. Something like, until I undo the evils that Dooku has wrought in the galaxy, I wouldn’t feel worthy. I’ve defeated the man, but not the message.’

‘Could work, my student. Do give it more thought. For something this unprecedented, you’d need to stand in the middle of the Council and justify it to them.’

I laughed inwardly, ‘And for my next trick, I’ll snap my fingers and end the clone wars.’

‘You’re training to be a Jedi Shadow, Ahsoka. Consider it your next test.’

‘Deceiving the Council is in our mandate?’

‘In this circumstance, with the Jedi Temple so compromised by Palpatine’s spies and Coruscant enveloped in the Shroud, most definitely.’

I felt a shifting pulse through the Force very close to me, indicating Padme had just woken up and instinctively reached out around her. ‘I’ll let you get back to the fight, teacher.’

‘You rest now and no Battle Meditation yet. I know it’ll be frightfully boring for you, but give it at least another day of recovery.’

‘Very well, teacher.’

Padme sat up from the biobed and I quite enjoyed the sight of her stretching her arms upward, instinctively yawning, blearily blinking at her surroundings. Not to mention her elaborate hairdo looking comically askew. I let her sense my amusement and she frowned for a moment in confusion before her eyes widened with realization.

“Ahsoka?!”

The entire room reacted instinctively to her mild cry of alarm. Troopers and mandos twitching, active scans washed all over the place and found nothing. The Blades were experienced enough to not merely take that at face value though, bringing rifles and pistols to hand.

“No! Sorry, sorry!” Padme winced, waving them all down. “It’s just… she’s awake.”

Busted.

I actually opened my eyes and used my left leg to purposefully bounce within the tank, pointedly meeting the gazes of the troopers and mandos.

My voice boomed in their minds. ‘She’s correct. Stand down. There is no immediate danger.’ 

They stiffened and immediately saluted.

“Manda’lor, Captain Wren-”

‘Yes, you may alert her that I’ve woken up, Captain Vas.’

With that potential false alarm averted, I turned my attention to a disgruntled Padme who was approaching my bacta tank, trying to wrestle her headdress into something presentable. She scoffed at herself, eventually giving up and ripping the thing out, letting her hair fall naturally to her shoulders.

“It’s not funny,” she grumbled when she saw and felt my emotions.

‘Oh, it is. Should I share the memory with you?’

“I can laugh at myself, Ahsoka, but not now.”

Grief, worry and the specter of despair hung over her shoulders like an awful, ugly cloak. It didn’t take a genius to deduce why.

‘It’s Typho?’

Padme closed her eyes, struggling against her emotions and could only nod, staying silent for a long few moments, “He’s in a coma, they’ve done everything they can. He’s barely holding on.”

‘Dooku hit him with a terrible attack through the Force, Padme. Force Lightning is not just a collection of directed electrons taken from the universe to injure. The Sith have long since refined it into something more terrible. It is merely a vehicle to directly attack your essence and your resilience to it is something that only comes with your own strength in the Force.’

She sniffed and wiped away a tear. “And since Typho isn’t Sensitive-” 

‘It’s a miracle he isn’t dead, Padme. His survival shows you how strong of spirit he is. Anyone else would be gone.’

“Are you saying it would’ve been better if I’d been hit instead? That I could’ve taken it?”

‘Yes, perhaps, but that is just my opinion. I know Dooku’s strength and trust me, no one wants to get hit with that, Padme.’

She nodded and her brown eyes met mine through transparisteel and bacta, a strong, stubborn determination in them. “Thank you for saving me from my own stupidity, Ahsoka. I let myself become a liability. If I had just left when you gave me the chance, Typho wouldn’t be fighting for his life and you wouldn’t be in that tank.”

I smiled and shook my head, ‘Silly Padme. Wrong. Utterly wrong, you are.’

She twitched her head in surprise, “Wrong? And don’t call me silly!”

‘If you had been on board Conqueror, you would’ve been safe, yes. Dooku would just grab any other senator of the many in that bunker. By my oath as a Jedi, I would be compelled to rescue them just as much. Typho would not have been there and whichever senator had taken your place would be dead to that Force lightning. However, you would not have seen and experienced what kind of world you are stepping into Padme. With your burgeoning connection in the Force, you cannot afford to remain ignorant of what it means. I can sense the brushes with the Dark Side you experienced. This is something that needed to happen, not just for your own sake, but for us all.

‘Currently, you’ve been astride the line. One foot kept in the past, the past of ignorance, of the non-Force Sensitive and the other foot only dipping into the Force, like a nervous child testing the waters. That must end. Jump Padme or it could very well be the end, not just for you.’

‘Oh Shiraya, you’ve seen something…’

‘I see many things, Padme. I can’t speak of this to you. When you accepted the Matukai training, you made a commitment to see it through, to the Force and to the master who trained you. Don’t make me have to explain to him-’

“I get it. I’m… I’m sorry, Ahsoka. It’s just… so hard and frightening. I didn’t grow up with it as you did.”

‘I understand, Padme. I will say it again… Let go of your conscious self, let go of fear, let go of fright. Only then will you understand.’

She nodded, her gaze turning inward, and right there, she began wrestling with herself, her emotions, standing on the precipice with the vast, infinite cosmic Force before her.

It wasn’t long until she came back, not feeling ‘better’, but at least with a certainty and resolve in spirit that hadn’t been there before. This wasn’t something that could be rushed and she would need long stints in proper meditation over the coming weeks to properly internalize everything.

‘I also owe you my own apology. I could’ve probably intercepted Dooku’s lightning with one of my lightsabers. The only problem is that it’s highly likely he would’ve wrested it away from me and destroy it. I would’ve been down to two lightsabers and reduced to a conventional double blade style that Dooku was all too familiar with in countering.’

Padme shook her head, “Typho would be the first one to tell you that he wouldn’t want you to make that decision. Not if it would be at the cost of overall victory.”

‘He’s a soldier and my mind tells me one thing, but the stupid heart doesn’t always listen to the mind, now does it?’

She chuckled tearily, knowing full well how relevant that was to her own past. “Dooku is defeated, but I’m not sure if we’ve made things worse somehow. Voe Atell is now Prime Minister and she wants the war to continue and become ‘total’. No more holding back. Every foul weapon they’ve developed or been keeping in reserve will be used now.”

‘Has any official intel been compiled on her yet?’

“I’ve been asking and they only tell me they’re still working on it. It’s too soon. All we have is barely enough to fill a page. She was never a Republic Senator.” Her eyes scanned around the room. ‘What can you divine from the Force?’

This general probability line was a very broad one that I had been working on for years at this point.

‘We and the rest of the galaxy will find out soon enough what she’s like with power in her hands. She comes from the industrial moon of Zardossa Stix, as does her species, as far as galactic history is concerned. Another former Rakata slave race. Her culture was shaped in the recent millennium by the harsh conditions of their moon being turned into a giant factory by Czerka Arms. That ended two centuries ago when the zardossans overthrew the megacorp’s control. Ever since, they took the tools of their corporate enemies and became corporate militarists themselves. The moon was officially folded into the Techno Union and they make weapons now for the CIS war machine. They’re fiercely independent against any Core control. Her motivation for joining is not profit, it’s ideological.

‘She views the Republic as an oppressive, decadent empire that strangles the freedom and potential of the Outer Rim. When Republic Intel reviews all her speeches in parliament, they’ll quickly see that whilst she was a consistent supporter of Dooku, she frequently criticized him for being too diplomatic and restrained.’

Padme looked somewhat gobsmacked at the notion. “Dooku, restrained?”

‘Of course. Palpatine doesn’t want to rule a heap of ashes, Padme. Let me see, the hardliner bloc unified behind her, right?’

“Yes.”

‘They need to replace Dooku’s charismatic sinew with something. Otherwise the CIS threatens to fall apart. They see her as the strongest figure to unite behind, who will use the zeal for the war’s ultimate goal to keep them together. She’s blunt and uncompromising, she will inspire loyalty through strength, clarity and a clear vision for total victory.’

“When you say total victory, do you mean-”

‘Complete Republic defeat and collapse. Coruscant bombarded to bedrock. The core worlds and mid-rim, fractured into sector wide powers that will be too busy squabbling amongst each other to bother the Outer Rim again. The CIS as the only significant big power bloc in the galaxy.’

Padme was utterly horrified that anyone could want that, even if it would cost uncountable rivers of blood. “How can… No. Why would…” She stopped herself firmly from asking the obvious. Why would I have steered events in this direction?

‘So you think I shouldn’t have killed Dooku?’

“No. I know there was no… no way to take him alive. Not with his strength, nor would we have been able to keep him in confinement. He would’ve been rescued before he could even make it halfway to Coruscant. He was definitely trying to kill you and…”

She stopped herself, taking a deep breath.

‘Padme, I’m the closest thing you have to a teacher in the Force. You also promised to listen to me and trust me regarding what I instructed you to do, even if it seems odd, strange or even nonsensical.”

She nodded.

‘Clear your schedule for the next few days. Anything you planned, cancel it. Turn off your interstellar comlink. Find a space that resonates with you, where you won’t be disturbed and meditate, at least eight hours on a stretch. Break for a light meal. Meditate again. Understand?’

“I don’t know how I could do that, knowing Typho and you… and…” She thankfully stopped herself from saying Anakin.

‘It’s precisely because of the way you feel right now that you need to do this.’

With clear reluctance on her features, she agreed, “You said this path wouldn’t be easy. I don’t think, right until this moment, that I truly understood it.”

I gave her a nod, ‘Go, Padme.’

She bit her lip and whirled around, nearly bursting into a run.

As she disappeared through the door, I relaxed somewhat, ‘Disaster averted.’

M8 walked into my field of view and I was treated to the sight of my intimidating Mandalorian Jedi armor, acting like a discount squealing anime waifu. She couldn’t talk to me, but made up for it by using the holo system to display her speech.

‘Mistress! I’m so glad you’re awake!’

I fell back to sign language, ‘Yes, thank you M8, for looking after me. You did great.’

‘You’re welcome, Mistress. I’m glad we could get rid of that nasty old meatbag!’

I gave my droid intelligence a flat stare. ‘Meatbag?’

‘Eeeek, I did it again! That droid must have infected me! I did run a level 5 diagnostic and nothing! Eeeek.’

‘Relax M8.’

‘I know, a Level 6 should do it…’

‘M8!’

888888888888888888888888888888888

Over the next day, I received a steady progression of cleared visitors. Captain Ursa Wren, who politely admonished me in her own way for not figuring out some way to bring her along. As she was nominally the leader of the Blade squad that was assigned to me.

Chewie came next and we did a wookiee victory celebration ritual that was usually done after a successful hunting expedition into the Shadowlands. It involved a lot of drinking, singing, telling hunting stories and should’ve been done by a roaring bonfire, so for the most part, he did all the celebrating for me. Then promptly assigned himself to my protection retinue. I didn’t really have the heart to tell him otherwise.

It was only on my last scheduled day in the bacta tank and when the last droid holdouts were destroyed, that Aureus City declared victory.

The medtechs changed the smart walls of my hospital room into a live view of the city as fireworks went off in its darkened, star streaked sky. Launched by dedicated platforms and LAAT gunships. Officials of the city, the elite and the talking heads all had their little moments in a celebration broadcasted on a local news channel and they made a big production of reconnecting the Main Vault to the galactic economy.

The doors to my room opened and Anakin strode in, wearing full armor minus the helmet, looking like he had just come from the front lines. Outwardly, he looked confidently indomitable, which made the troopers feel like they could march into hell with him and walk back out. The problem was, behind the outer mask, that was far from the actual truth.

I gave a hand sign to M8.

“The mistress thanks everyone for their vigilance, but wants some privacy,” she announced primly.

The clones and mandos on duty saluted immediately and filed out, leaving only a very sleepy mound of fur in the corner, where Chewie was still recovering drinking for the both of us after the renewed celebrations.

Anakin gave me some intense scrutiny, not just with his eyes but also through the Force, making sure I was healing properly.

It was mildly difficult not to squirm under the attention, but I returned it in full, checking his own health for injuries. Nothing but strained muscles, already in the process of passively healing.

Satisfied he met my eyes, “Snips.”

‘Skyguy.’

“You got stabbed.”

‘It was the only way.’

“If you had been better it wouldn’t have been necessary.”

‘We both know, we’re a few decades away from being anywhere close to Dooku’s equal with a blade.’

His outer mask cracked slightly and his shoulders slumped, “Kriffing hell, Snips. It shouldn’t have been you. I’m your master, I should be protecting you-”

‘You were protecting me, Skyguy. You were with me in every swing of my blades. Your training.’

He closed his eyes and laughed hollowly, pushing a gloved hand against my tank. “Obi-Wan warned me that a day like this would come. I just didn’t think it’d come so soon.”

Oh dear, he was thinking about my knighthood. Figures Taria wouldn’t break the news to him, she had left it to me.

‘Skyguy. I’m not accepting it.’

I didn’t think it was possible for his eyes to bug out like that, any further and it threatened to pop out entirely. “Snips… WHAT?! You… you’re not accepting the promotion?! That’s impossible! Is it even an option?”

‘It is. The Jedi Order is not a military, despite a few trappings of it that we’ve had to adopt over the years. Yes, it’s unprecedented in our history. Generally, if a padawan has passed the Trials, every intention is there to progress to knighthood. However, my trials were not done in that fashion. Your own trials and knighthood weren't exactly traditional either, Skyguy.’ 

He stood there for a while, trying to process it. Anakin had already been granted the title of knight before he took part in a mass knighting ceremony held in the Jedi Temple in the earliest months of the Clone War.

“This is… Why? Why, Ahsoka?”

‘Can’t you guess? Neither of us can afford to be officially separated at this juncture. If I accept knighthood, the first thing the enemy will do is arrange for our paths to diverge as widely as possible. He wants us both isolated, knocking a key pillar out from underneath us. It’s the first step he envisions for our fall to the Dark Side.’

He folded his hands behind his back and bled the piling emotions through. “Is that all?”

‘Of course not. There are a ton of other reasons. You know what… here.’

Abruptly I pushed a compendium of key moments and memories, taken from probability lines that showed me accepting the knighthood and its consequences.

Anakin literally staggered back, clutching his head. “Sithspit! Kriff! Snips, please don’t do… that…” He trailed off and I felt him start to comprehend the problem.

He stared at me with sheer dread, “Padme?”

‘Yes. I knew there was a risk in her learning Matukai, awakening a connection to the Force in her. It was necessary for her to remain safe and strong enough to protect her mind from the enemy. Keep him unaware. Yet we cannot afford to be lax in the dangers associated with this. The Jedi take younglings precisely to avoid the difficulty of navigating them through the ‘rapids of life’ that would come with older trainees. You personally experienced this, Skyguy. Now imagine that instead of nine years old, you began your training at 26.’

He thought for a moment and shook his head, “I can’t picture it.”

‘Precisely. It’d greatly depend on your life circumstances. With the right person, the right life experience behind them, you could train a Force User to be the best there ever was.’ My mind was immediately drawn to Luke Skywalker and his own Jedi Praxeum, the New Jedi Order. There had definitely been huge missteps there, such as Kyp Durron, but on the whole, that Order proved itself in many respects as learning from the mistakes of the old and building something better. ‘The point is, that on multiple occasions during her kidnapping by Dooku. She experienced her first true brushes with the Dark Side. She managed to step back from it, but it left a mark on her that you will perceive instantly the moment you see her again.’

He looked like he was ready to burst into a run to do so, but restrained himself. “I can sense she’s meditating. Not exactly the best time to talk, if that’s what she’s dealing with.”

‘Indeed, Skyguy. I’ve taken responsibility for her training, another reason for refusing knighthood. As your padawan, you have the discretionary authority to still order me around, which can include security assignments to her.’

He was about to reply when we both felt it.

The Force practically screaming a warning into our heads.

I pushed into the immediate future…

… the entire hospital collapsing in on itself, a huge fireball climbing towards the ceiling of the arcology…

He saw it as well, and we both ended up in the odd experience of almost sharing the same vision.

‘Anakin, go! Ground floor!’

He burst into Force Speed, blurring towards the hospital room door, using the Force to push it open.

My hands struggled to sign fast through the bacta towards M8.

‘Broadcast immediate silent alert. Bomb threat in our location!’

“Immediately, mistress! Done!” She rushed over to Chewie and rather bravely kicked him in the leg to wake him.

I was too busy racing outward with my senses to pay further attention, trying to trace the origin point of the coming blast.

In the meantime, Anakin had decided to take the fast way down, using a narrow focus Force Push to blow out a transparisteel window on this floor and jump out, letting gravity do the job.

The ongoing fireworks and celebrations had most of the hospital staff and patients, looking outward or their eyes glued to holoscreens. All of them basking in the shared elation, a perfect distraction for an attack.

‘Skyguy, entrance lobby, explosion is going to come from there!’

‘Got it!’

He landed smoothly, using part of the energy to flow into a forward roll and blurred towards the front entrance.

I was pushing my perception as fast as possible, flickering between every mind in the lobby, looking for any high energy sources that could indicate the bomb’s position.

Nothing.

Refocusing outside in the expansive hospital arrival zone, where there was a fairly large crowd…

The first thing that caught my attention as odd, was a robed, hunchbacked human-like figure not looking at the firework display and threading his way through the crowd.

My first instinct was to call him a clone, but there was something very wrong here. There was mind and body, but the spirit was small, malformed and stretched. The expression of butter smeared over too much bread came to mind immediately. On this clone’s back was a jet pack and as the street lights played over his form… yes, a jet trooper, but there was no way that any jet pack had this amount of energy density.

‘Anakin! The jet trooper at 030!’

He immediately twisted in that direction, but found himself having to push through the crowd.

Two seconds of bumping and pushing, he changed tactics and burst upward into a Force assisted overhead somersault that carried him beyond the edge of the press of spectators.

Unfortunately, the feat of acrobatics was enough for our quarry to spot that he was being actively pursued.

I felt the trooper’s surge of emotion, which was instantly calmed under an artificial discipline, before he bolted into a sprint for the hospital lobby door.

Anakin took two sprinting steps before reaching out with his left hand.

The Force Pull latched on and the suspect trooper’s momentum stopped and reversed so suddenly that I almost giggled in my bacta tank at how close it was to a Looney Tunes moment.

He came to a sudden spread-eagled stop a meter away from Anakin, who kept him hovering in mid-air, whilst also ripping off the helmet and pulling a cylindrical remote detonator from the clone’s hand.

‘Impressive, master,’ I couldn’t help but comment on the finely controlled display of kinesis.

‘Thank you, Snips, but it’s not over yet.’

He was right. The explosion was still going to go off and it was large enough that it would kill everyone outside and badly damage that side of the hospital.

Anakin closed the final distance and with his right fist, delivered a perfectly controlled blow into the trooper’s face to induce unconsciousness.

He ripped the jetpack off with Force-assisted strength, blurred into Force Speed and hurled it into the air, sending a Force Push in the same motion to give it even more momentum.  

The bomb practically vanished from a ground level perspective as it arced high through the air.

Anakin had gone for height rather than distance…

A bright flash in the arcology sky briefly blinded everyone.

Barely more than a second later, the overpressure arrived.

People in the crowd screamed as they lost balance, falling onto their neighbors, who also fell in some cases, creating a partial domino effect. Others with more sensitive hearing organs were instantly either unconscious or bleeding from burst eardrum equivalents.

I felt my bacta tank shuddering as the air pressure wave hit the side of the hospital.

Thankfully, the transparisteel was well up to the job of resisting.

The explosion itself blossomed into a characteristic purple-white of baradium excitation in an atmosphere, burning and twisting into a briefly visible mushroom cloud that vanished in darkness of the arcology sky.

If the cube-square law was a person, I would kiss it right now.

City wide alarms began blaring.

‘Nice throw, Skyguy,’ I thought wryly. ‘Now would you kindly tell me what the frak was up with that trooper? I felt your recognition of him.’

Anakin turned to kneel down next to the apparent clone traitor, putting his left hand on the man’s forehead, clearly looking for something.

‘It was part of the investigation you started when Padme was first kidnapped; how Dooku was able to infiltrate the VIP bunker so perfectly. Dooku partially and misleadingly revealed to her that the CIS had developed a method to actively subvert the clones. Only he didn’t know that Padme was actually Force Sensitive and that she could immediately sense that the clones who were helping Dooku, were different somehow or defective.’

I concentrated through the Bond to Anakin, letting me get much more detail on what I was sensing on this specific clone.

‘She reported this as quickly as possible to Master Damsin, who eventually also revealed it to me. We agreed this needed to be done quietly. If the subverted clones realized we were hunting them…’

‘Yes, bad idea.’

‘So far the last few days, she’s been using the excuse of a regimental troop review to find these clones through the Force. It’s naturally slow going since she has to be subtle and the continued fighting hasn’t helped.’

‘This clone has a proper biochip so that’s not it.’ Using Anakin as a proxy for my healing abilities was not something I ever imagined needing to do. ‘Wait, his skin has been biosculpted.’

‘Why would that be necessary?’

‘Given what I am seeing here, there’s a malformation in the skin melanocytes, that you only see when a clone has been grown with Spaarti technology.’

Anakin pulled his hand back from the clone, a low, grim anger buzzing through his mind. “The CIS are making their own Fett clones as well.”

‘Yes, given the age of the cellular structure of this clone, he’s only sixteen months old.’

‘Snips, how long do you have to go in that bacta tank?’

‘Nine hours.’

He shook his head, ‘I’m going to speak to your doctors. We need you out here within the hour.’

‘Going to need a repulsor chair, Skyguy. I have to stay off this leg ideally for a few weeks.’

‘I’ll make the arrangements.’

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Getting out of the bacta tank earlier than scheduled was not just done on a whim, especially when the medtechs and doctors were supposed to sign off on it before letting med droids do the dirty work.

It would also mean the med brace around my thigh would have to be changed to a model that also featured active localized bacta channels, which was a procedure in itself.

Suffice it to say that it took nearly three hours with a disgruntled, very tired medical team that in some cases had been rushed out of bed.

The presence of the med brace also meant some wardrobe changes and while stretchy underwear wasn’t a problem to get on, standard pants was not an option. So I had to bust out my one and very rarely worn, above knee-length white skirt, with a long sleeved casual shirt with the MandalMotors logo emblazoned on its front. Taria had seemingly just raided my closet aboard the Conqueror with little care in selection.

The repulsor chair was a sleek, durasteel chassis model, with a potential top speed slightly above a standard jogging pace and enough anti-grav power that would theoretically let me treat it like a speeder. In practice, no one would take it into the air lanes, because it would be like using the Coruscant version of a Clarkson P45, only much worse as you didn’t have any air shields.

With my skin back in contact with air and cloth, everything was simply too sensitive and it required a bit of focus through the Force to properly handle it. I also had to be careful to only lean weight on my left butt cheek whilst seated in the chair, whilst a localized medical force field in the chair did the work of keeping my right leg immobilized and straightened out in front of me.

I looked ridiculous and gave a very amused Anakin a stink eye glare.

“All set, Snips?”

“Yes, now give me that datapad so we can get this over with.”

I began tapping rapidly, inputting a program with modifications that could be uploaded into any GAR handheld scanner, which would look for the specific characteristics of Spaarti grown clones. “How goes the interrogation of the clone?”

“Badly,” Anakin sighed aggressively. “Rex and Cyrrt are still trying, but it’s like talking to a droid. He only gives his designation, CT-2320. That he was just following orders to walk into the hospital lobby. He won’t say who gave those orders, only ‘his commanding officer’. He apparently even didn’t know he had a baradium bomb strapped to his back.”

“With Spaarti clones, that’s not surprising. They might as well be biological droids in the literal sense. Flash learning and imprinting, means personality and memory formation is all artificial and done in less than an hour. The device that does it isn’t even that big, you can carry it in a backpack.”

He looked at me with a frown of suspicion, “You seem to know a lot about this?”

I gave him a raised tattoo eyebrow, “Naturally, Skyguy. Given our job is to work day to day with clones, it’s only logical to learn everything else available in regards to it. Spaarti Creations is a company from Cartao, started by the cranscoc species a few centuries ago. Originally it was done because they reproduced too slowly, given external pressures after contact was made with the greater galaxy and they had a sector wide war for survival. In the aftermath, the technology was adapted to work on other species, but the technology is imperfect, even after centuries of refinement.”

“Oh, so you think the CIS has gotten their hands on the technology somehow? Cartao is well within Republic space, just north of the Hapes sector.”

“Yes, it’s not implausible that a handful of cloning cylinders could’ve been stolen. They’re very modular and transportable for client convenience. You literally just need a sufficient power source and enough of the proprietary growth medium, which the cylinder has enough of to grow three clones before it needs refilling.”

The door to my room chimed.

M8 and Chewie were stationed on either side of it, both were rather twitchy in the wake of the attempted bombing and had their hands close to their preferred weapons. I doubted many people in Aureus City would be getting much sleep today.

Padme entered with as unhurried and stately walk as she could manage, her eyes zeroing on Anakin.

The door closed and I firmly locked it with Mechu-deru.

She was just shy of using Force Speed in her burst of movement, and clamped her arms around Anakin like a limpet mine.

I sensed she barely stopped herself from claiming his lips right there, though she settled for a much more publicly acceptable chaste kiss.

Anakin lifted her at once with no words needing to be said, most of the feelings streaming directly to each other with the Force.

“I- I was meditating during the celebration, I was so out of it… I didn’t feel any danger,” she mumbled into his chest.

“Because there was nothing you could’ve done. It was in our hands, we were in the best position, so the Force didn’t bother you.”

“If that bomb had gone off, I would’ve died in meditation-” She began hiccupping with muted sobs.

“Shhhh, it didn’t happen, Padme. It’s okay. Let it out, let it pass through, but don’t dwell on it.”

It was gratifying that not one of us in the room felt awkward at this moment. All of us didn’t need to fill the room with useless words or platitudes. All of us knew the truth, all of us were extended family beyond mere blood.

Finally, after long minutes that stretched and stretched, she achieved a measure of emotional equilibrium and partially let go of the hug, coming to stand on her feet and giving me a teary smile.

In the next moment, she rushed to me and gave me the most physically awkward yet warmest hug I’d ever experienced in nearly two lifetimes. 

Yeah, Padme was quite clingy at the moment. Her emotional control and the Force was in an awkward relational state. A period that younglings often went through in the second or third year after first awakening the Force within.

I patted her back and froze a bit when she almost reflexively kissed me on my right lekku, just below the montral.

“We’re going to be fine, Padme,” I whispered into her ear, rubbing her back soothingly now, pouring a slight bit of the Force to help relax the stressor symptoms I couldn’t help but pick up. Grief, she even had the beginning of an ulcer in her stomach, which I quickly healed before it got worse. “After I finish this I’m going straight to Typho, he’ll likely still have a long road to recovery, but he will.”

She squeezed me even harder in response, her emotions swirling into a maelstrom of sheer relief and grief.

“Now, let me finish this program so I don’t prove myself a liar, okay?”

She kissed my lekku again, nodded against me and let go to return to Anakin’s embrace.

Frak, this woman was going to be the end of me one day.

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A/N: Heh, Padme in her emotional state is slightly forgetting that kissing a lekku or montral for a togruta is NOT the human equivalent of a cheek kiss.

This has been an amazing experience writing this arc, we're moving on from Scipio. Hope you enjoyed and have a great weekend. As always stay awesome, folks.